DAY EIGHT

GRAMMAR REVIEW

 The next lesson will deal with the use of going to as it was part of the grammar contents we studied at the beginning of the year. You can check these contents in your Class Book in the grammar lesson from unit2.

The first thing we need to consider is that going to is not a tense. It is a special structure that we use to talk about the future.

The basic structure would be:

subject + be + going to + infinitive + comp.

e.g. We + are + going to + play + tennis.

Remember that we need to conjugate the verb to be to adapt it to the subject.

How do we use going to?

 Going to for plans or intention

 We use going to when we have the intention to do something before we speak. We have already made the decision before speaking.

e.g. We are going on a picnic next weekend. (we are telling somebody about our plan)

In the example the decision was made before speaking.

Going to for prediction

 We often use going to to make a prediction about the future based on evidence. It is our opinion, but based on a clear and strong evidence. Sometimes the evidence is not that clear, but we want to show that we are really sure about our prediction.

e.g. Look at those clouds! It's going to rain.

You are going to fall if you keep doing that.

In the example, the present situation (the clouds, your behaviour) gives us a good idea of what is going to happen. Notice that in the second example we talk about something we think is certain to happen if the listener keeps doing things wrong.

Questions with going to

 We could also use going to, to ask about plans or intentions. To do that we need to change the structure and sometimes, if it's an open question, add the question word (WH-).

(WH-) + be+ subject + going to + infinitive + comp.

e.g. Are + you + going to + play tennis?

Where are you going to play tennis?

In the first question we only want to know if they are going to do something (yes/no) while in the second we want to know extra information (where).