 Future tenses in English from espressoenglish.net Many students use WILL for everything in the future. But this is not completely correct. There are various future tenses in English. And in this lesson, you are going to learn when to use each one. For predictions, use WILL, WON'T, or GOING TO. For example, the economy will improve this year. Is the same as the economy is going to improve this year. In general, with first conditional sentences, using the word IF, we use WILL and WON'T. For example, if you practice every day, your English will improve. If you don't study, you won't pass the test. For intentions, use GOING TO. Intention is when you want to do something, but you haven't yet taken action. For example, this year I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to quit smoking. I'm going to get out of debt. I'm going to join a gym. GOING TO is commonly used for New Year's resolutions. Now let's talk about plans and arrangements. Plans and arrangements are when you have already taken some action to make the plan a reality in the future. There are three possible tenses to use with plans and arrangements. GOING TO, present continuous, or future continuous. For example, you can say, we're going to visit him next week. Using the present continuous, you can say, we're visiting him next week. Or, using the future continuous, we'll be visiting him next week. These three structures we're going to visit, we're visiting, and we'll be visiting. In this context, these are essentially the same. For decisions in the moment, promises and offers, use WILL. An example of a decision in the moment is ordering in a restaurant. I'll have the chicken salad. Use WILL for promising. I'll call you at five o'clock. Use WILL for offering. I'll help you with the homework. For scheduled events in the future, use the present simple. Scheduled events are things like transportation schedules, conferences and events, and things that operate on a regular schedule, like the opening or closing of a store or bank. So, it's more common to say, our flight leaves at eight o'clock, instead of, our flight will leave at eight o'clock. The conference starts tonight, and not, the conference will start tonight, because it's a scheduled event. Finally, we have events that will be completed before a specific time in the future. In this case, use the future perfect. Imagine that right now it's twelve o'clock p.m. and I need to finish a project before five o'clock p.m. I can say, by five p.m. I will have finished the project, because the completion of the project comes between now and five o'clock. The future perfect is typically used with by and by the time. Some people call the future perfect the past in the future, because I am imagining being at a future point in time, five o'clock, and looking back on an action that has been completed in the past. Your homework is to complete the five exercises under this video that will help you use these future tenses in your English today. Thanks for watching English Tips from Espresso English. If you liked this video, please share it.