Expressing the future (Intermediate+)

EXPRESSING THE FUTURE: TIMES WITH IN AND NEXT (Intermediate+)

On our Facebook page today, we discussed New Year’s Resolutions and gave a little future-tense quiz.

Post by English42.

And here are the answers! How well did you do?

I’m going to quit smoking this year. I feel very strongly about this plan: smoking is expensive, my girlfriend hates it, and I need to be healthier. Now that I think about it I’ll need to give up coffee and alcohol too, because when I drink them I always feel like having a cigarette. But it should be easy too: no one is having any parties or going out in January, so there are no planned social events. By December 31^st 2014, I expect to have been cigarette-free for one year! Hopefully, the price of cigarettes will rise in the next 12 months, making it easier for me to quit.

If you got most of the answers correct, it means you’re an intermediate or upper-intermediate student who understands the differencebetween the three future tenses (“will”, “going to” and the present continuous).

In this blog, we’re going to study the ways to express future times. What words do we use to talk about days, dates, months or years in the future?

PREPOSITIONS OF TIME – review

First, you should make sure you remember the correct prepositions of time in English. Here they are:

PREPOSITION	TIME UNIT	EXAMPLE IN THE FUTURE
on	day	We’ll meet on Wednesday
	date	Christmas is taking place on December 25th.
in	year	Hopefully, I’ll graduate in 2016.
	month	My birthday is going to be in March.
	season	The weather will improve in spring.
at	time	The meeting is finishing at 1 o’clock.
for	period of time	She’ll be in Korea for three days.

ACTIVITY IDEA:
Before we continue, write 4-6 sentences about your future, carefully using each preposition correctly.

EXPRESSING THE FUTURE WITH “IN” & “NEXT” 

Here’s great advice for students of all levels: never use “later” to talk about the future. Many students say something like “I’ll go out an hour later” – and this is wrong. Let’s look at the correct ways to express times in the future. There are two words you need to know: in and next.

Today it is Wednesday, 1 January 2014.

Imagine you have a doctor’s appointment on 8 January. 

This is an appointment, a definite plan, so we’ll use the present continuous (“I’m going to the doctor”). But how do you express the time? There are 2 ways to do this:

I’m going to the doctor in a week. OR
I’m going to the doctor next Wednesday.

If we change the preposition in the first sentence the meaning changes.

I’m going to the doctor next week.

This is still true, but it’s less clear. Next week means any day in the week which begins on 6 January. (In a week means exactly 7 days from now)
You could be going to the doctor on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

Let’s take a look at other examples of in and next with the future. Imagine that it is 8pm on Wednesday 1 January 2014.

• The movie will start in an hour. (=9pm)        
• I’m going to Amsterdam next month. (=February)
• We’re having a meeting in two weeks. (=22 January)    

ACTIVITY IDEA 1:
Practice your new vocabulary by writing your New Year's Resolutions. Remember to use the correct tense and to include a couple of prepositions of time!

ACTIVITY IDEA 2: 
If you'd like to learn more about expressing the future, why not try the Advanced blog?

ACTIVITY IDEA 3:
Business students! Check out our mission statements blog on Business42.