Podcast 89 - Will and Going to - predictions

Hello and welcome back to practising English. And today I'm going to talk about going to and will and their use in predictions. And this is going to be a B2 session. I tackled this subject before in Episode 38. But today I'm going to be more explicit and I'm going to talk in a little more detail about the differences and difficulties in understanding the choice between going to and will.

B2 Predictions will and going to

To do this, then, I've got a picture and to see the picture, you'll need to get to Practising English and go to Episode 89. And you'll see a picture there of seven smaller pictures. I'm going to talk about each of them and make a prediction.

Present future predictions

Now the first prediction that I'm going to make is talking about what we can see in the picture and how that helps me to predict what is going to happen. So when we do this - when we see evidence before us, or we hear the evidence perhaps, then we usually use, no we always use going to for these predictions. As the prediction that we're going to make is based on something that we can see at the moment, we usually call this prediction, present future.

So in the first photo, you can see a picture of a pregnant woman, so the prediction is quite straightforward, isn't it? And the prediction is that,

she's going to have a baby.

The woman is going to have a baby and we can't say that she will have a baby. The next picture is a picture of a woman in a spacesuit. So she's an astronaut. And if we make a prediction about this woman dressed up like that, well, it's quite straightforward again, isn't it? We can see that

she's going to get into a space shuttle and fly into space.

The next one we can see is a gentleman chopping onions on a chopping board. So presumably, he's going to make a meal.

He's going to make a meal.

The next one is, well, it's a dark sky. The clouds are very dark or black even. So we can make a prediction about the weather.

Look at those clouds. It's going to rain.

And our next one is, well, there's a woman there. She seems to have broken down on the road. But she's a very capable woman. She's opened the bonnet of the car, and she's going to fix the car.

She's going to fix it.

Our next one is an aeroplane. If we see that aeroplane, it looks like it's angled downwards. So we can assume then that

it's going to land.

Perhaps we can't even see the plane. But maybe if we are somewhere, perhaps in the airport or near the airport, and we can hear the roar of the engines. Well, perhaps we can also make the prediction. Can you hear that? That's a plane, it's going to land. so you don't have to see it. You can hear it as well.

The next one is a rather ugly scene, isn't it? There are a lot of plastic bottles and plastic things all over the beach. But we can see some people while they're already picking up that rubbish and putting it all into bags. If we make a prediction, we can say that

they're going to clean up the beach.

And thanks very much for doing that!

So that's quite straightforward, I think. When we see, when we hear the evidence, well then we make a prediction. And we can call that, as I said, present future.

Pure future predictions

Now, other types of predictions, maybe not really connected to what we can see or hear, but perhaps from general knowledge of the world, but the predictions are more neutral. They are what we call pure future. Pure future is talking about a future time which is not really connected to the present. When we make a prediction using pure future, well, we don't really know if the prediction will happen or not. They're just sort of based on things that we think - our opinions. When we talk about pure future predictions, we can use both, in fact, will and going to.

What I'm going to do is to look at the pictures again. But instead of looking at what's actually happening in the picture, and making a prediction from that, we're going to look at each picture as though it were a subject. The first picture then of the pregnant lady would be the subject of families. So I'm going to make a prediction, and I'm going to use 'will'.

Couples in the future will have smaller families or even no children at all.

I can use 'going to' as well.

Couples in the future are going to have smaller families or even no children at all.

Ambiguous interpretations of sentences with modal auxiliaries

The problem with both of those words 'will' and the expression 'going to' is that they have other meanings, and this is the big problem or complication about the use of modal auxiliaries in that they have other meanings too. Sometimes meanings can become ambiguous and we can suspect they mean something different. Let's have a look at that a little bit more closely. 'Will' also has the meaning of volition. Now volition means that we say something because we want it to happen. So here's an example.

You will do as I tell you!

says the mother to her child. So there 'will' is saying that I am telling you to do it. You must do it.

Okay, so let's put the word - the modal auxiliary 'will' back into that phrase.

Couples in the future will have smaller families or even no children at all.

My goodness! That could sound like a despotic government telling the people that they must not have large families. Now, we don't mean that at all. We're just making a simple prediction. 'Going to' also has the meaning of intention. Here's a phrase then, which illustrates the use of 'going to' as an intention. For example, your partner, your mother, your father says to you, you're going to bed now. And you say, I'm reading this book - it's really good. And I would like to finish this chapter. So you say,

I'm going to finish this chapter before I go to bed.

So it's your intention to finish the chapter. So let's put going to back into that phrase.

Couples in the future are going to have smaller families or even no children at all.

Again, there's a feeling there of intention. Maybe it's my intention as the speaker - a bit like 'will' and we don't mean that at all.

What we need to do is to use words like I think, it's my opinion, I believe... That shows that it is, in fact, a prediction. We can see, then, that these words can sometimes change the meaning or it's not very clear what the meaning is when we put them into phrases. If we just mean this as a prediction, well, we should say, I think, I believe, and that shows that it's just our opinion.*

More examples of pure future predictions with 'will'

What I'm going to do, I'm going to use 'will', (because here we could use 'going to' as well), but I want to separate the use of 'will' from 'going to'. Here is a clear possibility for the use of 'will' where we can't use it in present future.

Let's go on to the next one about the woman dressed in a spacesuit. The subject could be space travel.

Space travel, in my opinion, will be more popular as we inhabit new planets in the future.

Now the next one of the gentlemen making a meal, the topic is going to be food. And my prediction is,

I think that the food we'll eat in the future will be very different from today's - we'll probably eat insects!

And the next one about the black clouds. It looks like it's going to rain, remember. That subject is going to be climate. And my prediction is,

There'll definitely be less rainfall in some countries in the future.

And the next one with the car. The topic is cars in the future. So,

In the future cars will probably be able to fly.

That would be wonderful, wouldn't it? A flying car!

Then our aeroplane is going to be the subject of air travel. And my phrase or my prediction is,

I think that plane engines will be completely electric in 30 years' time. At least, I hope so.

And then the last one about plastics. So that's the general subject of plastic and the environment. In this one, I'm going to make a conditional sentence. I'll you that it's better to use 'will' in conditional sentences. 'Will' is usually the first choice. If you choose 'will' in your predictions in conditional sentences, you'll always be right.** So my sentence is going to be,

If we don't remove plastic from our planet, nature and mankind are going to have serious problems.

Well, there's a lot of interesting predictions there. I don't know if you agree with them. Well, do you?

That's all I'm going to say for now. Until next time, goodbye!

*I don't mean that this ambiguity will happen all the time! Your listeners probably won't think you're a despot! My point here is simply that due to the multi-meanings of modal auxiliaries, learners should be aware of possible ambiguities than may occur.
**Here I mean as an alternative to 'going to'. There are other words we could use in predictions, such as: might, may, could.

Exercise of 'going to' for predictions...

Listen to and read my podcast on comparing 'going to' for predictions with a story...