The Level Up English Podcast

#40 Will vs Going To - What's the Difference?

• Michael Lavers • Season 1 • Episode 40

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the English with M ichael podcast, the best place to come to study English as a second language as well as to practice the British accent with me. Michael Lavers as your teacher. Hello English learners. Welcome back to the English with M ichael podcast. At the moment I am in Vietnam, I'm in Ho Chi Minh c ity and this might be the podcast with the worst audio I've ever done. Maybe I'm not sure how it's going to sound, but

Speaker 3:

you might be able to hear in the background. There are many cars beeping their horns, many busy streets. So hopefully I can, you know, with some editing skills I can kind of get rid of some of that and hopefully you can still hear me okay. I'm so committed to the podcast that I don't want to miss any episodes. I hope you're all having a good January. And I've got another listener question today. So today's listener question is from Jorgen and actually we've met before, you know, we had a lesson, an English lesson over Skype and he has very, very good English. So he wanted to know the difference between will and going to will and going to, and I think it's really important to note that he does have good English because many people, especially native speakers will think this is quite a simple problem. But actually it's not. It's actually really difficult and even even though you learn will or going to maybe as a beginner it's very normal not to understand the difference until you get to an advanced level. They're very, very similar. So let's start from the beginning. You know will and going to are both used to talk about the future. So for example, I could say tomorrow I will go to the park or tomorrow I am going to the park. So you can see the grammar is a little bit different. With will, we just say" will" and then followed by a base form verb. I will do, with going to, we need to have the verb to be beforehand. So I am going to, she is going to and then we still need the verb afterwards going to do, going to eat for example. And these are just two ways that we can talk about the future and it is important understand them because in everyday conversation we do use both of them and there are more ways to talk about the future as well. But these are the two most common. So when you want to understand the difference between them, I usually recommend learning going to first and that's simply because there are fewer rules to remember. Will is such a common word in future tense sentences. There's so many different situations to remember and we will review them today. We will review them today, but we're going to start with going to I think because that's easier and actually even before that we can start with something that they are both used for. So when we make a prediction about the future, a prediction is kind of a guess what you think could happen in the future. We can use, WIll or Going to, so in this case it's the same. For example, I think it will rain tomorrow. I think it will rain. Or if we said, I think it is going to rain tomorrow, there's really no difference. In this case, it's exactly the same. So when we make a prediction you can use will or going to. So as I always like to say, get involved, do some practice. You can practice this on your own, on paper in your head. But even better- because it will make me happy- is if you head over to my website and leave a comment, leave a comment on this post and write your answers in the comment at the bottom of the page. And that way I can also kind of tell you if it sounds natural or if there's any areas that need improving. So today we're going to look at basically two ways in which we use going to. The first way is when you have a previous plan. So this is when you made the decision to do something before the time that you're speaking now. So let's use the days of the week to make it clear. Uh, so today is Wednesday, but let's say on Monday, two days ago you made a plan to go hiking. So the plan was made in the past and you still have the plan today. So in this case we would use going to in this, in this example, I'm going to go hiking on Saturday. I'm going to go hiking on Saturday. So just to, the plan was made on Monday. Today is Wednesday. The plan itself will happen on Saturday. So because it was planned in the past, we can say going to in comparison to this will is much more often used with instant decisions or something you've just bought off now. Huh? Maybe I will go hiking. Yeah, I'll go hiking on Saturday. I will go hiking. So maybe I haven't really thought about it before. I just thought about it right now. So yeah, think about what plans you have for the week and think of an example sentence using going to, so basically going to in this case sounds more certain, it sounds like it's more certain that it will happen because it has been previously planned. The second and final way that we're going to look at today where you can use going to is when there is a sign or maybe some kind of evidence now that something will happen in the future. So one thing that is coming up, I think this year, you know, I don't follow it so much is the American presidential election. So people are wondering, will Donald Trump have another four years of presidency or will someone else become president? And I don't know all of the candidates, but I know for example, Joe Biden is a very popular one at the moment. And to be honest, I have no idea of what the polls are saying or what people are predicting. But let's just pretend that the voting has started. Donald Trump has the majority of the votes, although the election is not over. But at the moment he has the majority. And regardless of how you feel about that, we could say Donald Trump has the most votes. So I think he is going to win. Donald Trump is going to win the election. Now in this case, we say going to, because there's evidence that it's true, there's evidence that this is going to happen. Another simple example would be with the rain. If you see black clouds in the sky, we can say, Oh look at those black clouds, it's going to rain. I think it's going to rain. Now again, we can also use will in this case too because that is a prediction. So there's a lot of crossover, you know, it's not so easy to understand. Sometimes if you do get it wrong, don't worry. It probably still sounds okay. It's really not a big problem if you do make a mistake. But yeah, basically when this evidence of something now that's going to happen or likely to happen in the future, we can say going to, well they are definitely going to win because they have the stronger team for example. Okay. So that is going to really just to, to remember plans you made before and evidence now of something that will happen in the future. Let's have a quick look at will. So as I said, there are many rules for will. So what I usually recommend is if you remember when to use going to, if it's not that situation, then you can use will. That's usually the easiest way to do it. But as I said before, a very common way to use will is kind of a spontaneous or immediate decision. Something you're thinking about right now for the future. For example, I'm so hungry, I think I'll go get some food aisle. I think I will go get some food. This is a decision that I have just made. I didn't plan before to get food, but I'm planning now because I realised I was hungry. We also use will to talk about future facts, so things that will happen is just a fact. So one fact for example is I will go to sleep tonight. I will sleep tonight because it's fun, you know? Hopefully you do that every night. If you say, I'm going to sleep tonight, it sounds more like a plan and it's a strange plan to have because it's something that you should do anyway. Another example, after seven it will get dark. After seven it will get dark. This is just a fact about the future and now there are lots of tiny rules as well in which we use will. And I had to research this actually because even though I'm a native speaker, it's not something that comes naturally to me. You know, I know how to use it, but I often find it difficult to explain why. So I had to research this a little bit and basically we can use will when we are making a promise, a request, or we're offering something or refusing something, any one of those situations. For example, I will help you move house. So in this case you're offering your help, I will help you move house. I promise I will never hurt you. I will never hurt you again. If we say I'm, I'm not going to hurt you, it's possible. But it sounds a bit different. It sounds like a plan. Like you're planning not to hurt them and probably you don't want it to be a plan. You want it to be an intention that you have, which is different from a plan. It's just something that you know in your heart that you will not hurt them. If you say, I'm not going to hurt you, there's probably some kind of implication that they're expecting you to hurt them. So you might hear it in some kind of horror film or some kind of movie about a serial killer, but probably you want to say, will is a promise that you will do something or you will not do something. So if you're listening to the episode, which of course you are, you have to promise, promise that you will learn this lesson, promise that you will study. Can you do that for me? Here's another comparison between will and going to looking at a refusal. So we, for most refusals, we would say, I will not help you or I will not do your homework for you. You're refusing to do something. I will not do it. That is the most natural way to say it. However, if you said, I am not going to help you, I'm not going to do your homework for you. It sounds more like a plan. Again, something that you've planned previously. So I want to make it clear that none of these are wrong. Whether you will not help someone or you're not going to help someone that both correct. It just depends on when you thought of that idea. Is it a plan you made before or if it's something that is just always true, no, you're not the kind of person that hurts people, then you have to use will. Now this can be a little bit confusing I imagine especially just hearing my voice. Perhaps it's a bit difficult, so I definitely recommend to head over to my website. I'll make a link for this episode called ewmichael. com/willgoingto, so that's all together. Just will going to- obviously no spaces altogether, but if you go to my website and just click on podcast, you can find this episode at the bottom as well on my show notes page. If you go to that link, I'll put a table of a comparison between will and going to, so hopefully that makes it clear for you. You can see with your eyes a difference between them. Because if you're like me, you know I'm a very visual person and once I see something, it becomes much easier to understand. So I hope this podcast has made it a little bit clearer for you. If you want it to be even more clear that head over to that link and have a look and also have a think. So my question for you is what are your plans for the weekend? What will you do this weekend? You can answer in two ways. If you have made prior plans, if you have plans that you made before now for the weekend, tell me your answers using, going to, if this is the first time you're thinking about it, tell me your answers using will. So I'll tell you my plan now. I will still be in Vietnam, so on the weekend I'm going to meet someone for, I guess it's not for like a language exchange perhaps, but I don't really know any Vietnamese. But anyway that's my plan. I'm going to meet someone I haven't thought about anything else, but I guess I will go sightseeing. Yeah, I just thought of that. Now I will go sightseeing I think so. That's my plan for the weekend. How about you? Again, let me know in the comments and see if you can use these words correctly. I hope it was a interesting podcast today. You know, I don't usually do grammar based podcasts, but I hope this helped answer the question. If you would like to leave a question for the podcast and always so happy to answer them. So go to ewmichael. com/podcast and at the bottom of that page you can see an area where you can leave a written message or an audio message. So if you want to do that, I will try my best to answer your question on a future episode. But for now, thank you so much for listening as always, and I will see you next week for a very special episode. See you then. Bye bye.

Speaker 2:

You have been listening to the English with Michael podcast to view the podcast notes for this episode and to listen to previous episodes. Head over to ewmichael.com/podcast.

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Michael Lavers

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