Future (2)

This post is about how to make predictions in English. You will learn that there are two types of predictions in English: with evidence or without evidence. That is, after reading this post, you will work out the differences between ‘It is going to rain’ and ‘It will rain’, without much difficulties.
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When I was small, I thought English was easy. Whenever I talked about the future, made a prediction, I used ‘will’.

But then, I grew up. I found that it all depends on what kind of predictions I make. What do I mean, well, there are different kinds of predictions. In other words, there are lots of ways to make predictions in English. Two of the ways are (as follows):

a. predictions with evidence

b. predictions with no evidence

Predictions with Evidence

Before you learn it, you have to do something you are not allowed to do at office or school. What is it? Look at the picture and you’ll get it.

Gossiping

But let me tell you. Gossiping actually is something dangerous. Why? Read on.

A Dangerous Case

While gossiping with your coworkers or schoolmates, you see the ‘girl’ you gossip about walking towards you. But the ‘girl’ does not just walk towards you, but with a pair of angry eyes. So what will you say to your coworkers or schoolmates?

Seems like you have two choices:

1. She is going to teach us a lesson!

2. She will teach us a lesson.

To make a choice, you have to think about:

Do you have any evidence?

Are you sure she is going to teach you a lesson?

So are you or are you not sure? Check out her eyes. The ‘angry eyes’ are the key. The eyes may serve as evidence that you are sure that something bad is going to happen. So the answer is: She is going to teach us a lesson!

So, in other words, you use ‘is/a/am/are + going to’ to make predictions when you have evidence. And by ‘having evidence’ we usually mean: You see something that makes you pretty sure about what is going to happen.

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What about if you have no evidence?

Predictions with No Evidence

When you make a guess about the future, which is general, of which you don’t have any evidence, you may use WILL (’ll). There are two examples for you: