Be going to in English

English
1 answer

Hi Zhi! 😀 Sure, let's start right away with the "be going to"

We use it to communicate our intention and or talk about something that is likely to happen. No preparation for the action in the future is required, we just let people know what our your intention is.

Sometimes the sentence indicates that the situation will happen because of current conditions.

Here are a few examples of sentences that will help you to understand the usage:

Some day she is going to be very rich. No preparations or detailed plan how this will happen.

I'm going to clean the table in a moment. This is just intention.

The sky is grey, it's going to rain today. Current condition indicate what will happen.

It's very late, they are going to be late. The same, something is going to happen because of current situation.

How to make a sentence

Creating sentences with be going to is very easy. First we put:

• The subject I, my dad, American opera singers, these letters
• Correct form of the verb to be am, are, is
• going to
• the main verb with additional details about the intention.

Please have a look at a few sample sentences created in this way;

Subject	to be	going to	main verb and details
I	am	going to	prepare well for the exam.
My dad	is	going to	make a phone call.
His parents	are	going to	travel by car.
You	are	going to	be sick tomorrow.
These paintings	are	going to	be sent to London next week.

How to make a question

Making questions with this phrase is very easy and similar to creating questions in any English continuous tenses. We do it by inversion. We move the verb to be at the beginning of the sentence, then goes the subject and the verb. Of course, we end the question with a question mark.

Here's the same sentences as questions:

To be	subject	going to	main verb and details
Am	I	going to	prepare well for the exam?
Is	my dad	going to	make a phone call?
Are	his parents	going to	travel by car?
Are	you	going to	be sick tomorrow?
Are	these paintings	going to	be sent to London next week?

How to form negative sentences

If you remember any Continuous tense you will learn this in no time as making negative sentences is the same. All we have to do is to add not to the to be verb. Please have a look.

Subject	to be + not	going to	main verb and details
I	am not	going to	prepare well for the exam.
My dad	isn't	going to	make a phone call.
His parents	are not	going to	travel by car.
You	aren't	going to	be sick tomorrow.
These paintings	aren't	going to	be sent to London next week.

As you have seen, we may use contraction and write isn't and aren't instead of is not and are not.

Be going to or Present Continuous for the future?

We know the usage of the phrase be going to, and we can ask a question if we should use Present Continuous for the future instead. Please compare:

I am going to visit my brother tomorrow and I'm visiting my brother tomorrow

The meaning of these sentences is similar, they all talk about the intention of visiting the brother. But the sentence with Present Continuous may suggest, that there was some kind of preparation before the event (perhaps, we called the brother to arrange the meeting). On the contrary, the sentence with be going to simply says about our intention.

I hope this information will help you understand English grammar better. Please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions.

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