Grammar ~20 min of the core left

Talk about plans

After this lesson you can

I can say what I am going to do and ask other people about their plans.

Start the lesson Core 18–20 min · steps: 6 · optional: +2

Declared core time. Two of the core blocks carry no figure at all, so the real lesson is longer than this sum.

Grammar

4 min

A plan or an intention is said with be going to + a verb.

I am going to visit my sister. my plan: to visit my sister
She is going to study English. her plan: to study English
Are you going to work tomorrow? a question about your plan
I am not going to work. a negative: it is not my plan

Inside it, everything is familiar: be from lesson 2 and the form going from lesson 25. The only new thing is that after to the verb is in its basic form.

When it will happen — words for the future:

tomorrow the day after today
next week / next year the week after this one / the year after this one
in May / in two days in the month of May / two days from now
tonight this evening or this night

Careful with going to go: you can say I'm going to go to Italy, but British people more often say simply I'm going to Italy — the Present Continuous from lesson 25, used for a plan.

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Common learner errors

written for your language
1

The simple present for a plan

✗ Tomorrow I work at home meaning a personal intention → ✓ Tomorrow I'm going to work at home. In German (Morgen arbeite ich zu Hause), Dutch, Spanish (Mañana trabajo en casa) and Italian the present with a time word is a normal way to talk about tomorrow, and Chinese and Japanese need no special form for the future at all. In English the simple present is fine for a timetable, but not for what you have decided to do. At A1 you talk about plans with going to; when will comes, the difference between the two is explained at A2.

2

"I go to" + a verb

✗ I go to visit my sister tomorrow

✓ I'm going to visit my sister tomorrow

Spanish voy a visitar, French je vais visiter and Portuguese vou visitar use the verb "go" in the present, so learners translate it as I go to. In English you need all three parts: am + going + to.

3

The lost be

✗ I going to work

✓ I am going to work

It is the same lost be as in lesson 25: Chinese, Vietnamese and Indonesian have no word like am here.

Pronunciation

3 min

In fast speech going to before a verb joins into /ɡənə/ — what is sometimes written as gonna. This is the normal spoken form, and you need to recognise it when you hear it; you should not write it, and you do not have to copy it in your own speech.

Compare: I'm going to study sounds like /aɪm ɡənə ˈstʌdi/. The stress falls on the main verb. In I'm going to Italy there is no joining: there to is a preposition, not part of the construction.

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Text

3 min

Next summer I am going to visit my sister in Italy. I'm going to take a plane on the fifteenth of July. I'm going to book a small hotel. We are going to walk in Rome and see the old streets. I'm not going to work in August, because I'm going to rest.

Reading aloud

Exercises

8–10 min

1. Gap fill.

  1. I visit my sister
  2. She study English
  3. They travel in May
Show the answers
am going to, is going to, are going to.

2. Transformation.

Make a question and a negative from He is going to work tomorrow.

Show the answers
Is he going to work tomorrow?; He isn't going to work tomorrow. / He's not going to work tomorrow.

3. Error correction.

  1. I going to work.
  2. I'm going to working.
  3. She going to study.
Show the answers
I am going to work. / I'm going to work. / She is going to study.

4. Matching.

  1. tomorrow
  2. next week
  3. tonight
  4. yesterday
Show the answers
`tomorrow`, `next week`, `tonight` — in the future; `yesterday` — in the past.
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Summary

Covered

  • be going to in all its forms
  • words for the future

Next — lesson 33: health.

End of the core

The lesson counts as done once the exercises are done. Everything after this is optional.

Lesson 33

optional

Vocabulary for your deck

12 words
  • tomorrow /təˈmɒrəʊ/ the day after today
  • tonight /təˈnaɪt/ this evening or this night
  • next /nekst/ coming after this one (next week)
  • visit /ˈvɪzɪt/ to go to see a person or a place
  • plan /plæn/ something you have decided to do
  • meet /miːt/ to see and talk to someone; to see someone for the first time
  • stay /steɪ/ to not leave; to remain in a place
  • book /bʊk/ to reserve a room, a seat or a ticket; a thing with pages that you read
  • soon /suːn/ in a short time from now
  • maybe /ˈmeɪbi/ perhaps; it is possible
  • together /təˈɡeðə/ with each other
  • free /friː/ not busy

Writing

Four sentences about your plans for your next holiday.

Example

Next summer I'm going to visit my sister in Italy. I'm going to take a plane in July. We are going to walk in Rome. I'm not going to work in August.

Checklist

The draft is saved on this device
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Practise this lesson in the other sections

Dictationbased on this lesson Write down what you hear. The check shows every word that differs, and how. Write the dictation Reading aloudbased on this lesson Read the lesson text aloud — speech recognition highlights the words it did not catch. Read the text aloud Reading and listeningA1–C1 Texts at every level with comprehension questions; the transcript opens after you answer. Try it

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