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"will" and "shall" in English.. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Gollum87 Diglot Newbie Yugoslavia Joined 3938 days ago 31 posts - 46 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 18 22 May 2014 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a question.. In schools, when we learn about Future Tense, teachers always say
the tense is formed with "Will" + the verb.. But with "I" and "We", it is "Shall".. (I shall go, We shall see, etc)... I almost never hear that in real life when watching films or series in English.. It is always "I will"... Is "shall" form one old and archaic form in modern English used only in Britain, or it is still used ? I would never say "I shall come" when I'm speaking in English (which is not that perfect, to be honest).. I would always say "I will"... One more question.. In one of my favorite movies "The Lord of the Rings", Gandalf the wizard says once "You shall not pass" in the minds of Moria... It always make me confused, because we never learned that "Shall" can be used in 2nd person, with "You" .. Anybody can explain ? Thank You Edited by Gollum87 on 22 May 2014 at 5:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 2 of 18 22 May 2014 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Shall is not used to make the Future anymore, I think.
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3 of 18 22 May 2014 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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It is used, but formally or in old texts or documents. You shall not pass evokes a feel
of older English which is true to how Tolkien wrote. In speech I don't use it very often. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 4 of 18 22 May 2014 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Shall is still regularly used in the future if the action is mandatory. To me "we shall do it tomorrow" and "we will do it tomorrow" mean slightly different things. With shall there is some sort of mandate understood.
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| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4773 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 5 of 18 22 May 2014 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | ||
But yeah, we've had a discussion about this before and the consensus seemed to be that "shall" is pretty much dead in the US and somewhat old-fashioned in the UK. "Shall" does still seem to be preferred for the first person in questions: I think sentences like "Shall I go with you?" or "Shall we dance?" sound less natural if you replace "shall" with "will". But then, "Should I go with you?" and "Wanna dance?" would probably sound even more natural nowadays. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4605 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 18 22 May 2014 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | ||
This is my understanding of it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4666 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 7 of 18 22 May 2014 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, this is how I think of it as well. The place I see "shall" used most frequently is in lists of requirements or guidelines. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 18 22 May 2014 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is a good summary on Grammar Girl: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/shall-ver sus-will
I'm pretty comfortable with Shall, but I think that's because I am more embedded in British English. Apparently Will has taken over from Shall in most cases in the US. Really nice write up on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shall_and_will Edited by patrickwilken on 22 May 2014 at 8:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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