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"Going to be" Future Tense | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| AraDavies Newbie United States Joined 5172 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 5 01 April 2010 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am working through Michel Thomas' French lessons and in them, he spends a lot of time
on a specific future tense construct, for example, "I am going to be ready tomorrow". He translates it word-for-word into French as "Je vais être prêt demain". I looked up this tense and in French it is called the futur proche. Does this tense exist in the other Germanic languages? The similarity to French makes me wonder if it came into English from French. I've tried to see if German, Dutch, or the Scandinavian languages use the verb "to go" in this sense but it's very hard to locate discussion about this specific future tense. Also in English, we can phrase "I am going to be ready tomorrow" as "I will be ready tomorrow". Is it possible to translate "I will be ready tomorrow" word-for-word into French as it is with "I am going to be ready tomorrow", and is it possible to do so in any of the other Germanic languages? Basically I find the idea of English as a mixed Germanic/French language very interesting and when I come across things like this I like to study them and compare how English/French/the other Germanic languages handle the situation, but it's very difficult to find any information on this specific tense! It has a name in French at least, but I can't seem to pin a name on it in English. :( 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5632 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 2 of 5 01 April 2010 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know anything about German, so I can't answer your question. However, if this general subject is something that really interests you, you should read "The Loom of Language," which is basically a 600-page discussion of the relationships between Romance and Germanic languages and English in terms of vocabulary and grammar. Be warned, though, it is dated and occasionally rather offensive to modern sensitivities.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5832 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 5 01 April 2010 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Going to" future implies that something is certain by suggesting that the process has started.
English is (I think) unique in that "going to" is our most common future tense. The distinction between "going to" and "will" in English is that "will" implies that the decision is made on the spot. So, for example if you were asked: "What are we doing for dinner tonight?" and you responded: "I'll order a pizza." ...then you are saying that you have just decided right now to order a pizza. If you responded: "I'm going to order a pizza" ...then you're implying that you had already decided previously that you were going to order a pizza. I believe that this is not the case in the Romance languages -- the term "future proche" means "near future" and as I understand it, French "je vais le faire" implies a degree of immediacy not present in English. (eg "I'm going to die in fifty years" wouldn't be translated as future proche.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5243 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 5 02 April 2010 at 5:07am | IP Logged | ||
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It could very well have, English took a lot from French, because at one time French was prevalent (mostly in the Upper Classes) in England.
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| AraDavies Newbie United States Joined 5172 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 5 02 April 2010 at 5:34am | IP Logged | ||
Thank you! This looks like exactly what I need! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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