Continuing our theme of David Beckham this week…. 🙂 But now we are looking at how David can speak in future tenses – He really is a grammar king!!!
David Beckham said yesterday that despite being one of the richest football clubs in the world, Manchester City will never be able to eclipse the history and achievements of Manchester United. The former Man United player admitted that Man City are on the way up in European football, but he said that the Reds’ history will always mean that they will be the special team in Manchester. In an interview with Sky Sports, Beckham said, “They’ve got a lot of money behind them, so they’re going to improve, but they’re never going to be Man Utd I have always said that.” “They will be threatening teams in seasons to come, but Manchester United have got the history and silverware over the last twenty years. I’m a Man United fan, I’m always going to say that – there’s only one team in Manchester – but Man City, I’m sure, will be a team to look at going forward.” He added that if the Argentinian striker, Carlos Tevez leaves Man City, it will be a big loss for them and will also affect their chances of winning the Premiership title: “If they do lose him, it will be disappointing for the fans, but they are going to be able to afford to bring world-class players in, so if they continue to do that I’m sure their squad and team will be strengthened. But you need a lot of experience in the Premier League so we will see what happens.”
The most common ways to talk about the future are:
Will (or shall) + Infinitive
The team will improve next year (Used for information and predicting things)
Be going to + Infinitive
The team is going to improve next year (Used for future actions because of knowing something about the present i.e Man City are spending lots of money on great players, so we can see now that they are improving e.g. She’s going to have a baby soon. I know this because I can see that she is heavily pregnant – i.e. She’s got a very big bump e.g. We are moving to France next year. We are planning to do this – it is our intention to move in the future.) In natural, quick speech, going to is said as /gənə/ and you can actually write it in informal writing as gonna
Present Progressive
The team is travelling around the Far East next week (Used for fixed plans and arrangements which have already been decided on)
Simple present
The team leaves on the 9am flight for China tomorrow (Used for talking about events which are part of a timetable or regular schedule)
Will (or shall) + Progressive infinitive
The team will be travelling around China this time next week (Used for referring to temporary situations in the future – entirely similar to how the past continuous is used) If sentence with will: If he leaves the team, it will be a big loss for them (In an if sentence, we use will in the next part of the sentence to mean that ‘this will be the result in the future’) By the way, when David said…
- “I have always said that”
…he was showing his prowess again with the present perfect, which you can learn more about here.
