Going to...
Hello everyone! As promised, todays lesson will be a few thoughts about using 'going to'.
This can be confusing sometimes. What is the difference between the 'going to' in 'I'm going to America', and the going to in 'I'm going to buy a hat'?
The confusion comes from the fact that 'going to' is used in two ways. One is the simple meaning, to move towards, or travel to, some place. The other use is part of a grammar form, meaning 'I intend to...', or 'it seems that...' (that is, a prediction, such as 'it's going to RAIN').
So, when 'going to' is followed by a verb, as in 'I'm going to BUY a hat', we are using the grammar particle meaning 'I intend to buy a hat'. In 'It's going to rain' we are again using the grammar particle, this time meaning 'It will rain'.
When 'going to' is followed by a noun, usually a place, we are using GO as the verb of the sentence, and so in 'I'm going to America' we mean 'I'm travelling to America'.
But of course, when we say 'I'm going to America', we usually don't mean that the actual travelling is happening right now at the moment of speaking. So 'going to' here is actually BOTH expressing the intention and acting as the verb. How can this be?
The truth is, there is something missing from the sentence 'I'm going to America', and that is, strangely, the verb 'go'.
Really, the sentence should read 'I'm going to GO TO America'.
Here, you will notice, we are back to using the particle 'going to' followed by a verb, in this case 'go'. So this is back to being a simple sentence expressing intention to (verb), in this case, the intention to 'go'.
Why can we leave out the verb 'go' in this construction, but we can't leave out the verbs 'buy' or 'rain' in the other examples of the same form?
The reason for that is, we are actually not omitting the verb at all, but omitting the 'going to' intention particle! In the same way, we can actually omit 'going to' from 'I'm going to buy a hat', and change the verb to continuous, so we end up with 'I'm buying a hat', and it still expresses intention.
That's some quite advanced grammar. So it might help to simply remember it like this:
'I'm going to... (verb)' means 'I intend to (verb).'
'I'm going to... (place), means 'I intend to go to (place).'
Just remember: 'going to' has several different uses, and they can be tricky. When you hear or use 'going to', just take a little extra care.
See you next week, when we'll get back to thinking about some overused words.
-Tim
下北沢英会話スクール ビートンボックス
Hello everyone! As promised, todays lesson will be a few thoughts about using 'going to'.
This can be confusing sometimes. What is the difference between the 'going to' in 'I'm going to America', and the going to in 'I'm going to buy a hat'?
The confusion comes from the fact that 'going to' is used in two ways. One is the simple meaning, to move towards, or travel to, some place. The other use is part of a grammar form, meaning 'I intend to...', or 'it seems that...' (that is, a prediction, such as 'it's going to RAIN').
So, when 'going to' is followed by a verb, as in 'I'm going to BUY a hat', we are using the grammar particle meaning 'I intend to buy a hat'. In 'It's going to rain' we are again using the grammar particle, this time meaning 'It will rain'.
When 'going to' is followed by a noun, usually a place, we are using GO as the verb of the sentence, and so in 'I'm going to America' we mean 'I'm travelling to America'.
But of course, when we say 'I'm going to America', we usually don't mean that the actual travelling is happening right now at the moment of speaking. So 'going to' here is actually BOTH expressing the intention and acting as the verb. How can this be?
The truth is, there is something missing from the sentence 'I'm going to America', and that is, strangely, the verb 'go'.
Really, the sentence should read 'I'm going to GO TO America'.
Here, you will notice, we are back to using the particle 'going to' followed by a verb, in this case 'go'. So this is back to being a simple sentence expressing intention to (verb), in this case, the intention to 'go'.
Why can we leave out the verb 'go' in this construction, but we can't leave out the verbs 'buy' or 'rain' in the other examples of the same form?
The reason for that is, we are actually not omitting the verb at all, but omitting the 'going to' intention particle! In the same way, we can actually omit 'going to' from 'I'm going to buy a hat', and change the verb to continuous, so we end up with 'I'm buying a hat', and it still expresses intention.
That's some quite advanced grammar. So it might help to simply remember it like this:
'I'm going to... (verb)' means 'I intend to (verb).'
'I'm going to... (place), means 'I intend to go to (place).'
Just remember: 'going to' has several different uses, and they can be tricky. When you hear or use 'going to', just take a little extra care.
See you next week, when we'll get back to thinking about some overused words.
-Tim
下北沢英会話スクール ビートンボックス