Future Plans and Intentions— A2 Grammar Exercises

You bought a plane ticket last week: I'm going to visit my sister in Madrid. Your friend chose a new university course: She's going to study medicine. Your team has a meeting on Tuesday: We're meeting the new client at 10. These are all future plans: things you decided before this conversation.

For plans, intentions, and arrangements in English, you mainly use two structures: be going to for plans, intentions, and predictions with evidence, and the present continuous for fixed arrangements. They overlap, but each one fits some situations better than the other.

Form: be going to

Use am / is / are + going to + the base form of the verb. Be changes with the subject; going to and the base verb don't change.

The negative short forms are: I'm not going to, he's not / he isn't going to, we're not / we aren't going to. Both short forms are common; use whichever sounds natural.

Positive, negative, and question

When to use be going to

1. Plans and intentions decided before now

Use be going to for something you already decided to do. The plan exists in your head before you speak about it. You don't need a date, a ticket, or anything fixed; you just need to have made the decision.

• I'm going to learn Italian next year.
• Mark is going to start the gym on Monday.
• We're going to visit my grandparents this weekend.
• I'm not going to eat meat anymore.
• My parents are going to sell their car.
• I'm going to look for a new flat after the holidays.

2. Predictions based on what you see now

Use be going to when you can see or hear evidence right now that something will happen. You're not guessing; you have a reason in front of you.

• Look at those black clouds, it's going to rain.
• Be careful! You're going to fall.
• The bus is full. We're not going to get a seat.
• She looks pale; I think she's going to be sick.
• Listen to that engine; the car is going to break down.
• He hasn't studied at all. He's not going to pass the exam.

Present continuous for fixed arrangements

You can also use the present continuous (am / is / are + verb-ing) to talk about the future. The meaning is similar to be going to, but more specific: the arrangement is fixed; you've agreed on a time, booked a place, or made a real commitment with another person.

• I'm meeting Sara at 7 p.m. tomorrow.
• We're flying to Berlin on Friday morning.
• Tom is having dinner with his boss tonight.
• They're getting married in June.

You almost always need a time expression with the present continuous for future. Without one, the same sentence usually means "right now": I'm meeting Sara → I am meeting her at this moment. I'm meeting Sara at 7 → a future arrangement.

Time expressions for future plans

These signal words tell the listener you're talking about the future:

• tomorrow, tonight
• next week / month / year / Monday
• this weekend / evening / summer
• in + time period: in two hours, in three days, in 2027
• on + day or date: on Friday, on the 5th
• at + time: at 8 p.m., at the weekend
• soon, later

Common mistakes

Be going to vs present continuous

Both structures talk about future plans, and they often work in the same sentence. The difference is small but real: be going to is about your intention; the present continuous is about a fixed arrangement with a time, place, or other people involved.

One important difference: only be going to works for predictions with evidence. You can say It's going to rain, but not It's raining to mean a future prediction: that just means it's raining right now.

Be going to vs will

Learners often mix these up. The key difference is when you decided.

For more on this structure, see future with will.

Quick summary

Related topics

• Future with will: for predictions, offers, and decisions made in the moment.
• Present continuous: the present-time use of the same structure.
• Present simple: for timetables and scheduled future events.