Asking About the Future

When we’re talking with friends or maybe in a more formal situation like a job interview we need to ask what other people are going to do what other people might do.

So let’s just go over very quickly for common questions that we can use to ask about the future.

The first three are more casual and then the last one is a bit more formal.

OK so the first one.

What have you got going on today.

Very common.

You talk to your friend.

It’s morning maybe or it’s early afternoon.

What have you got going on today.

This is about the future.

It means basically what are your plans today.

Now you could say that we could say what are your plans today.

What are your plans this weekend.

What are your plans next week.

What are your plans for your vacation.

What are your plans this afternoon.

This one is really useful because we can talk about any time but it’s about the future.

But what have you got going on is usually going to be today or maybe this week very near term very near near term future.

But it’s pretty common.

Do you have anything going on later.

This one is something we might use in the invitation situation.

We did the class about inviting right.

If we’re going to invite someone.

Do you have anything going on later this is maybe when we’re preparing to ask them if they want to do something.

Probably we want to hang out or do something fun.

What are your plans.

Sometimes we can just say this by itself but usually it does have a time on it.

So these are these three common very common casual pretty casual.

OK.

Where do you see yourself in three years now.

This is something that you would hear in a serious conversation with a friend about their life goals.

Right.

OK.

So you’re thinking about quitting your job.

All right.

No problem.

Where do you see yourself in three years.

That means what do you imagine about yourself in three years.

It’s also a very very common job interview question.

They will often ask you where do you see yourself in five years.

So then we can maybe explain something about our goals and if it’s a job interview maybe that should be related to this job probably.

We’ll look at an example of how we can answer that question later in this lesson.