Future - present continuous and going to

Present continuous and going to

We can often both of these to talk about plans and arrangements in the future.

We’re going to visit the museum.
Jane’s meeting her friend for a coffee first.
We’re joining her in the museum coffee shop.

We usually use going to when we are talking about our personal intentions and when we don’t say when this will happen.

I’m going to visit the museum shop. (I intend to visit the museum shop sometime in the future).
I’m visiting the museum shop after the tour. (After the tour tells us when).


Going to and will
We can use both:

- To talk about future facts and inevitable events
- To make predictions about the future: use going to when there is evidence.

It’s going to rain – look at the black clouds.

‘will’  with verbs like think, expect, imagine

I think future buildings will be 2km high.

We use to talk about decisions we make at the time of speaking.

I’ll open the door for you.

We use going to  when we made the decision before speaking.

I’m going to do my homework this afternoon.