My plans are more certain than yours!

Oh! Welcome!
Take a deep breath, and make yourself at home.
Relax.
This will be easy, I promise.

Hello again! This is English Airs, a podcast that will give you effortless accuracy, and my name is Parya. I am an English teacher based in Tokyo. This is our third episode, and I hope you have had lots of practice with the previous ones. Now, it’s time for more!

The question we want to answer today is this:

Should I say “I am going to have a party next week” or “I am having a party next week”? Another confusing pair. Don’t they both talk about plans? Aren’t they both certain? So what’s the difference? Some textbooks say that we use present continuous for the near future, but that doesn’t help much, does it? How “near” is the near future anyway?

So, instead of asking “Is it near or far?”, we should be asking something else. This time, I would like to guide you through figuring out that question. Don’t worry, I will tell you if your guess is correct or not at the end of the episode!

Do you remember when we talked about plans in episode one (“Why is your future certain?”)? Can you tell me about one of your plans this week? Or something that you have decided to do next month? Next year? Think of one or two examples and remember them for now. (If you are sitting down for this episode, write them on a piece of paper; we are going to use them later).

Planning is not just making one decision. It usually needs a to-do list, right? Let’s think about the to-do list for a trip to another country.  At the time of this recording, we are still dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but I hope when this episode airs, we can actually travel to nice places. For now, our list is imaginary, and it is something like this:

Choose the place and time.

Make reservations at a hotel. They usually have free cancellations, so I book the room early.

Buy the plane ticket. Oooh, it’s getting real!

Pack the suitcase. Or maybe suitcases? I travel very light, so one is always enough for me.

Arrange for a taxi to the airport. Or maybe you need to check train times? In Tokyo, I like to arrange for the limousine bus to Haneda; one of their stops is in front of my apartment! How wonderful is that? It’s just called the limousine bus by the way, it’s not really a limousine. It’s just a bus.

and, back to our list:

Double-check that all the lights are off and you have locked the apartment door!

Did I miss anything? Oh, yes! Exchange money!

It’s nice thinking about it, isn’t it? I will give you some time to daydream a little!

Now I have a question for you: in our list, when does it become a plan? You are right: as soon as you decide on the action, time and place. And here’s another question: when does it feel like it’s really happening? Isn’t it when you prepare things? Tell people, make arrangements, that kind of stuff?

Ok, so if I decide to travel to Greece in May, I have made plans, right? So what should I say?  Give me your answer, out loud if possible.

If your answer was “I’m going to travel to Greece in May”, well done!

Then I start arranging things: I go down my to-do list. What can I say when I have made the arrangements?  That’s right: “I’m traveling to Greece in May”

So, can you tell me which question we should ask to decide between “I’m going to have a party” and “I’m having a party”? Right again! The question is: “Is it arranged?”

Now that we know how to choose, let’s use it to speak more accurately.

At the beginning of this episode I asked you to think about some plans that you have, remember? Go over them, and change them to the right form if you have made arrangements. Maybe you have decided to make a video call to a friend tonight. Have you sent a message to that friend? Do they know you will be calling at that time? If your answer is yes, you know that you can say “I am having a video call with my friend tonight.” So, go ahead and review your plans. Tell me about all of them: the ones that are still only a decision, and the ones you have arranged. I am listening. 

Now to practice what we have learned: simply change the reminder you set on your phone from episode one to the following questions:

“What am I going to do this week?”

and

“Do I have anything arranged this week?”

As always, if you visit the episode page on my website, English Airs, you’ll find more help. This time you will find a grocery shopping list that will tell you what I am making for dinner tomorrow (I have included links to recipes, just in case you want to make the same thing!), a ticket that will tell you about my plans next weekend, and links to examples and other resources.

Also on my Instagram “English Airs”, this week we will be asking ourselves some questions. Take a look!

Don’t forget to listen to this episode a few times and give new answers every time if you want to remember all this better. I will always be listening for your answers, and waiting for your comments and questions. You can leave them on my website, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Before we end this episode I want to tell you two very important things: 

One, If you have arranged a plan and you say “I am going to do it”, it is not wrong. You just chose to tell your listener only about the plan. 

And two, when we say “I’m doing this” or “I’m doing that” to talk about plans, the speaker and the listener should have an idea about the time. That’s very important. If I just say “I am studying Japanese” without giving you an idea about the future, you will think I am talking about now, right? So remember that, ok?

And with that, we can bring this episode to an end. I hope it helped. Please let me know if it did, and as before it would be really nice of you if you could introduce this podcast to your friends! You know that I wish to help as many people as I can, with your help. 

Parya out!