There’s some confusion in our staff about the correct grammatical form for future events.
Our grammars teach that you MUST use the present progressive, if there is a reference to the future in the sentence, and that a "will"-form is wrong in this case. However, it just doesn’t sound wrong to me, and I wouldn’t want to count it as a mistake in my students’ tests.

Example:
"What are you doing, Jane?" "I’m packing my suitcase. We are going on holiday tomorrow"
versus
"What are you doing, Jane?" "I’m packing my suitcase. We’ll go on holiday tomorrow"

My colleagues insist that the second version must be marked as a mistake.
Question to you native speakers: What’s your take on this?

hadila (Germany)

Hadila,

What an interesting question.  For grammars and know-it-alls it is very nice to have some hard and fast rules to go by.  Unfortunately human grammars are not so easily codified.

"We are going on holiday tomorrow."

This is the present progressive, and is not truly a future tense, but it is used that way more than often.  

What is more common to signify the future is "to be going to +verb stem,"  "gonna" if you will, although the verb "to go" can drop out from behind "going to."

"Will" is a modal that has come to signifly a future event.

As a general rule of thumb:

The simple present progressive is used for things that are going to happen in the immediate future in realtionship to other events:

"We are going on holiday tomorrow."  

The "gonna" future is used for things in the immediate to somewhat distant future.

"We are going to go on vacation next week."

The future tense using the model "will" is used for at least three circumstanses,  intermediate to distant future, emphasis, or volition:

"We will go on vacation next month."

"We will go on vacation, whether you like it or not!"

"We will go on vaction, if it the last thing we do!"

Please don’t take this as exhaustive; there are many subtlties.

Now back to your question!

1. "What are you doing, Jane?" "I’m packing my suitcase. We are going on holiday tomorrow"

This is very natural sounding in this context, very matter of fact."

2. "What are you doing, Jane?" "I’m packing my suitcase. We are going to go on holiday tomorrow."

This is or could have a little more background.  Jane may be surprized that the questioner doesn’t know, the plans have been reinstated, or a sudden plan to get away from Jane by going on vacation.

3. "What are you doing, Jane?" "I’m packing my suitcase.   "We will go on vacation tomorrow."

I don’t like this form in this context.  The future expressed in the "will" is to distant for the tomorrow here, though it isn’t just the "tomorrow," I’m not sure what it is.

"What are you doing, Jane?" "I’m packing my suitcase. You guys went on vacation last week.   We will go on vacation tomorrow."

Here with more context, matching the event to something in the past makes more sense.

I found these to be helpful:

Rose of York

Simple Present

Simple Future

Sitran

Hi Katy and Sitran,

WOW,
you took a lot of time answering my question. What a lot of details! Thanks so much!
I would agree that "we are going on holiday tomorrow" sounds more natural me. I’m just reluctant to mark the Will-form as WRONG (resulting in a lower grade for those students’ tests), esp as we’re not talking College level here, but 13-year-old students.

Thanks again!
hadila

Sure!  I understand.

When I taught Spanish I was very lenient on these sort of miniscule differences.

1. The student should get credit for forming a grammatical sentense, whether or not it is stylistically or semantically perfect.

2. Is there a native speaker anywhere who wouldn’t flinch at the usage?

    If "yes," don’t mark wrong, but note the preference for another form.

    If "no," you must mark it off, but only half, because it is a possible sentense of English.

I believe that this falls under the "yes" category.  I would certainly not take off the full amount, if any!  Unless this is a test specifically design to show a student’s knowledge of the difference!

Sitran

I agree with everything said above by Katy and Sitran.  The sentence is perfectly fine grammar.

The main objective here is to form an acceptable response out of many possibilities, since the fine details that would signify the ‘one true’ response are not available.

For 13-year-olds, as long as the grammar is technically sound, I would give full marks, with possibly comment or discussion to follow about alternative responses and their more nuanced meanings, as Sitran has indicated.

In the quiz environment, the nuances are not always (or even usually) clear, so, in my mind, it would not make much sense to grade on the expectation of a particular response—UNLESS the study area was a specific modal/voice, etc.  If the students were supposed to be learning and regurgitating a specific mode, and that was made clear before the test, then they should be graded on that.

I hope that last sentence wasn’t too much to digest…

The long and short of it is that both sound fine to me, and I believe full marks should be granted UNLESS a particular mode was expected and that was made clear prior to testing.

*whew*

-Tim
...and welcome to the Agora!

Well said, Tim.  I agree!

Sitran

I agree with Sitran and Tim that it would be harsh to mark down a 13-year-old for using the "will" form - it’s ‘well formed’ and conveys the meaning of something happening in the future. Of course, the contexts in which an experienced or native speaker would use the two forms do differ slightly - and I thought the Rose of York site summarised these very well - but in informal situations it’s no big deal if someone uses the other one.

However, ...

I spend a lot of my working time editing English written by adult non-native speakers. Most of this is used only inside the company, but some ends up on one of the web sites of the Large Mobile Phone Manufacturer for whom I work. In that situation, I would always change text like "... We’ll go on holiday tomorrow" to "... We are going on holiday tomorrow". Why? Because it makes me think, "That was written by a non-native speaker."

That’s not a problem in itself, of course - I’m constantly amazed at the quality of writing that people achieve in their second or third language. But in my view (and situation) it is a problem if the way something is written takes the reader’s attention away from the meaning of what is written. (And I think the fact that it’s being read, not heard, is also important here.)

And just to muddy the waters further, it’s also perfectly possible to use the present tense to talk about the future:

"Oh, you’re packing. Are you going on holiday?" "Yes, I leave tomorrow morning."

Ed

Great comments, Ed!

"I was accepted at the Sorbonne.  I leave for Paris next year!"

Sitran

Yes, I will!

But I am really only moving up the valley.  As of today, I am between places.  I hope that I will be completely moved by Christmas!

Sitran

[quote author=hadila link=board=grammar;num=1103042198;start=0#0 date=12/14/04 at 11:36:38]Example:
"What are you doing, Jane?" "I’m packing my suitcase. We are going on holiday tomorrow"
versus
"What are you doing, Jane?" "I’m packing my suitcase. We’ll go on holiday tomorrow"

I agree with all that has been said on this subject already. However, the verb ‘go’ is used to indicate future time, as English has no future tense. ‘Tomorrow’ in the sentence provides confirmation that we are talking about the future, and so it is unusual to use ‘will’ as well. ‘Will’ is not just a future marker, but it also marks solid intent, desire usw. ‘We’ll go on holiday tomorrow’ is actually saying a little more than ‘we are going on holiday tomorrow’. As has been said, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this wrong, but it has given the sentence a subtle change in nuance.

- Garzo.

Thanks for the confirmation, Garzo!

Good to read you again!

Sitran

As far as I remember, the future with "going to" is used when you have fixed arrangements. For instance, "I´m going on vacations to Mexico" means that you know the date of the trip, you have already bought the tickets, etc., whereas "I will go on vacations to Mexico", means that you want to go there, feel that you will do it, but you have nothing sure.

Apology 1: I’m sorry if what I say is not correct, I’m just writing what I’ve been taught…  :-[

Apology 2: I’m sorry if someone had already explained this, I didn’t feel like reading all the posts  :-[

Apology 3: I’m sorry if I made any grammar/spelling/vocabulary mistake, I haven’t practised my English for a long time  :(

No need for to fall down that apologetic staircase.

I think ‘going to’ does express future time in English, but that doesn’t have to be fixed. I think, all future statements are fixed appointments unless the context tells us otherwise.

  "I shall climb Everest!" - go on then.
  "I shall climb Everest one day!" - hopefulness.

  "They are going to fly to Guadaloupe" - here are their tickets.
  "They are going to fly to Guadaloupe when they’ve saved enough for the flight" - hopefulness.

- Garzo.