verbe en"ing"

[Freddyben]

Oh yeah that's very clear, I'm so stupid , I knew that of course, I spoke for 1 year in English, I guess I was just a bit confused with this one, I don't exactly know why but it doesn't matter. Thank you Thomas for this very professional explanation as always.

[mamour]

hi!!I'm trying to understand

[mamour]

 thanks so much Thomas!!!

[Bettina]

Hello everybody,

I still have a problem with -ing

example: I'm visiting my parents next Sunday.

In this case ,(rien à faire) I don't  understand why to use the Present Progressive.
They explained in a lesson to use the the Present Progressive when we planned to do something in a near future and of course I don't doubt about it but I don't explain me why. It's not clear for me. I'm a little bit confuse. I thought that I must say "I will visit my parents next Sunday"
Could you help me once more please?

[mamour]

la forme ING (le present progressif) peut etre utilisé pour exprimer le futur proche

she's going to London tonight!!

that's it Thomas ?

[Thomas]

Mamour has the right idea. There are several ways to express the future in English, such as...

I'm going to visit my parents next Sunday.
I will visit my parents next Sunday.
I'm visiting my parents next Sunday.

All of these are basically indicating the same thing: the time of the visit to my parents is next Sunday. However, there are different nuances to each of them, which is why there's more than one (je vais aller au magasin et j'irai au magasin -- pourquoi y-en-a-t-il deux? c'est la même idée).

One of the differences between them is how sure you are that something is going to happen. Using the present progressive for the future has the highest level of assuredness, the "to go" form the second highest, and the "will" form the lowest. In other words...

I'm visiting -- very high chance of going
I'm going to visit -- high chance of going
I will visit -- decent chance of going

Of course, these can all be modified with adverbs such as "probably" or "maybe" or something else, but those are the basics.

Personally (meaning the next part is only my opinion), I think that this started with the verb "to go" used in the future with the "to go" sense, because we rarely say "I'm going to go to the movies" but rather just "I'm going to the movies", because we don't like to say the verb "to go" twice in a row. And once it started with that verb, it just became something used with all kinds of verbs. But like I said, that's just my opinion.

Can you say in French, if it's 2 p.m. now, that "je dîne à 7h" and mean "je vais dîner à 7h" ?

[Bettina]

Thank you Thomas to make it clear with all this details and examples.
It's right now . I think I get it in my brain!

Can you say in French, if it's 2 p.m. now, that "je dîne à 7h" and mean "je vais dîner à 7h" ?
I asked my husband who is french and he said that you could say :"je dîne à 7 h..."
See you soon