Thursday, December 14, 2017

future tense - "When I grow up, I am going to be a doctor"- Is it correct?



When I grow up, I am going to be a doctor.



Is this sentence correct? Personally I think my growing up will happen in future and "I am going to be a doctor" sounds like it is going to happen in next month! But the sentence clearly indicates the speaker is a child. So according to me, "I am going to be a doctor" should be replaced by "I will be a doctor". So I think a more clear sentence would be




When I will grow up, I will be a doctor.



Is my concept correct here?



Answer



I don't think your concept is correct. The sentence is correct as written. There is no different "distance into the future" implied by the use of going to be versus will be. I can use either to talk about things that will happen in the next 2 minutes and the next billion years:



I am going to finish this answer before I go to bed.
The Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies are going to collide in about 4 billion years.




Going to may imply more of a "on a path, trajectory or plan to achieve something" whereas will just indicates futurity.


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