Learn English – Use of Simple Tense for future action without will & Shall

future-timepresent-simple

I Hope She forgives me.

Above sentence gives idea about future action of her without using Will, Shall etc. We can use Simple Present tense to describe future scheduled, planed action..

Considering above Rule can I construct Following Sentences?

a) I send you that file. (Gives Idea about my future planed action)

b) Tomorrow I first go to the Temple and then to the Office. ( Future Plans)

Appreciate If I can have some more examples.

Best Answer

If you hope for something, you are normally thinking about something that has not yet happened, but you would like it to happen at some time in the future. You can follow it with a future tense, as in the following example, though this sounds slightly more formal to me:

I hope that she will forgive me.

The use of hope already indicates that you are talking about something that may happen in the future, so it is perfectly acceptable to use present simple, especially in informal speech

I hope [that] she forgives me


a) I sent you that file. (gives idea about my future planned action - untrue)

This example uses simple past, which you use to talk about a completed action in the past. Even if you put "I hope that..." in front of it, it is still clear that you are talking about something that, if it did happen at all, happened in the past.

b) Tomorrow I first go to the temple and then to the office. ( future plans)

This is an example of using simple present tense after a time word (tomorrow) to describe something that will happen in the future. You will find more about this usage here.

You can find more ways to talk about future plans here.


Note that the word wish indicates that you are talking about an irrealis situation (one that is not likely to happen). In such cases, you must use the correct tense and then backshift it (or use the subjunctive were for the be-verb, even if there is a time-word.

You are here - present
I wish you were here- present, subjunctive
You will come - future
I wish you would come - future, backshifted


Note that, in English, you normally only use a capital letter for the first word in the sentence and for proper nouns.

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