# I'll go if you'll come



## Donna_Santa

Hi all!

Guys, I've just heard such a phrase from a native English speaker, "*I'll* go to the cinema tonight, if *you'll *come with me."

It grates upon my ears. Is this "*I'll* go - if *you'll* come" correct? Or here's another sense I don't understand?

PS: oh, well, actually it's an example for the Future tense (old audio course).

Thanks in advance for your answers!


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## jpyvr

"Come with" can mean "accompany" in English, and I think that's how it's used here. The person is saying that he or she will go to the cinema if the other person will accompany him or her.


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## entangledbank

It's not a plain future: it's not merely stating the predictable fact that, if tonight you come with me, then I will go too. The 'will' here has a slight flavour of "want": if you want to come with me, we could go to the cinema. That, at least, is how it feels to me.


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## e2efour

I agree it's not about the future. You'll can be regarded as meaning _if you are willing.
_It is also used in situations where you ask someone politely to do something. Example: "If you'll wait a minute, I'll go and get my camera." This is equivalent to "If you don't mind waiting a minute". Even so, it's more common to say "if you wait a minute" or "wait a minute".


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## brian

In my experience, although I'm familiar with it, it's not a very common construction, and I personally never use it.

Another thing about it, _you'll_ cannot (in my opinion) be lengthened into _you will_, e.g. to emphasize the _you_ (as opposed to _he_ or _I_), for example: _If YOU will buy the food, then I will buy the wine._ The _you will_ (as opposed to _you'll_) sounds weird, but the _I will_ sounds just fine.

I think this is evidence that _if you'll/they'll/etc._ is simply a fixed construction, similar to an expression, and not really a part of our malleable grammar, so to speak. As such, just like with other expressions, some people use it and others don't, even though just about everyone is familiar with it.

Edit: Compare this with, say, the _if <pronoun> *would*_ construction, which can be both contracted and de-contracted (extracted?): _If you*'d* / you *would* (just) clean up once in a while, (then...)!_ The _would_ construction in _if_-clauses is, in my opinion, very common - or at least much more common than the _if...will_ one. It implies conveys a sense of annoyance.


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## Andygc

Brian, it is a very common, everyday construction in BE, and is nothing more than a contraction of "I will .... if you will ...". 

I'd also not be in the least bit surprised to hear someone say "I'll ... if you will ...", where the "you" might or might not be given emphasis.

Neither "I will" nor "you will" sounds at all odd to me as an alternative to _I'll_ or _you'll_, but we rugby players often sang a song with the chorus "Singing I will if you will, so will I".


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## stallion

Hi,

This is very common and perfectly acceptable in English...


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## Hermione Golightly

I agree that it's  a common construction and there's nothing wrong with it. Maybe both 'wills' have a stronger element of being _willing_, of striking a bargain, than when one proposes a plan of action with simple present as in  "If you do the dishes, I'll cook the dinner".

Hermione.


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## brian

Just to be clear, I never said (nor did I mean to imply) that it was wrong or unacceptable.  I just hear it _very_ seldom (if at all, really), and I never say it.

I think it's perhaps slightly more common when followed by _just_, where it still indicates "If you are willing to..." but also conveys some slight impatience/annoyance on the part of the speaker: _If you'll just listen to me for one minute...!_ <-- used when the other person is not willing to pay attention, doesn't care, refuses to converse, etc.

But in that case, it becomes pretty much synonymous with the _would_ construction I mentioned above, and indeed I would prefer that, myself: _If you'd / would just listen..._


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## Oahawhool

Keep in mind, there's many ways to say the same thing.
Perhaps this would be less grating.
 "*I'll* go to the cinema tonight, if *you *come with me."


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## Loob

Oahawhool said:


> Keep in mind, there's many ways to say the same thing.
> Perhaps this would be less grating.
> "*I'll* go to the cinema tonight, if *you *come with me."


"I'll go if you'll come" isn't grating at all to me, Oahawhool.

As others have said, the *'ll* in the second part - and possibly also in the first part - means "are/am/is willing".


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## owlman5

I hope it's not irrelevant to suggest one small change: I'll go to the cinema tonight if you'll *go* with me.  Others do it all the time, but I avoid mixing "go" and "come" in statements like these.

Although the "will ... will" construction may grate on your ears, Donna, it doesn't bother me at all and I hear and use it frequently.


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## Loob

owlman5 said:


> I hope it's not irrelevant to suggest one small change: I'll go to the cinema tonight if you'll *go* with me. Others do it all the time, but I avoid mixing "go" and "come" in statements like these.


"Come" is fine by me There are a number of previous threads on this....


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## mnc

Hi,
I'll go to the cinema tonight if you'll *go* with me. This is wrong gramatically and there is no iota of doubt


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## A.F.Ferri

Perhaps it isn't the best of English, but it is perfectly acceptable in colloquial speech and native speakers will use this and similar phrases unashamedly.


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## Andygc

mnc said:


> Hi,
> I'll go to the cinema tonight if you'll *go* with me. This is wrong gramatically and there is no iota of doubt


Dear mnc

Why do you think it is wrong? I think that you will find that there are several, well-educated, native English speakers here that will disagree with you.


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## Woofer

For those here who consider this a very common construction, I'm very curious whether this "if <future tense> then <future tense>" construction is more common in your dialect than the "if <present tense> then <future tense>" construction?

I feel pretty confident in saying that while "I will go if you will come" is possible idiomatically, especially in the set idiom "I will if you will", it is much, much more common to hear "I will go if you come", at least in AE.  Reading the above comments, I can't tell if others are disagreeing with that or not.


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## brian

Hi Woofer, I think the others are saying that the two constructions have slightly different meanings, and therefore you can't really ask whether one is more common than the other. For them, I think, it would be like asking whether the present tense (_do_) is more common than the future perfect tense (_will have done_) - yes it is, but that doesn't make the future perfect tense any less correct or common in its own right; there are simply fewer opportunities to use it.

But if you look at my comments #5 and #9, I agree with you that it's not very common where I'm from or where I've lived. I very seldom hear it, and I just about never use it, as far as I know.


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## Loob

Woofer said:


> For those here who consider this a very common construction, I'm very curious whether this "if <future tense> then <future tense>" construction is more common in your dialect than the "if <present tense> then <future tense>" construction?
> 
> I feel pretty confident in saying that while "I will go if you will come" is possible idiomatically, especially in the set idiom "I will if you will", it is much, much more common to hear "I will go if you come", at least in AE. Reading the above comments, I can't tell if others are disagreeing with that or not.


Just to reinforce a point made earlier: the modal verb _will_ has several different uses. In_ I will go if you will come_, the second _will _(and possibly also the first) isn't future tense.


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## Woofer

Loob said:


> Just to reinforce a point made earlier: the modal verb _will_ has several different uses. In_ I will go if you will come_, the second _will _(and possibly also the first) isn't future tense.



I used the word "construction" precisely in hopes of avoiding this question, but since you bring it up, what would you call it if not the future tense?  Personally, I would have said that it's syntactically future tense even if it has different semantics, but I could easily be wrong.   If it's a mode, though, what mode is it?  Would you also say that using "will" as a command (You *will* clean your room) is not future tense, as well?

By the way, you aren't suggesting this is the verb _to will, _are you?  I'm assuming we're in agreement that _will _is an auxiliary here.


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## Loob

We may have to agree to differ, Woofer.

For me the point that _will_ has a range of uses is quite important, not least because people are taught not to use the future in the _if_-part of a conditional sentence. (Actually you can, of course, in sentences like I'll give you the money if it will make you happy, but that's a different issue. There's also the whole question of whether English really has a 'future tense' - but let's not go there....)

What do I call this use of _will?_ Usually, as shorthand, I call it "_will_=be willing".


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## George French

"*I'll* go to the cinema *pub* tonight, if *you'll *come with me."

It grates upon my ears. Is this "*I'll* go - if *you'll* come" correct? Or here's another sense I don't understand?"
_____________________________________________________

Correct or not it is how *we use* our language. Doesn't that make it correct, by default? 

It is the English of the UK masses. We talk to one another in this way.

GF..

What's a cinema?


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## Andygc

George French said:


> What's a cinema?


George ???


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## marcin k

What about a little experiment? Let's substitute _want_ for every _will_ in the following sentences and let's see what happens...

1. I *will* go if you come with me. = I *want* to go if you come with me.
2. I *will* go if you *will* come with me. = I *want* to go if you *want* to come with me.

1. Condition for me going -> you *coming* with me.
2. Condition for me going -> you *wanting* to come with me.

No wonder 2 is more polite.


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## Andygc

marcin k said:


> What about a little experiment? Let's substitute _want_ for every _will_ in the following sentences and let's see what happens...
> 
> 1. I *will* go if you come with me. = I *want* to go if you come with me.
> 2. I *will* go if you *will* come with me. = I *want* to go if you *want* to come with me.
> 
> 1. Condition for me going -> you *coming* with me.
> 2. Condition for me going -> you *wanting* to come with me.
> 
> No wonder 2 is more polite.


marcin k. Sorry, but what is your point? Why should we want to substitute _want _for _will_? They have different meanings.

There is no lack of politeness in saying _I'll go if you come with me_ instead of _I'll go if you'll come with me_. They are two different ways of saying exactly the same thing, and I doubt many English speakers would even notice which was said in conversation; I certainly would not.


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## marcin k

If _will_ and _want_ really have different meanings, then the following would be true:

_I will help you_ doesn't necessarily mean _I want to do it_.

True? No. Every time you say _I will_ ... it automatically means _I want_, if not, give an example, will you? (or if you want, for that matter...)

Of course, there aren't two words in a language that have 100% the same meaning, otherwise the verb _want_ would never be here. The difference in meaning is that _will_ means _want_ + declaration of performing the action in the future, but the point is when you use _will_ you state what your intentions are, and by saying _I want to help you_ aren't you expressing your intentions as well?

There wouldn't be so much confusion about using _will_ if English teachers associated _will_ with _want_. I do, and never has any of my learners had a slightest problem using _will_.  

Can you think of any English sentence, where _will_ can't be associated with _want_? 

And what about this:

A person who wants to help you is:

1. wanting to help you... or..
2. willing to help you...


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## e2efour

marcin k said:


> _I will help you_ doesn't necessarily mean _I want to do it_.
> 
> Can you think of any English sentence, where _will_ can't be associated with _want_?



?? You've just given such a sentence (I will help you).


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## brian

marcin k,

_Will_ is almost exclusively an auxiliary verb indicating future tense. Its usage meaning _willing/wanting to_ is an exception.

Moreover, just because a word can mean X in a given syntactic structure does NOT mean that it always means X.



			
				marcin k said:
			
		

> Can you think of any English sentence, where _will_ can't be associated with _want_?



_I'll clean the house sooner or later._ <-- I have to (because it's important), but I don't want to, so I'm going to wait as I can before doing it.


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## marcin k

I'll clean the house sooner or later = I don't want to do it now, I want to do it later than sooner

If I don't want to do it, then the sentence goes like this:

I have/need to clean the house sooner or later.

Now, as for will being an auxiliary verb... this is just a term invented by someone, who surely forgot about one very important thing: every word has a meaning! Yes, it does help other verbs, just as much as do, does and have or has do. But that doesn't mean that the word has no meaning. Languages do not evolve with words without meaning, and there aren't such words. Grammatical function is not a meaning of the word, it merely results from its meaning. It's easy to copy someone's ideas, never bothering to make sure they aren't flawed. 

I'll help you = I want to do it.

Otherwise:

I'm (supposed) to help you.
I've been told to help you etc...


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## JulianStuart

marcin k said:


> I'll clean the house sooner or later = I don't want to do it now, I want to do it later than sooner
> 
> If I don't want to do it, then the sentence goes like this:
> 
> I have/need to clean the house sooner or later.
> 
> .....
> 
> I'll help you = I want to do it.
> 
> Otherwise:
> 
> I'm (supposed) to help you.
> I've been told to help you etc...



Not for me either, marcin.  I use _will _in senses _other_ than want, just as the other native speakers are telling you.  It may be easier to teach, and it may seem more "logical" to have the language be as you are suggesting, but it just isn't that way. It will not happen


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## Loob

Marcin, I suspect it's extremely useful for students to know that "will" derives from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "wish/desire/want"*: it does help to explain a number of its uses.

But that doesn't mean that all its current uses have a "wish/desire/want" flavour to them. It is possible to say: _I will do it, but I don't want to..._

_*Online Etymology Dictionary entry here._


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## marcin k

Native speakers of any language are by default unable to 'see' the real meaning of some words just because some words are associated more with their functions than with their lexical meaning. 
To all native speakers of English _will_ means future because almost every time the word is used, someone is talking about future. 
But that doesn't mean that WILL = FUTURE

Now, if I say that _I want to help you understand something_, the verb _help_ denotes an action that:

a. has already taken place
b. is taking place now or just takes place in general
c. hasn't taken place yet/ has yet to take place (therefore in future)

a, b or c?

The answer is c.

This time I've used _want_ to tell you about my future intention.

What if I use _will_ instead of _want_? Is that going to make any difference?


If it is, what's the difference? 

The logic behind it all is simple: 
if replacing word A with word B doesn't cause any/major change in meaning, then A = B

I know how being a native speaker of a language works. I use Polish words, expressions and sayings that to me don't have any particular meanings when I take them out of the context. But of course they do have their meanings. Just peel off a few layers and there it is...


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## brian

Sorry, but replacing A (here _want to_) with B (here _will_) does *NOT* yield A = B:

_I want to help you._ <-- has not taken place yet, and may never take place
_I will help you._ <-- has not taken place yet, but WILL for sure (at least acc. to the speaker) take place

This is a huge difference.

Also, how do you explain the use of _will_ when the subject is not a person, i.e. not someone who can have wishes or desires? For example, _The new Super Galaktikor 9,000 will revolutionize the way we travel!_


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## marcin k

> I will help you. <-- has not taken place yet, but WILL for sure (at least acc. to the speaker) take place



How on earth can anyone know for sure that something will happen? The only thing that I know for sure is that I want to do something. 

As for inanimate subjects I knew that finally someone would ask. 

If the claim is that it doesn't make sense to use the verb WANT with inanimate subjects, let's take a look:

http://www.google.pl/search?q="it+d...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

With basically each of the sentences there, it wouldn't make much difference to use _will_

The player doesn't want to read discs = The player won't read discs.

And ....

I will help you, but I don't want to do it...

Hmmm... Having heard such a statement I would have doubts resulting in this 
question:

So, will you help me or not?


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## JulianStuart

marcin k said:


> And ....
> 
> I will help you, but I don't want to do it...
> 
> Hmmm... Having heard such a statement I would have doubts resulting in this
> question:
> 
> So, will you help me or not?



Grudgingly and *unwillingly*, but yes, I will help you.


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## brian

marcin k said:


> How on earth can anyone know for sure that something will happen? The only thing that I know for sure is that I want to do something.



Like I said, it's sure with regards to the speaker since, obviously, no one can tell the future for sure. That is to say, the speaker has already decided that such-and-such will occur - insofar as he can make it happen - whereas with _want_ it's not so sure. Let me give you a better example:

(1) _I will go to Brazil some day._
(2) _I want to go to Brazil some day._

(1) is definitely much stronger than (2) and implies that the speaker will do everything in his power to go to Brazil. (2) is weaker and suggests that, while it certainly is a desire, it's probably not at the top of the list, i.e. if it happens, great, but if not, too bad.



marcin k said:


> As for inanimate subjects I knew that finally someone would ask.
> 
> If the claim is that it doesn't make sense to use the verb WANT with inanimate subjects, let's take a look:
> 
> http://www.google.pl/search?q=%22it+doesn%27t+want+to%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a
> 
> With basically each of the sentences there, it wouldn't make much difference to use _will_
> 
> The player doesn't want to read discs = The player won't read discs.



Just because some inanimate objects can take verbs normally governed by animate beings doesn't mean that ALL inanimate objects can do so. It's perfectly normal that some inanimate objects, e.g. computers and other electronics, countries, etc. be viewed as "animate" in some way. For example, the vending machine "ate" my money, or France "elected" a new president. Machines do complex things and so are often personified (especially in sci-fi, of course), and countries (by metonymy or synechdoche or whatever it's called) are used to refer to their populaces.

However, many, many inanimate objects cannot take such verbs.

Plus, there are _will_-constructions that employ impersonal (dummy) subjects, so that it's impossible, as far as I can tell, to construe any "desire" meaning. For example: _It will be impossible to find a parking spot._ Does this mean that "something" (who? what?) will "want" us not to find a parking spot???  Surely it doesn't mean that _we_ don't want to (because we clearly do), nor does it mean that the parking spot does not want to be found!



marcin k said:


> And ....
> 
> I will help you, but I don't want to do it...
> 
> Hmmm... Having heard such a statement I would have doubts resulting in this
> question:
> 
> So, will you help me or not?



Your question would, I dare say, not be uttered by a native speaker. The other person already said _I will help you_, so there's no reason to ask _So, will you help me or not?_

If I told someone, _I'll help you, but I don't really want to_, and they replied, _So, will you help me or not?_, I would probably reply, _I just told you I would. And if you don't stop going on about it, I'm liable to change my mind!_


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## e2efour

We are told that _will _automatically implies _wan_t.

Judge for yourself from the following sentences:
1) (Knock on the door) "That'll be the plumber." 
2) (The phone rings) "Don't get up, mummy. I'll answer it for you."
3) Australia will meet Sweden in the final of the Davis Cup in September.
3) Two people are playing table tennis. An onlooker says "She will beat him in under an hour."
5) If you heat water, it will normally boil at 100 degrees Celsius.
6) If you shoot me, I will die or be seriously hurt.

Need I go on?


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## brian

e2efour said:


> 6) If you shoot me, I will die or be seriously hurt.
> 
> Need I go on?



No, this is the only one necessary.


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## Andygc

marcin k said:


> Native speakers of any language are by default unable to 'see' the real meaning of some words just because some words are associated more with their functions than with their lexical meaning.
> To all native speakers of English _will_ means future because almost every time the word is used, someone is talking about future.
> But that doesn't mean that WILL = FUTURE


And you are providing evidence that non-native speakers who have a high degree of fluency may attempt to over-analyse the foreign language in which they are fluent so as to be blind to the good understanding that native speakers have. I have no difficulty at all with the shades of meaning of will, and I have a clear understanding that it sometimes refers to the future and sometimes to desire. 

I do find it a little odd that you feel competent to make such sweeping statements about my use of my native language, but in the spirit of forbearance inculcated in me by the moderators, I *will *refrain from telling you exactly what I think, even though I do not *want *to.


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## panjandrum

_Will _(verb) has 57 distinct definitions in the OED.  Most of these have several subsidiary entries.  Some of them are close in meaning to some of the definitions of _want_.

Like many of the BE-speakers above, I find nothing at all strange about the topic sentence, "I'll go to the cinema tonight, if you'll come with me."


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## marcin k

Centuries ago people did not think the way we do now. To them the world was not a place with events occurring at random. They saw the future as a "store", hence the expression "the future has in store for me".
If I have something in my store for you, then this is exactly what I want to give to you. When you talk about it with someone else, you may say: He wants to give me this and that. That's the way people must have thought about the future. 

Have you ever thought *why* and *how* dummy subjects came about? People started using _it_ just for fun? 

Here goes the sentence:



> It will be impossible to find a parking spot.


It is used here exactly to tell you that it's not for:
a. you to decide
b. the parking spot to decide

Do I need to go on?





> (1) I will go to Brazil some day.
> (2) I want to go to Brazil some day.
> 
> (1) is definitely much stronger than (2) and implies that the speaker will do everything in his power to go to Brazil. (2) is weaker and suggests that, while it certainly is a desire, it's probably not at the top of the list, i.e. if it happens, great, but if not, too bad.


Let's look at the following:

A. Why are you learning Portuguese?
B. I want to go to Brazil some day... OR.... I will go to Brazil some day.

Do you still think that WILL is stronger than WANT?

Next thing:

If I tell you: I don't want to buy this book...
What's your guess about me performing or not performing the action? How do you know?

Next thing:

Have you taken into consideration different meanings of the verb WANT? 

I will help you, but I don't want to do it. = I *have an intention*(= a stimulus directing my action) of helping you, although I *don't like* it.

In this sentence WILL has exactly the same value as WANT in its basic meaning. 
Why? 
Want =to have a desire to do something (=a driving force for you to perform an action)
Will=to have an intention of doing something (=a driving force for you to perform an action)

_Want_ on the other hand, means _like_ here, or doesn't it?



> Grudgingly and *unwillingly*, but yes, I *will* help you



It makes think of another sentence: *Unhurriedly*, he *hurried* to work...

Now onto the most interesting part:

1) (Knock on the door) "That'll be the plumber." 
2) (The phone rings) "Don't get up, mummy. I'll answer it for you."
3) Australia will meet Sweden in the final of the Davis Cup in September.
4) Two people are playing table tennis. An onlooker says "She will beat him in under an hour."
5) If you heat water, it will normally boil at 100 degrees Celsius.
6) If you shoot me, I will die or be seriously hurt.

1. Don't know who's there. Don't know what the future wants me to see. I guess it wants me to see the plumber.
2. I want to do it for you. 
3. They want to do it, don't they? 
4. That's what I think the future wants for her.
5. Water wants to do just this every time you provide proper conditions. (yes, water can't have any intentions, but centuries ago people not necessarily thought that way)
6. This one's particularly interesting. You use *will* here because to you it means FUTURE. If it meant _wish, want or desire_ you surely wouldn't be using it. How do you know that people used *will* like this when they still felt the real meaning of it? They could easily have come up with constructions like I'm sure to.. I'm bound to... etc.

+ Why do you use the word _surely_ if _will_ is so future-ultimate in such sentences?

If you shoot me, I *will surely* die. --> *will* itself is not a GUARANTEE for the event to occur? Is that why people use *surely* with *will*?

And have you thought about subject transfer? 

If you shoot me, that's what the future has in store for me (should the condition be fulfilled):
The future wants that I die. 

How do you explain the fact that *will* is not normally used in complex sentences in *time* and *if-clauses*?

I have no problem explaining that. When you say:

_I'll go fishing if the weather is good_ here's something for you:

1. What do I want to do?
2. What conditions do I need for doing this?

You use *will* in the main clause because that's where you say what you *want* to do. 

But not realizing that, coupled with being sure that *will* means *future* leads to sentences like number 6.
My question is: (again)

Would you still use *will* in sentence number 6 if it were obvious that *will* means *want*?
Am I suggesting that from now on everyone should say *I'm bound to*... instead of I *will* ...
Well, I don't need to. People are using alternative expressions already and so they have been throughout centuries. 



> I *will* refrain from telling you exactly what I think, even though I *do not want* to.



My *intention is* to refrain from telling you ... even though I *don't like* it

Yes, *want* sometimes means *like*. It's just the case here. So, it's no use showing a sentence, where you contrast
(in terms of meaning) the verb *will *against the verb *like* meaning they don't mean the same. Of course they don't.
And talking about competence... only too often does this word mean: I know better. 

Knowing and understanding are not the same things, though.

You know that *will* is not normally used in if-clauses.
I understand why.


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## timpeac

Marcin - I'm not really sure of what you're talking about there - but if you're now saying that using the auxiliary "will" doesn't necessarily mean "want" then I agree. Being willing isn't the same as wanting.

Back to the original question - I find the second "will" strange because, although it may be true that the person is willing to come, this is not the condition I need fulfilled for me myself to be willing to go. I simply want them to come, not necessarily be willing to come.

In "*I'll* go to the cinema tonight, if *you'll *come with me." this suggests that I am willing to go to the cinema tonight if you are willing to come with me. Although I'm sure we'd all prefer our companion to be doing something willingly really we mean "I'm willing to go to the cinema if you come with me", and so I think "I'll go to the cinema tonight if you come with me" is better. After all, your companion might be more than willing to come but be unable to because of a prior engagement, in which case the condition I need met has not be fulfilled and I would not be willing to go.

It's what I would instinctively say anyway - I had to stop and think about what it was that I didn't like about that second "will" here so may be overthinking it.


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## brian

Marcin, correct me if I'm wrong, but now you're talking about the _future_ "wanting" such-and-such to occur, as opposed to just the speaker of a sentence?



marcin k said:


> Have you ever thought *why* and *how* dummy subjects came about? People started using _it_ just for fun?
> 
> Here goes the sentence:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It will be impossible to find a parking spot.
> 
> 
> 
> It is used here exactly to tell you that it's not for:
> a. you to decide
> b. the parking spot to decide
> 
> Do I need to go on?
Click to expand...


Yes. I don't understand your point. Where is the "wanting" here? Are you really arguing that the _future_ "wants" us not to find a parking spot? That's a very vague argument and has little to do with "wanting" in the original sense that you argued, i.e. _someone will_ = _someone wants_.

Plus, would a sentence like _I will go shopping tomorrow_ mean that I want to go shopping, or that the future wants me to, or both?

It seems to me you're just invoking some personifiable "future"-thing capable of "wanting" just to give some tenability to your _will = want_ argument. You could do the same thing with the past tense and say _did / <verb>-ed = wanted_, e.g. _I went shopping = I wanted to go shopping_, _It was impossible to finding a parking spot = The "past" didn't want us to find a parking spot_, etc.



marcin k said:


> Let's look at the following:
> 
> A. Why are you learning Portuguese?
> B. I want to go to Brazil some day... OR.... I will go to Brazil some day.
> 
> Do you still think that WILL is stronger than WANT?



Yes, absolutely.



marcin k said:


> Next thing:
> 
> If I tell you: I don't want to buy this book...
> What's your guess about me performing or not performing the action? How do you know?



Depends completely on the context. If you're taking a course in Biology and have to buy a $170 textbook, and you utter this sentence, then it means, "I don't want to spend so much money on this book...but I have to, and so I will."



marcin k said:


> 6) If you shoot me, I will die or be seriously hurt.
> [...]
> 6. This one's particularly interesting. You use *will* here because to you it means FUTURE. If it meant _wish, want or desire_ you surely wouldn't be using it. How do you know that people used *will* like this when they still felt the real meaning of it? They could easily have come up with constructions like I'm sure to.. I'm bound to... etc.



That's not the point. You're arguing that _will_ STILL has this "want" meaning in present-day English, aren't you? It doesn't matter whether people centuries ago would have used _will_ here; it matters only that WE use it, and yet it does not (cannot!) mean "want" here.



marcin k said:


> If you shoot me, that's what the future has in store for me (should the condition be fulfilled):
> The future wants that I die.



I think your theory is running away from you. What makes a theory good is that it's falsifiable - it can be tested. Yours cannot, so it's not a good theory.

Why can't it be tested? Because it's not logically possible to find a future sentence _X will Y_ such that you cannot say, "The future wants that _X Y_." And non-falsifiability does NOT imply correctness of a theory.


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## Andygc

The future wants something to happen? Something which does not exist has wishes and desires?



> You know that *will* is not normally used in if-clauses.


On the contrary, it is, as in the example that started this thread. 

timpeac might not favour it, but it is, for many native English speakers, perfectly normal to say "I will do X if you will do Y", albeit normally elided to "I'll do X if you'll do Y". I do not perceive its meaning in the way that timpeac does.


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## timpeac

Andygc said:


> timpeac might not favour it, but it is, for many native English speakers, perfectly normal to say "I will do X if you will do Y", albeit normally elided to "I'll do X if you'll do Y". I do not perceive its meaning in the way that timpeac does.


I wonder if this might be linked by the tendency I think I've heard in American English to say "I would go to the cinema if you would come with me" where the usual British English form would be "I would go to the cinema if you came with me", the syntactic form of one influencing the other.


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## Andygc

timpeac said:


> I wonder if this might be linked by the tendency I think I've heard in American English to say "I would go to the cinema if you would come with me" where the usual British English form would be "I would go to the cinema if you came with me", the syntactic form of one influencing the other.


Interesting thought, but if I said "I would" I'm pretty sure that the sentence would be "I'd go to the cinema if you came with me".


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## brian

The _if...would, (then)...would_ construction is nowadays pretty common in AmE, though I myself never use it. I'd definitely say, _I'd go... if you came..._

However, as I mentioned with _if...will, (then)...will_ above, adding an intensifier like _just_ changes things: _I'd go to the opera with if you would just come to one football match with me._

(_I would go to the cinema if you would just come with me_ is not possible unless for some reason the speaker simply cannot go to the cinema without being accompanied by that person, for whatever reason. A better sentence might be: _I would go the doctor if you would just come with me (e.g. because I'm scared/nervous)._)


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## panjandrum

Referring to post #42.
I don't believe I have ever read such an exhausting analysis prepared with such commitment by a non-native speaker determined to convince native speakers of the error of their ways.  Good luck, marcin, and may you one day find the Holy Grail.


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