Paco travels to Southeast Asia: Planning next few days in Southeast Asia

Introduction
The revision of future tenses will be one of the main points to be treated in this topic. We will deal here with the form and uses of the will future, the be going to future and other tenses we use to express future such as the present continuous, the future perfect or the future perfect continuous.

 

Besides we will pay attention to the linguistic function of expressing condition studying the different types of conditional clauses as well as the revision of some forms, mainly the perfect infinitive, of modal verbs quite useful for this function and conjunctions such as, provided that or unless. Finally you will learn some special cases in conditionals like inversions.

Icono IDevice Reading activity

As you will have read in the starting story, Paco has just flown from India to Karachi (Pakistan). From there he is going to travel to Saigon, the capital city of the former South Vietnam. He has booked a connecting flight. It's two o'clock in the morning and the plane is taking off at 5.30 A.M. So, he has enough time to plan his travel along the Southeast coast of Asia...

sala de espera
By Vmzp85 Creative Commons

Paco is sitting comfortably and he is reading a health notice about H1N1 flu he has been given at the passport control. Although he is healthy, he thinks: 'Buff, what would have happened if I had felt some of these symptoms during my journey?...Uh I will stop reading this, I would rather read this magazine about Pakistan...'.

First he reads an article about the Pakistan women national cricket team and about their good results recently. This strikes Paco because he knows that in this country sexual discrimination is rather common.

Second, he reads a report about how the World will be in the 22nd century, he is astonished with sentences like this: 'unless we reduce pollution to a minimum, half the species living in our planet will disappear in the next few years'. He feels rather distressed about what he is reading and besides he is beginning to nod off, so he closes the magazine.

But this pleasant moment is broken by the ringing of his mobile; 'Oh my God', he mutters angrily, 'it's Laura, She will have come back home from Portugal'. He answers:

Paco: Hello, girl. How are you?

Laura: Hi boy, is it you? You are speaking English! Incredible!

Paco: Yeah! I have learnt a lot.

Laura: It's great! Quickly because the battery is low, we are going to buy tickets for the Sudoeste festival in Portugal, would you like to come?

Paco: I don't know, if I came back home in time, I would surely go.

Laura: Ok, we will buy the ticket for you anyway.

Paco: I will call you in some days and tell you, I promise.

Laura: Uh, I hope so. Are you going to visit Vietnam? My friend....

Paco: Oh, we are cut off!


Read the text carefully paying attention to the tenses used. If you need any help, have a look at Click here.

In this topic, your main aim is to identify and recognize the expressions we use for the future (will future, going to future, present continuous for future, future perfect), and the different types of conditionals.

 




Self-Evaluation Exercise
After reading the previous passage decide if these questions or sentences are true or false:


Paco is not impressed after reading the article about female cricket at all.

Verdadero Falso


What he reads in the article about the future disappoints him.

Verdadero Falso


Laura calls Paco to propose him a plan for the future.

Verdadero Falso


If Laura hadn't called him, Paco would have continued reading the magazine.

Verdadero Falso
Icono IDevice Curiosity

Thanks to the influence of the British, cricket is one of the most popular sports in Pakistan. It was not until July 28, 1952 that Pakistan started playing test match cricket. Pakistan has become one of the most challenging and unpredictable teams in the world, the team won the 1992 World Cup and were runners up in the 1999 World Cup. The country has produced several world-class players like Shahid Khan.

 


In the next three sections we are going to work on future tenses, the first one corresponding to the will future, let´s go there!!!