Friends - Present Continuous to talk about future

When you listen to “Present continuous” you think about an action that it’s happening at the moment, right? Because it’s present continuous, right? So we can use it just to talk about the present, right??? WRONG!!!

Pay attention to the following scene from the sitcom Friends:

Right at the beginning, at 0:11, Joey says:

“My character is coming out of his coma!”

But he means that this fact is going to happen in the next chapters of the soap opera “Days of our lives”, not at that exactly minute.

Do you think this is weird? I KNOW!! (*read it with Monica’s voice, please).

However, Present Continuous can refer to the future, to express prearranged plans and events and to show that we have already decided something. At 0:17 and 0:29 of the video, Joey says, respectively:

“I’m getting a new brain.”

“Her brain is being transplanted into my body.”

Again, he uses the verbal tense to express a fact that it’s going to happen in the future. Monica does the same, at 0:50, when she asks:

“Who are they killing off?”

But be careful: we use Present Continuous just to express arranged events. To predict something, use will, and to talk about plans which haven’t been arranged, use going to. 

 “It will snow.” 

 “I’m not sure, but I think I’m going to the theater later.”

Let's practice?
You can download an exercise (with answer key) by clicking here.