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Le futur proche — Your Easiest Route to the Future Time Frame
🔮 Le futur proche — Your Easiest Route to the Future Time Frame
The near future is the single most powerful structure for unlocking the future time frame in your AQA writing and speaking tasks. The formula is simple: present tense of aller + any infinitive. You already know aller; you already know infinitives. Put them together and you can express anything planned or certain about the future — the 90-word task's third time frame, achieved in three words.
Formation du futur proche
Structure: aller (present) + infinitive
Earn the mark scheme marks
💡 Exam Tips & Common Errors
- In the 90-word writing task: use je vais + infinitif to lock in the future time frame — it is safer than the inflectional future at Foundation.
- In speaking (photo card or conversation), adding one near future sentence about plans shows tense range without risk.
- The infinitive never changes — it stays in its dictionary form: je vais manger, tu vas manger, il va manger.
- With time markers, the near future is unmistakeable: Demain, je vais… — the examiner scores the future frame immediately.
❌ Common error: Je vais à manger une pizza.
✓ Correct: Je vais manger une pizza.
Why it costs marks: There is NO preposition between aller and the infinitive in the near future. Adding à transforms the sentence into "I am going to [a place called] eat" — which is meaningless. This error suggests confusion between aller à (to go to a place) and the near-future structure. It costs AO3 accuracy marks.