不久的将来
Bùjiǔ de jiānglái — The Near Future
Grade 4 taught students to talk about what already happened. This unit gives them the other direction — what’s going to happen, what they intend to do, and what they think will probably be true.
Two words, two kinds of future
我明天要去公园。 I’m going to the park tomorrow. 要 = intention, a plan
明天会下雨。 It will rain tomorrow. 会 = prediction, likelihood
Note that 会 is doing a second job here — in Grade 3 it meant “know how to.” Same character, and context separates them without difficulty.
Unit objectives
- State a plan using 要
- Make a prediction using 会
- Use future time expressions in the right position
- Describe their weekend plans in five sentences
Key vocabulary
将来 要 会 明年 下个星期 以后 打算 希望 计划 可能
What happens next
Future time words
Tomorrow, next week, next year — and where they sit in the sentence, which is the same place as always.
I’m going to…
要 for plans. Each student states three real things they intend to do this week.
It will probably…
会 for predictions, practised by forecasting the weather and next week’s events.
My weekend plan
Five written sentences about the coming weekend, then compared with what actually happened on Monday.
Time as a vertical thing
Chinese uses the same characters for time as for physical position, and they run the opposite way to the English metaphor. 上 — up, or above — means last: 上个星期 is last week. 下 — down — means next: 下个星期 is next week. So the past is above you and the future below, like reading down a column of text. Students who notice this stop having to memorise which is which.
Unit 6 progress check
A light, no-pressure way to see what’s sticking:
- Can your child say three things they plan to do?
- Do they use 要 for plans and 会 for predictions?
- Do they know that 下 means next, not last?
With Grade 4’s 了 and this unit together, students can now place an action anywhere in time. That’s the whole system.