"will" vs "Be going to"

[BenDover23]

I found this in an exercise :

Complete the sentences with the correct form of will or going to:

We've already made plans for the summer. We _____________ (spend) a week in France and the rest of the time at home.

My answer was "are going to spend", but the answer key says "'ll spend".

But when we are expressing a plan we use "be going to". See: http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/simplefuture.html

[Alan]

Hi,

That's a good question. 'Going to' often expresses inention and that could be just about acceptable in your sentence. 'Will spend' or here the contracted version 'We'll spend' suggests that this holiday is already planned and arranged. It's difficult to know in this context, I would say, which one to choose but the reference to 'We've already made plans' does suggest that 'We'll spend ..' is preferable.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
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[BenDover23]

[Sahid59]

....

Hi BenDover23..

From the web link in your post I understand that particular test is dealing with ' simple future tense ' So you have to use something which is related. If you use ' going to ' it may not indicate a future tense form.

Our master Mr. Alan has given his good explanation but I suppose he missed to look at this point.

.....
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Sahid59

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