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Recently, I have come across the phrase "gonna go".

What is the difference between all these sentences?

I am gonna go get some ice cream.
I am going to go get some ice cream.
I am going to get some ice cream.

Are they all same or is there any difference?

What does the sentence "I am gonna go .... " mean? Does this give a future feeling like “I will get some ice cream tomorrow” or “I am going to (on the way) get ice cream”?

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  • An interesting fact: changing going to to gonna only happens when going to means "will". We don't say "I'm gonna the store", or "Gonna the store will take me half an hour."
    – stangdon
    Apr 22, 2021 at 20:31

2 Answers 2

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Gonna is an extremely common and normal, but degraded, pronunciation of "going to." So the first two sentences are identical except for pronunciation. The third sentence is also correct, but omitting "go" reduces the emphasis of going (somewhere) to get the ice cream.

The pronunciation "gonna" is so widespread that it has found its way into informal written English, as in chat messages. But it isn't actually a word and should never be used in any kind of formal writing.

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  • "I am going to go..." is future tense and means you will go at some time in the future. How far in the future is not specified: it could be in 5 minutes or 5 years.
    – TypeIA
    Apr 22, 2021 at 18:54
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"Gonna go" is a dialectical way of saying "going to go." It means exactly the same thing, the only difference is in the pronunciation/elocution. It would not be used in formal written English, but it may be written that way to convey the informality of a conversation.

"Going to" means almost the same thing as "going to go" in this context. "Going to go" implies a farther distance (e.g. out of the house) compared to simply "going to" (perhaps only as far as the freezer).

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  • @Aarsh, there is a sense of futurity but the time frame meant depends on context.
    – randomhead
    Apr 22, 2021 at 19:11

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