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I'm not sure if it's the right word, but I feel like the Present Simple is sometimes used as a 'condition'. For example:

If you do that, this will happen.

I'll call you when I arrive.

Clean your room before you go out.

Questions:

  1. Is it possible to use 'will' in this kind of clauses? For example:

If you will do that, ...

... when I will arrive.

... before you will go out.

  1. If it's not possible, why not?
  2. If it's possible, how do the meanings differ?
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    It is not idiomatic English to use will here (except that "If you will do that..." could mean "If you are determined to do that".
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 20, 2022 at 9:54
  • Thanks. Do you mean it's not common but possible to use in some cases? I could come up with an example: I'll call you when I'll do it. (meaning I'll call you when I'm determined to do it.) Do you think this makes sense?
    – catwith
    Commented Jan 20, 2022 at 12:40
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    Sorry, but it doesn't. I meant that the example I gave is the only context in which this construction is possible. You would have to say "...when I've made up my mind to do it".
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jan 20, 2022 at 12:50
  • @Akira, what is your native language? Does it use the future tense in constructions like this? I am curious because none of Spanish, German, or French uses the future tense in sentences like these, but maybe some languages do.
    – stangdon
    Commented Jan 20, 2022 at 16:12
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    @stangdon My native language is Japanese. Apparently Japanese doesn't have the future tense according to Google. I knew this usage of will is not common but simply I was curious about whether there is any usage of it and what does it sound like to native speakers.
    – catwith
    Commented Jan 21, 2022 at 12:00

1 Answer 1

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We don't use will in any of your examples, partly because we don't use the future tense in the if-clause or when-clause of conditional sentences, and partly because of how we think and talk about time in English. Remember that technically we don't have a future tense in English! - rather, we have a construction that we use to talk about the future. (If you want to be picky, we don't have an inflected future tense, like we do for the past.)

This is a very common error by English learners, and I think the best way I can explain to think about it is this:
I will call you when... = I will call you at the time that...
And at that time my arriving is in the present, not the future. I can say "I will arrive" right now, because my arriving is in the future now, but at the time I arrive it is not the future, but the present.

SImilar logic applies for "Clean your room before you go out." Right now, you will go out some time in the future, but when that moment arrives, it is no longer the future but the present. Saying "before you will..." is like saying "before it is in the future", which doesn't make any sense.

Reference: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/conditional-sentences/

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  • Maybe lack of Future tense and volitional meaning of "will/would" is the cause why I haven't succeeded in finding sympathy at the native speakers on using "would+Past Participle" to assume/presume that smth. existed/was pulled through in the past/the time before. Nevertheless I frequently tumble onto it on the media. For example: an archeologist was putting about the details of excavations in Egypt saying: "We have found these remnants of ancient building. They would have belonged to a stall". The lesser volitional meaning of "would" is close to "assumption/presumption". Isn't it?
    – Eugene
    Commented Jan 20, 2022 at 21:12
  • Thanks for your nice answer and link. It's interesting and informative to hear what the expression sounds like to a native speaker. '"Saying "before you will..." is like saying "before it is in the future".'
    – catwith
    Commented Jan 21, 2022 at 12:07
  • @Eugene: that is the epistemic sense of would. All modals have both deontic and epistemic senses, even will.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Jan 21, 2022 at 23:28

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