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These will be arriving with us in the next week and will be our last releases this year.

Does "will be arriving" imply that he has "no power" on the sending of the releases, I mean the sending of the releases does not depend on the writer (he is not sending the releases)

I saw this example:

John won't be driving to work any more after his arrest for being drunk at the wheel.

I was told that future continuous can be used in this example because it does not depend on John. It is not his own will like in my example :it does not depend on the writer 's will .

Do you think this was the reason for choosing future continuous in my example?

If it was him that was going to send the releases could the writer use "are arriving" because he could predict with "more precisions" when the releases should be arriving.

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  • Is that a written sentence or something from a taping? Also, what do you mean by releases? Movies or permissions? Please always provide context.
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 18:44
  • written sentence releases means in this textvinyl records
    – Yves Lefol
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 19:45
  • textvinyl records?? Please explain that.
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 19:46
  • oh sorry I've a mistake it is a written sentence . This text is about vinyl records
    – Yves Lefol
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 19:48

1 Answer 1

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The writer does use future continuous.

Mostly this is a stylistic choice, "These will arrive next week..." and "These are arriving next week..." would mean basically the same.

The choice to use a future continuous may be because the speaker views the arrival as a process that will take some time. They might expect the releases (books? records?) to arrive over several days.

In any case the speaker has no control over when the releases arrive. The speaker says nothing about sending them, so you can't assume anything about what or when the speaker will send the releases. But you might suppose that they will start sending as soon as the releases start arriving, or they might wait until they have all arrived. Sending is under their control.

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  • but "are arriving" is also considered as a process that will take some time . So as the delivery will take some time it is better to use future continuous. If the delivery was the same day or a day after the sending would present continous be more adapted to this new context
    – Yves Lefol
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 10:09
  • There is quite a bit of free choice for the speaker here. Using "are arriving" would suggest this will happen tomorrow following a timetable or schedule. The speaker could correctly have chosen any of the many ways English has for talking about the future.
    – James K
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 10:47
  • by the way in the sentence " In any case the speaker has no control over when the releases arrive" does when mean "considering that ". I was surprised that you don't use the future because it is not a time clause such as " as soon as l get your email, I will phone you" .
    – Yves Lefol
    Commented Dec 4, 2022 at 14:11

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