General English Level 5 GELEV5 Unit 05 Topic 02.doc  LANGUAGE FOCUS 05 Speculating about the future What do you think will happen in the future? Are you sure? Lee and Jenny say: Lee: I wonder when the first commercial flight will be? Jenny: Mm, probably not before this baby is born, but I expect it won't be much longer. Lee doesn't know what will happen, and he asks Jenny what she thinks will happen. Jenny doesn't know for sure, so she speculates - she thinks about it and imagines what might happen. When we want to speculate about the future, we can use these expressions: probably, I'm not sure, I expect, I think, maybe. Example Layla and Jenny say: Layla: What kind of musical equipment do you think we will have in the future? Jenny: I'm sure it will be small and wireless. We'll probably download music over the airways into our watches. When we want to listen, we'll maybe transmit to a small microchip behind our ears! Look When we want to ask someone what they think about the future, we can say: I wonder what will happen? What do you think will happen? When we speculate about the future, we use these expressions: 164 QUESTLANGUAGE