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I keep noticing that native speakers often times use present tense when, to my mind, they should use future:

If you go straight, you (will) see a building.
I can (will be able to) give you $5 tomorrow.
I (will) start looking for a job and see what (will) happens.

Why present, not future?

Incerteza
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  • In the last sentence, it's start that ought to be future, not happen. The future is expressed with the present tense in all Germanic languages, including English. That's not strange, it's just part of how the language works. The more marked periphrastic future construction is often possible, but not always. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Mar 23 '15 at 13:17
  • I'm sure there must be a duplicate. There are strongly-linked questions at least. – Andrew Leach Mar 23 '15 at 13:56
  • It's as if words like 'tomorrow' take us into a future context from which we are able to use the present tense. – Alan Gee Mar 23 '15 at 14:00

1 Answers1

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For the first sentence, which is correct, this is called tense simplification in subordinate. See Swan, Practical English Usage or this famous paper.

In the conditional subordinate

future --> present

will go --> go

Marius Hancu
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