Question

Look at this cartoon which shows the difference in the use of present continuous tense and will to express the future.

It’s Mohit’s birthday on January 2nd.

Answer 1

The cartoon shows two different ways of talking about the future:

• On December 26, the boy says, “I think I’ll buy him a Hindi dictionary.”
  Here, will is used because he is thinking about or deciding what to buy.
• On January 1, he says, “I’m giving him a dictionary.”
  Here, the present continuous is used because the plan has already been decided and arranged.