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gerardM a écrit:Hi Muriel,

MurielB a écrit:... will we be young for ever ?

As you know, languages evolve.

I began to learn British English (very long ago - I learned British English from the age of 10 till 53 then American English).
Decades ago, they taught we had to say: "I shall, you will, he will, we shall, you will, they will" (affirmative form).
Then, they taught to use "will" for all of the persons in the affirmative form.
Around 2000, a Brit taught me that at the interrogative form, we had to say "Shall we..." and not "Will we...".

I tend to forget about British English to move to American but some automatisms stay though sometimes I realize Britich E. moves toward American E.
I don't know what a Brits would say but I startled reading your sentence

Hi Gérard
you are right languages are evolving and different from when we have started learning them.  Will is now plain future for all the persons. (Shall  used to be used with first person instead of will , but  is not used much any more)
Look what I have found in Wikipedia "shall indicates an order, command or prophecy: Cinderella, you shall go to the ball! It is often used in writing laws and specifications: Those convicted of violating this law shall be imprisoned for a term of not less than three years; The electronics assembly shall be able to operate within a normal temperature range.
Shall is sometimes used in questions (in the first, or possibly third, person) to ask for advice or confirmation of a suggestion: Shall I read now?; What shall we wear?"
Thank you again for making us revise our grammar.

Hi Muriel,

> Will is now plain future for all the persons.
This is true for affirmative forms, did you find anything for the interrogative form?
As I told you, a British taught me around 2000 that in questions, shall had to be used for the 1st persons of singular and plural. I especially remember exercises on "question-tags" and the patterns were: "I won't go to Paris next week, shall I?"
That means this "shall" for the interrogative form at the 1st persons was the rule in 2000... things might have changed since then. I remember senior British people complaining about changes in their language and especially the adoption of the American grammar.

The lines about "shall" in your last post speak about shall as a proper verb and not an auxiliary: it's a different case.

As you know, I shall means "je dois" and "you will" means "tu veux".
I often write about respect and consideration for others in the English language: in the above example of shall and will, we have to point out the fact that "I" (shall) leads to more duties and "you" (will) leads to more rights - isn't it nice?

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