A while ago I was talking to a Taiwanese student and he said 'I'll leave it for my future self to handle'. We talked for a while about this, I loved the idea but couldn't think about how to say this in English.

In the end I've had to accept that we just don't have anything like this in English. Instead, today I'll share with you lots of different common phrases we do use to talk about the future. I hope you find them useful.

And one bonus phrase is 'Don't your chickens'. The full phrase is 'don't count your chickens before the eggs have hatched'. It means don't get excited about a future that hasn't arrived yet. I'm starting to realise that English people are quite pessimistic...perhaps it's all the rain!

Blog entry:

Saving money for the future:

Take care of the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. - take care of the small things, or don't forget to save small change.

Save for a rainy day - save for the bad times.

When we're resigned to the future, we accept that we have no control over it. We might say:

What will be will be

Tomorrow is another day

Only time will tell

All of these mean 'we just have to wait and see what happens, there's nothing else I can do.'

Americans say, 'I'll have to take a rain check.' We don't have this in the UK. It means 'I need to reschedule.'

One of the commenters on YouTube told me this idiom originally came from a real check, or slip of paper that you would receive if an event was postponed because of rain. It meant your ticket would still be valid in the future.

Sometimes we're predicting or expecting something from the future:

It's a sign of things to come. - an ominous announcement that what is happening now is an indication of what will happen later

I think you're getting ahead of yourself - you're getting too excited about something in the future and it might not happen, so you should calm down and manage your expectations.

I'm counting the days until Christmas - You're looking forward to something

Bonus: I think we're jumping the gun - idiom that means the same as 'getting ahead of yourself'.

Something you do now will have an impact on the future:

You reap what you sow

What goes around comes around

Karma's a bitch!

All of these means that if you do something bad now something bad will come back to you later.

Vocabulary

encompasses - to include or be related to

the first thing that struck me about this - idiom meaning 'that was interesting to me' or 'that I noticed' about this thing

explicitly - in detail and clearly

We're just resigned to the future - to be resigned to something means you don't think you can change it. It's going to happen no matter what.

this one hasn't caught on - phrasal verb meaning something hasn't become popular

ominous - something that suggests bad things are going to happen in the future

manage their expectations - to reduce someone's expectations and make them more realistic

in true Christian fashion - 'in true ___ fashion' is a phrase that can be applied to a person or thing that suggests that is the most normal thing for them or the most likely way we can expect them to behave.

neutrality - something is neither good or bad or you are on nobody's side

cynicism - a negativity or pessimism about everything

project us into the future - project means to push something forward, usually an image