I just listened to a video in which the speaker said "I'm going to be talking about....". Can we change that to "I'm going to talk about..."?
-
1Why do you want to change what was said?– Matt E. ЭлленCommented May 10, 2012 at 9:34
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
The sentence
[1.] "I'm going to be talking about...."
has a different meaning from
[2.] "I'm going to talk about..."
[1] and [2] differ in aspect (i.e. the internal temporal structure of the event). In [1] the speaker is focussing on the talking as an ongoing (continuous) event, whereas in [2] the focus is on the talking as a single, whole event.
Both forms are correct, and refer to the event in different ways. You could change from one to the other but you'd be talking in a slightly different way about the event.
-
Good! Glad to see somebody actually knows what they’re talking about around here.– tchrist ♦Commented May 10, 2012 at 15:06
-
1In most cases, the difference between the two meanings is probably irrelevant. Commented May 10, 2012 at 15:14
-
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 True, but we don't know what the case is here. Commented May 11, 2012 at 1:17
The sentence in its current form conveys "My current state is such that I have not yet talked about [the topic] but can be expected to do so."
I'd suggest "I will talk about...".
answered May 10, 2012 at 13:33
