Expressing future options

Question

In the text the English phrase "It is going to be great" is rendered in the proximate future as "ça va être sympa".

I understand why this is correct, but I'm wondering would French people ever use the simple future tense here instead? Something like "ça sera sympa"?

Thanks,

Stuart

Answer

Salut Stuart !As far as I know, le futur proche is: 1. more commonly used in spoken French, 2. used when something is almost certainly going to happen soon. Le futur simple, on the other hand, is on a much larger scale, planned but vague whether it will happen or not (Ex: Un jour, je serai riche; or a child saying what he/she will be when older: Quand je serai grand, je serai professeur).Another use of le futur simple would be hypothetical situations, like if it rains tomorrow, I will stay home (S'il pleut demain, je resterai à la maison).So they say ça va être sympa because it is happening very soon and they are almost certain that they will have a good time.I hope this explanation helps!Bonne continuation !