What is the difference between will and shall in English?
Let’s look at how to use shall in modern English.
Shall can sometimes be used instead of will, and you will often see it in classic literature. However, people are using it less and less, especially in American English. In American English, it is mainly used in legal language.
In British English, shall is still fairly common in first-person (I/we) questions for:
- making offers:
– Shall I make some coffee?
– Shall we take you to the station? - making suggestions:
– Shall I show her the report?
– Shall we go there on Monday? - asking for decisions/suggestions:
– I’ve lost my passport. What shall I do? ( = What do you suggest?)
– Where shall we meet?
For the above, speakers of American English would typically replace shall with should.
❗For these types of questions, the meaning changes if you use will. If you use will, you are simply asking about a future event — you are not offering or suggesting something.
For example: Will we go there on Monday?
= Is the plan to go there on Monday?
There are a few other situations in which people still sometimes use shall. In these cases, you can usually replace it with will without changing the meaning. However, shall sounds much more formal and is uncommon in everyday English. These situations are:
- promises:
– I shall always remember your kindness.
– You shall receive your payment tomorrow. - formal obligations:
– The witness shall appear in court on 17 May.
– Employees shall wear a safety helmet at all times. - future events:
– We shall hear the results tomorrow.
– The President shall begin his speech at 11 am.
Note: The contraction of shall is also ‘ll. The negative form of shall is shall not (short form: shan’t). For example: I shan’t be late.