How to Make New Year’s Resolutions in English

A New Year’s Resolution is a promise that you make to yourself to start doing something good or stop doing something bad on the first day of the New Year.

In today’s blog we are looking at how you can make New Year’s Resolutions using the present and future tense in English. To get inspiration, we have asked some of our Kaplan team members for their suggestions!

Present Tense

When speaking about resolutions, a common verb to use is “to want” A want is a wish for something. If a person would like to have something, to do something or to be something, you use this verb in a sentence.

Examples:

“This year I want to start taking Yoga classes” – Hazel

“I want to start wearing better shirts to work!” – Rob

Future Tense

1)      New Year’s Resolutions are something that people want to carry out in the future. Therefore when speaking about them, we can use the Simple Future tense.

As we have seen previously in the blog, the Simple Future tense has two different forms in English: "will" and "be going to."

Examples:

 “This year I am going to eat healthier food” – Tatiana

“I will only keep nice chocolates in my draw at work and not the rubbish ones!” – Julia

2)      “Would like” lets someone know what you would be interested in doing. It is a good phrase to use when talking about resolutions.

Examples:

“I would like to spend more time going out with my friends and less time playing computer games”. – Chase

“This year I would like to learn 3 songs on the Ukulele” – SoYoung

Have you made any resolutions this year? Do you think you will stick to them?

Vocabulary
New Year's Resolution: a promise someone makes to themselves at the beginning of a new year
Inspiration:  taken from the verb "to inspire" which means to create great ideas
Present Tense: the verb tense expressing action in the present time 
Future Tense:  grammar form that describes something that has not happened yet, but expected to happen in the future