doubt on 'going to go'

[vincent]

I teach EFL to young adults at a University in Brazil. The textbook is New Headway 3rd edition, whose authors say that 'come' and 'go' are not used in the 'going to' form. So I told a student that he'd better say 'Im going to a party tonight' instead of 'Im going to go to a party tonight'. But he replied saying that he has heard the latter many times in movies. Is it also correct? Or grammatically speaking wrong, but native speakers do say it, like 'me neither' and that kind of stuff?

[Jo]

It is absolutely correct and normal usage to use:
- going to come
- going to go

Here are a few example sentences:

- Are you going to come late again?
- The water's not going to come this way.

- I'm going to go as soon as Mary comes.
- We're going to go by train. (We're gonna go by train.)

Yes, sometimes the present continuous may be used instead, but not necessarily and certainly not always as it could change the sense.

More about going to.

[migarto]

This is a strange "rule" that I noticed once I started teaching English. I'm in Italy and we use primarily British English textbooks but I'm American and I always said/say "going to go" so I was kind of shocked when I read that this was apparently an "incorrect" usage. I'd like to know what the American English versions of the textbooks have to say. In the meantime, I tend to just go with what the textbooks I'm using have to say in order not to confuse students, but sometimes if they ask I point out that it's actually not an uncommon usage, at least in the U.S.

[matter]

@migarto - Thanks for your comment. I'm English and I assure you that in the appropriate context "going to come/go" is perfectly normal usage in British English too.

[Inglese]

This is an odd one. I disagree with the writer of Headway's personal sense of style and believe that going to go/come is acceptable.

[Alex Case]

I also think the authors have mis-stated it. I teach my students that "be going to go" can be simplified to "be going to" for the usual English reasons of not wanting to repeat words, similiar to how we rewrite sentences that have the same preposition twice in a row even when it's grammatically correct. I wouldn't stop students using "be going to go", but they need to understand that if someone says "I'm going to the park later" it could be Present Continuous or a simplification of going to, and therefore we don't necessarily understand whether it is a plan or an arrangement from what they have said.

[xiphiasatsi]

Sentences said in movies are sometimes slang or colloquial.Grammatically 'Im going to a party tonight' is correct.