the near future? or the near past

Question

I've read through alot of the Q&A below. I still dont get it. Why does the title of this lesson say that J'allais + infinitive expresses the near future. To me, and looking at the examples in english eg. she was going to call ...., is that not the recent past? Merci.

Maarten Kamp · Answer

Lynda,

I agree the heading could be clearer.

The lesson is about expressing something that was ‘ about to happen ‘ in the ‘near future’ of a reference time point in the past - the past time point may be explicit, or known in context.

The introductory sentence before the first examples describes it better

“ Look at these examples of Le Futur Proche dans le Passé, or how to say 'was/were going to' :”

The structure itself tells you nothing about how long ago the situation arose - it could have been 5 minutes ( or less) ago, 5 days, 5 years etc Again, that would either be added explicitly or known in context.

On its own, it doesn’t express absolutely whether the ‘ near future’ event being described occurred or not - another clarification that would be known in context, or confirmed if needed.