Is 'Next time' correctly used?

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Jack was going to the shopping centre with his mother. At the traffic lights he dashed across the road without waiting for his mother to cross. He was almost knocked down by a car.

His mother advised him, "Next time make sure there are no approaching vehicles before you cross the road."

1. Is 'next time' correctly used? I believe it should be "In future".

2. Is the underlined sentence natural?

Thanks.

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@tanguatlay,

1. Yes. In future/in the future sounds more formal/higher register/more strident

2. Yes. OR

Next time make sure there are no cars before you cross the road.

Next time make sure there are no cars before you dart out across the road.

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@tanguatlay,

"Next time [you start to cross the road]" is more immediate and urgent. The mother is not issuing a vague suggestion that sometime in the future the boy may wish to consider checking the road for approaching vehicles. She is telling him to start doing this immediately, the very next time he needs to cross a road.

The underlined sentence is perfectly natural. "In future" is OK I suppose, but there is no reason to remove "next time".

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@contrex,

Quote:

The mother is not issuing a vague suggestion that sometime in the future the boy may wish to consider checking the road for approaching vehicles. She is telling him to start doing this immediately, the very next time he needs to cross a road.

I disagree. 'in future/in the future' does not suggest a vague distant time in the future. It says the same thing as "starting this moment and continuing on".

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/future_1
in future mainly UK (US usually in the future)
used at the beginning or end of a sentence in which there is a decision about a plan of action or a warning

Could you be more careful in future?
In future I won't bother asking him out anywhere if he's just going to complain that he's bored!
In future I'm going to check every single piece of work that you do!

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@JTT,

JTT wrote:

2. Yes. OR
Next time make sure there are no cars before you cross the road.

Next time make sure there are no cars before you dart out across the road.

Thanks, JTT.

Why is 'no cars' used? There are, besides motor cars, buses, lorries, pick-up trucks, motorcycles and bicycles on the road.

1 Reply

@tanguatlay,

'cars' is used as a general warning and also, this choice of words reflects the situation for North American suburbs, the streets where a lot of kids play are relatively quiet residential streets.

I can't be sure what parents who lived on major roads said to their kids.

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@JTT,

JTT wrote:

'cars' is used as a general warning and also, this choice of words reflects the situation for North American suburbs, the streets where a lot of kids play are relatively quiet residential streets.

I can't be sure what parents who lived on major roads said to their kids.

Thanks for the clarification, JTT.

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Is 'Next time' correctly used?

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