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Most—maybe all—English-Japanese dictionaries gloss the future tense "will" and "be going to" as …だろう or …でしょう. This is extremely misleading, as it suggests a tentativeness that the English future tense does not have. This misunderstanding persists in phrase and sentence examples, as shown by the following from three different dictionaries:

The party will be postponed if it rains tomorrow.
あす雨ならパーティーは延期されるだろう。

the shit hit [is going to hit, will hit] the fan
〔卑〕大変面倒なことになった［なるだろう］

By the time you have washed and dressed, breakfast will be ready.
顔を洗って着替えたころには朝食の用意ができるでしょう。

This persistent mistranslation is the equivalent of teaching the pronunciation of the English voiced and unvoiced /th/ sounds using サ行 katakana—it forces an English category into an inappropriate Japanese category and thereby sows error and confusion.

(February 13, 2003)