When should I use "shall" versus "will"?

Which is the correct use of these two words, and in which context should one be used rather than the other?

Solution 1:

Here is a good description of when to use shall:

...shall is used for the future tense with the first-person pronouns I and We: I shall, we shall. Will is used with the first-person (again, I refer to traditional usage) only when we wish to express determination. The opposite is true for the second-person (you) and third-person (he, she, it, they) pronouns: Will is used in the future tense, and shall is used only when we wish to express determination or to emphasize certainty.

However, growing up as a native American speaker in Colorado, I never used "shall" in normal speech. However, I believe in questions it has become more common, e.g. Shall we go? but an American native speaker saying e.g. "I shall do that for you" will almost always sound affected or connote a Shakespearean context. I often have wondered in which parts of the world (England?) and which social echelons using "shall" in statements is actually still practiced by native speakers.

Solution 2:

Don't forget that 'shall' at the start of a question is used to make a suggestion:

Shall we play tennis?

But 'will' at the start of a question does not have the same meaning:

Will we play tennis?

Solution 3:

The note about the usage of shall in the New Oxford American Dictionary is the following:

There is considerable confusion about when to use shall and will.

The traditional rule in standard English is that shall is used with first person pronouns (I and we) to form the future tense, while will is used with second and third persons (you, he, she, it, they): I shall be late; she will not be there.

When expressing a strong determination to do something, the traditional rule is that will is used with the first person, and shall with the second and third persons: I will not tolerate this; you shall go to school.

In practice, however, shall and will are today used more or less interchangeably in statements (although not in questions). Given that the forms are frequently contracted (we'll, she'll, etc.), there is often no need to make a choice between shall and will, another factor no doubt instrumental in weakening the distinction. In modern English, the interchangeable use of shall and will is an acceptable part of standard U.S. and British English.

When I started my classes on British English, I was taught that I shall go home was the future tense of I go home; asking to a person living in the east coast of the USA, I learned that I shall be late (or I shall return) has a slightly different meaning from I will be late (or I will return), at least in some contexts.

Solution 4:

"Shall" originally indicated owing to do something. "Will" originally, and sometimes still, indicates a desire to do something. Eventually, they both came to indicate the future, but "will" usurped the place of "shall," at least in my part of Virginia. As far as I can tell, "'ll" has since taken the place of will. :)

EDIT: Should have included a link or two to begin with, not to mention double-checked my answer. Whoops, sorry.

Etymology of "will": http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=will

And as opposed to "shall": http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=shall

Solution 5:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shall_and_will

Shall and will are both modal verbs in English used to express propositions about the future. According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, In modern English the interchangeable use of shall and will is an acceptable part of standard British and US English.