Polite English: Modals for Advice – SHOULD, MUST, HAVE TO…

Hello, and welcome back to engVid. My name is Benjamin. Now, I'm sure in your working

life, working in English, you will have to ask people to do things. But how we do that

is very important, because people can get upset if we say it in too direct a way. Now,

in English, we use the imperative very rarely. For example, "Do this", "Fetch me this", "Complete

this". It comes across as being very abrupt, so we need to speak in a more subtle way.

When you need someone to do something, you will typically use modal verbs. And in this

lesson, I'm going to show you how to give advice, ask for advice, and a couple of other

functions, by using modals. So, good if you're working in English, but also general knowledge

of English, it's good to be able to use modal verbs.

Okay. So, first of all, we use "should" and "shouldn't have" when we want to ask for and

give advice. Some example sentences. "You should RSVP to Sheila ASAP." So, a couple

of acronyms. "Respondez si vous plaît", it's French for "send a reply". "As soon as possible".

"You should RSVP to Sheila as soon as possible." Yep. Like, you need to do this. I'm recommending

that you reply to Sheila prontissimo.

Should I wear a tie? Should I wear a tie? Here, I'm asking for advice. What's your opinion?

Tie or no tie? Giving advice. "You shouldn't be late for..." Let's practice pronouncing.

"You shouldn't be late for..." "Shouldn't be late for" means don't be late. Don't be

late for the meeting. You shouldn't be late for the engagement, meaning some kind of event,

something in your calendar.

Asking for advice. "Shouldn't I check that with the manager?" "Shouldn't I check that

with Brenda?" Okay, so asking for advice. "Shouldn't I do this?" Do-do-do-do-do. Okay. Now, often

"should" follows on from "think". "I think you should". So, to answer this question about

the tie, I think you should wear a tie. I was asked for advice here. "Shouldn't I check

that with the manager?" "I think you probably should check that with the manager." So I

can put an adverb in here. "I think you should", "I think you should", or I could have the

adverb here, "definitely check that with the manager." "I think you should probably", or

"I think you should definitely". Okay? Two different adverbial placements.

Just as a side note, "shouldn't have" can also express gratitude in a social context.

So, someone gives me a very generous tip on the website, and I say, "Oh, you shouldn't

have", "too kind", "you shouldn't have". Okay? But that's a different function altogether.

Right, if the advice is a little bit more urgent, a little bit more vital, then we use

"must" or "mustn't". Can we just pronounce that? "Mustn't", "mustn't". So the "t" is

practically silent. "Mustn't", "mustn't". "You must finish the report by 5pm." Bam. No questions.

The guy or the lady has to do it. "You must finish the report by". If it's something that

must be avoided, that is essential that we avoid this happening, "We mustn't lose this

contract. It's so important." Yep. "We must not", something that it would be really terrible

for it to happen. If I'm speaking to my son, "You mustn't eat", or "You mustn't grab so

and so's cake. You mustn't help yourself." Naughty. So, "You must not do that. That's

a bad thing to do." We can use "must" to express polite enthusiasm. For example, "We must go

out soon. We must grab a coffee soon. We must spend a weekend together. We must go and see

David soon. We must", you know, a polite kind of suggestion. You're not saying, "We are

definitely going to do this." You're saying, "It's an idea. We could do it. We must."

Now, "mustn't" expresses something that would be really, really bad to do. I've kind of

just touched on this with the example with my son eating cakes that are not his. "You

must not do this until", so I'm giving an order. "You must not open your presents until

Christmas Day. Do not do this. You mustn't help yourself to things in the fridge. No

ice cream for you." Okay. I've got a couple more functions for you.

Now, if we say "have to", then it's talking about something we need to do because of some

outside authority to do with, like, a rule or a law, something we have no choice about.

For example, "You have to apply for a visa before you get to the airport." "You have

to make sure that on your driving license your address is up to date." Sorry, I've got

a very itchy nose. "You have to submit your tax return by the 31st of January." Something

like that. Okay? So, "have to" is when we are discussing or making comment about outside

authority or rule. No choice about the matter.

Okay, just to illustrate how the negatives are used, we've already touched on "mustn't".

Yeah, "You mustn't do that, you naughty little boy." Yep. So, "mustn't" is talking about

a bad idea. "You mustn't eat inside." Yep, "mustn't". Whereas, "haven't got to" is quite

different. So, we'd use "haven't got to" if there's no particular rush. Yeah, you haven't

got to do anything, don't worry. You haven't got to get there until 7pm, and it's 5 o'clock

now, so there's no rush. You haven't got to do it until next week sometime.

Shall I tell you something you have got to do that you must do right now without fail?

Okay, well, there's a number of things. First of all, you need to make sure that you're

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If not, ask. Secondly, this has been a short but productive session where we've gone over

quite a lot of content, so a very good idea for you to reinforce that learning and revise

it is by doing the quiz on the engVid website, okay? So, I should do that if I were you.

And thirdly, if you want any more help with your English from me, then I do have a website

which is honeyourenglish.com or hoonyourenglish, so two different interpretations there. And

what I offer is help on your spoken and written English should you require it, so check that

out, and I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson. Thank you very much for watching.