Scribd
Upload
851 views2 pages

4 Ways to Give Advice in English

This document provides instructions on how to give advice in English using different grammatical structures. It outlines four main ways: using modal verbs like "should" and "ought to"; making suggestions into questions; putting yourself in the other person's shoes; and directly making a suggestion or recommendation. Examples are given for each method, such as "You should do more exercise" and "Why don't you do some more exercise?" The purpose is to choose the most appropriate structure depending on how direct or indirect you want the advice to be.

Uploaded by

Johanna Arias
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
851 views2 pages

4 Ways to Give Advice in English

This document provides instructions on how to give advice in English using different grammatical structures. It outlines four main ways: using modal verbs like "should" and "ought to"; making suggestions into questions; putting yourself in the other person's shoes; and directly making a suggestion or recommendation. Examples are given for each method, such as "You should do more exercise" and "Why don't you do some more exercise?" The purpose is to choose the most appropriate structure depending on how direct or indirect you want the advice to be.

Uploaded by

Johanna Arias
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Giving advice

In this page you will find some resources to learn how to give advice in English.
GIVING ADVICE
There are several ways to do it and each uses a slightly sentence structure. So,
how do we choose which one to use? Find out with these four simple ways to
give advice in English.
Use a modal verb
There are two modal verbs we often use for giving advice: should and ought
to. Both mean the same thing but work in slightly different ways. Lets look at
some examples.
You should do more exercise.
You shouldnt drink so much beer.
As you can see above, after should we use an infinitive without to.
You ought to do more exercise.
You ought not to drink so much beer.
Unlike should, we always use to in ought to for giving advice.
Make it into a question
To make advice less direct, we can use a question to make the person we are
advising consider about the advice we are giving them.
Why dont you do some more exercise?
How about doing some more exercise?
With the question Why dont you? we use an infinitive without to. When we
use How about? to make a question, we use a gerund after it.
Put yourself in the persons position
If someone is asking for your advice, sometimes its useful to imagine yourself
being in that persons position. This is a good way to explain your advice, too.
If I were you, I would do more exercise.
Remember to use an infinitive after would and not to. To make this negative,
put not after would.
Make a suggestion
A suggestion or recommendation is another good way of giving advice that
isnt to direct. You can use the words suggest or recommend as in the
example below.
I would suggest doing more exercise.
I would recommend doing more exercise.
Use verb+ing after suggest or recommend to explain your advice to the
listener. To make these negative, put not before your verb+ing.
(Taken from: http://www.englishtown.com/blog/5-simple-ways-give-advice-
english/)
NOTE:
If you noticed, some of the structures reviewed here have already been cover
in class. We are just "recycling" some of the structures to apply them to advice.
Now, let's do some practice.
Listening
Listen to George giving some advice about how to break with somebody. Do
you agree?
Go to the forum and discuss this with your partners. Now follow the link and
complete the Vocabulary and Comprehension activities.
http://www.elllo.org/english/0951/T988-George-BreakUp.htm (If the link doesn't
work, copy-paste it in your browser.)
GRAMMAR PRACTICE
https://elt.oup.com/student/americanenglishfile/2/a_grammar/file06/grammar0
6_d01?cc=co&selLanguage=enTake the quiz in the same module about how to
give advice.

You might also like