CEFR B1-B2 · 5 min
I served thousands of guests at The Ivy and Establishment in Sydney. The guests who said ‘Do you want to bring the bill?’ got one kind of response. The guests who said ‘Would you mind bringing the bill when you have a moment?’ got a different energy in return. Same meaning. Completely different social effect. Politeness in English is a precision tool.
Today's focus: Polite requests, offers and suggestions using modal verbs
Politeness ladder (from most to least direct):
- ‘Give me…’ — very direct (can sound rude)
- ‘Can you…?’ — neutral/informal
- ‘Could you…?’ — more polite
- ‘Would you mind…?’ — quite polite
- ‘I was wondering if you could…’ — very polite/formal
Offers: ‘Shall I…?’ / ‘Would you like me to…?’ / ‘Can I get you…?’
Suggestions: ‘Why don’t we…?’ / ‘How about…?’ / ‘What if we…?’
Examples in context
Try it — click to reveal the answer
▶ Rank from most to least polite: (a) ‘Can you help?’ (b) ‘Help me.’ (c) ‘I was wondering if you might be able to help.’
Longer requests with indirect structures signal more politeness. Direct is not wrong — it depends on the relationship and situation.
▶ ‘Would you mind opening the window?’ — does the answer ‘No’ mean yes or no?
‘Would you mind…?’ asks ‘Is this a problem?’ So ‘No’ = ‘No problem’ = they will do it.
▶ Make this more polite: ‘Tell me the price.’
Add ‘could/would’ and a question structure to soften any request.
In professional English: the longer and more indirect the request, the more polite it sounds. ‘I was wondering if you could…’ is not weak — it is skilled.
Independent project; not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Confers no qualification. Cambridge CELTA course completed — 120 supervised teaching hours and four written assignments validated to the required standard.