Modals for Suggestions and Advice

Modals for Suggestions

To make suggestion in English, we use the verb: shall.

Shall we go out tonight?

Let’s go out tonight.

Let’s is a form of shall. It is less formal than shall.

To answer these questions we can say:

Positive: Negative:

Sounds great. Actually, I don’t really fancy that.

Why not? Actually, I’m tied up. Sorry.

To give advice, we use the verbs: could, should, ought to and had better.

Ought (not) to and had better (not) are not modal verbs.

When we use could, it is similar to a suggestion:

A: I’m going to London. Can you give me some recommendations?

B: You could go to The British Museum

When we use should, ought to and had better, it is similar to saying: this is the best thing to do.

Had better is stronger than should and ought to.

The table below shows how to use should:

Yes/No Question	Should I stop smoking?
Yes/no Answer	Yes, you should. No, you shouldn’t.
Question word question	What should I do?
Positive Response	I should stop smoking.
Negative Response	I shouldn’t smoke.

Ought to and had better work differently to should.

We usually only use ought to in positive sentences.

I ought to stop smoking.

We usually only use had better in positive and negative sentences.

I had better stop smoking. I had better not smoke.

If we want to make questions with ought to and had better, we say something like:

Do you think I ought to +verb? Do you think I had better + verb?

Past form of Should

To talk about something that was a good idea, but we didn’t do and now regret, we use: should have + past participle.

I should have gone to bed earlier. (Now I’m tired and I regret it)

To talk about something that wasn’t a good idea, but we did it and now we regret it, we use: shouldn’t have + past participle.

I shouldn’t have gone to bed so late. (Now I’m tired and I regret it)

Click on the links below to learn more about modal verbs