Offering to do something in English

Hey ABA English learners!

Have you ever thought about how to offer to do things for others in English? What’s the best way to say the offer? Should you be polite or casual about it? Fear not! Today we are going to look at different ways in which we can offer to do things for others in both polite and casual forms.

Let’s be polite about it

When dealing with people who we are not familiar with or do not know, it is always best to be as polite and respectful as we can. This goes for offering to do something for them too.-

Like many times when we are polite, we often use the conditional and here is no exception.

Examples:

Would you like me to do…?

Would you care for me to do…?

In addition to the conditional we can also use “shall” to be very polite.

Examples:

Shall I do…?

Shall we do… ?

It is worth paying attention to the fact that shall is associated with the first person singular and plural but not very common nowadays.

What about the casual way of offering?

The casual way of offering to do something for someone is much more informal than if we were to use the conditional. In this instance it is very common to use interrogative in the present simple tense with the verb “to want”.

Examples:

Do you want me to do…?

Do you want us to do…?

This style of offering to do something for someone is more common among friends and family and would most likely not be attributed to a situation in which customers are being dealt with.

Is there anything to bear in mind?

Like most grammar points, this should be learn little by little as learning too much at once can be overwhelming. Like other similar topics- start off by learning a polite and casual way and then from there you can start to implement them in relevant situations.

The more that you use these in your everyday English, the more confident you will become using them. If you would like more handy hints and tips on this grammar point, sign up for free to ABA English and check out unit 45

Good luck!