Hey, I'm Annemarie with
Speak Confident English. This is exactly where you want to be
every week to get the confidence you want for your life and work in
English. A few weeks ago, I shared a lesson on how to use
advanced English sentence structures to talk about your future hopes
without using the word hope. One way to do that is with the sentence
starter: I should think that... If you want to get more about that lesson, I'll definitely include a link to
it below this video in the notes, but it was incredible to see
all the example responses and comments that you and others in
the Confident English community shared. So today we're going to continue
building on your knowledge of how to expertly use that word should in English. If you think back to when you
first began to study English, you might remember lessons on modals. Modals are those words
like could, should, might, would may shall. Do you
remember all of those? Very rarely do lessons spend
the appropriate amount of time to truly understand
how we use those words, all the different ways that
we use modals in English. If you've been following me for a while, you know that I love to take one
specific topic and dive deep so that you have the know how to
confidently use advanced level vocabulary, grammar, and
sentence structures. In fact, I have a similar lesson
on five expert ways to use could in English. And again, I'll leave a link to that lesson
below this video in the notes, but today we're going to focus
on that word should, should, can be used for giving advice,
offering recommendations, talking about obligations or
duty sharing probability and expectations. And finally, we can also use should
to express regrets or admonishment. It's amazing that one little word
can be used in so many ways in our communication. Should, is definitely a powerful word and
an important one to know how to use well. And that's exactly what you're going to
do today with five expert ways on how to use should in English. Not only
are you going to get clear, easy to follow examples of
how to use should in giving advice, recommendations, talking
about obligations and so on, but you're also going to learn exactly
how to structure your sentences. So that grammatically everything you say, whether you're talking about the
past present or future is correct when you're using the word should, and you can do it with a
hundred percent confidence, All right, let's get started right away with some
common sentences we would use for all of those communication purposes. Again,
giving advice, recommendations, talking about obligations,
expectations, or probability, and sharing regrets about
the past to do that. I'm going to give you five
sentences and I want you to see, can you identify what
that sentence is doing? Sentence number one, when
you're in Washington, DC, you should definitely visit
the National Art Gallery. What do you think? What am I doing in
that sentence? When you're in Washington, DC, you should definitely visit
the National Art Gallery. If you're thinking it's a
recommendation or even advice, you're absolutely right. I'm assuming that sometime in the future, you might visit Washington
DC. And if you do, my recommendation is you should definitely
include the National Art Gallery on that list. Now, in a moment, we're going to talk a little bit
more about what key words are telling you that it's a
recommendation, but for now, let's try our second example sentence. I really should get started with
work at 7:00 AM tomorrow morning, I have so much to do what do you think? What am I doing in that sentence? Again, our options are giving a
recommendation, giving advice, talking about obligation
or duty expressing probability or future expectations
or sharing regrets about the past. What do you think I really
should get started with work at 7:00 AM tomorrow morning,
because I have so much to do. In that sentence, I'm absolutely
talking about my obligation, my duty at work. It isn't necessarily
something I must do or need to do, but it is important. It's something that I should prioritize. So let's pause here for a moment. What is something that you should
really do this week or this month? Is there some obligation or duty
that you have that is important? Try using the same sentence structure
and share an example with me in the comments below example,
sentence number three. Let's see. It's 3:00 PM. Their plane should have taken off by now. What do you think? What am I doing
in that sentence? Giving advice, giving recommendations, talking about expectations
or probability regrets. If you're thinking the probability
or how likely it is that their plane has taken off. You're exactly right. This is all about
probability or expectations. Let's go on to number four
on weekends. If you can, you should definitely focus
more on spending time with
your family and enjoying your hobbies as opposed to working. What do you think this
one is back to that idea of giving a recommendation
or advice, and finally, example number five, he really should have
gone to the doctor sooner. What do you think? What am I
expressing in that sentence? He should have gone to the doctor sooner. I'm definitely expressing or
sharing some regret about something in the past. That sentence tells me that he
waited too long to go to the doctor. And as a result, maybe his symptoms are worse
or he suffering more because he didn't go sooner. Now that we have these five examples
and we've seen how we can use should to give advice, recommendations,
talk about obligations, probability, and regret. Let's look more closely at
the structure that we use, whether we want to use should for
a past focused sentence present or future. Now, before we dive in here, I want to highlight that modals
can be used for the present past and future, but they are irregular. They don't behave or
act like regular verbs, such as want or complete. And that's exactly why we're
focusing on structure in this lesson. Let's start with the present. This is
a structure that we can use. Typically, when we want to talk about a
present expectation or probability giving advice and
offering recommendations, we can do this using both positive and
negative forms and the structure is fairly simple. We use should plus the
base form of a verb. Let's look at some examples to
see that structure in action. They should be home by now. So we have that structure should
be we're using should plus the base form of the verb. Here's
another example. Generally speaking, everyone should eat more
vegetables and fresh fruit. Again, we're using that present
focused structure should eat. And those words, generally speaking, indicate that I'm talking about a
general truth or giving some kind of advice. And finally, let's look at
an example using the negative form. She should not leave her job
until she has another offer. Before we move on to focus on the past, I want you to pause for a moment and try
using this structure in one of your own example sentences. You can use a sentence that
gives advice or a recommendation. You can talk about a current
expectation or probability, or you could try another example talking
about an obligation or duty that you have. The key here is following that
structure of using should plus the base form of the verb. After
you've got your example, you can share it with me and the entire
Confident English community in the comments below the video. And now
let's take a look at the past. This one gets a little complicated and
here's where we're really going to work on advanced level grammar and structures. If we're going to focus on the past, we use should have plus
the past participle or third form of the verb,
that is a lot of jargon. So let's talk about what I
mean by past participle to do that. Let's think back
to earlier in this lesson, I talked about the regular
verbs want and complete, and I want you to jog your memory. What that means is to go
back far in your memory. Think back to when you first
began learning English, you probably studied some verb
charts and you had charts like want, wanted, wanted. Complete,
completed, completed. Call called called. And those are all pretty easy because
the second and third form end with ed, but then we have irregular verbs, eat ate eaten. Drink, drank drunk. Do you remember memorizing
all those verbs? This is when that's going
to become very helpful. And the examples that we're going to
look at, we're going to use should have, plus that third form of
the verb. For example, sentence, number one, he should have gone to the doctor sooner. I have that should have
plus the third form of go: go, went gone. He should have gone to the doctor
sooner. And if you recall here, I'm expressing some
regret with this example, we could also use the verbal wait. He shouldn't have waited so
long to go to the doctor. Let's look at another example. I know we should have gone to the
National Art Gallery when we were in DC last summer, but we ran out of time. I'm using those words last summer. Those are key words that I'm talking
about the past it's finished and I'm some regret about
something we didn't do. Is there anything that you should
have done on a past vacation, but maybe you ran out of time
or the weather was bad and you couldn't do it. If so, I want you to share your example with
me and use this structure should have plus the third form of the verb
in an example sentence below. Let's look at one more example, she should have spent more
time thinking about the pros and cons before making her decision.
So what do you think happened? Did she spend the right amount of
time thinking about the pros and cons? What is this sentence saying? It's definitely expressing some
kind of regret or admonishment. The reality is she didn't spend
enough time thinking about the pros and cons as a result.
Maybe she made a bad choice. She should have spent more
time thinking about the pros and cons. And now
let's talk about the future. Just like with the present we use
should plus the base form of the verb. That means we have to look at other
words in the sentence to have a clear idea, whether we're talking
about the future or the present. So let's look at some
examples. Number one, we should hear from them
next week in this sentence, I have two key words that tell
me I'm talking about the future. Those words are next week. I could also use something like we
should hear from them by tomorrow in both of those examples, I'm talking about a future
expectation that I have example, number two,
next time you're in DC. You should go to the National Art Gallery. Here the key words that give this sentence a future focus are next time. Next time, sometime in the future, when you have the opportunity
to visit DC again, you should visit the National Art Gallery. I know I'm totally obsessed
with the National Art Gallery, but it really is an
amazing museum. All right, now that you know how to use should
to give advice recommendations, talk about obligations and
duty express probability or expectations and share regret. Plus you have the correct structures
to use. If you haven't yet, I want you to practice. If
you're struggling with examples, here are three specific things I
want you to try to do using should in English. Number one,
give me a recommendation. Imagine someone is going to visit
your home country or your home city. What should someone definitely make for, or do if they visit your home country? The second thing that I want
you to do is to share an expectation. Think about the next year, what is one expectation that you have? What is something that
should happen next year? And finally, the third thing I want you to do with
this lesson today is to try sharing some kind of past regret or admonishment. Is there something that you or
maybe a friend of yours should have done differently when
you were younger .now in those three examples I'm asking
you to use should in the present, past, and future, just as we
talked about in this lesson. If you found today's Confident
English lesson helpful to you, I would love to know. And you can
tell me in three very simple ways. Number one, give this lesson a
thumbs up on YouTube. Number two, share your comments below
the video. And number three, be sure to subscribe to
the Speak Confident English
YouTube channel so you never miss one of my Confident
English lessons as always. Thank you so much for joining me. And
I look forward to seeing you next time.
