Talking about favours
(Answers to the exercise)

1. I wonder if you'd mind doing me a small favour and taking the dog for a walk.


2. I need to ask you a favour. Could you mind the baby for half an hour while I go out?


3. You couldn't do me a favour and record the football match for me, could you?


4. I have a small favour to ask you. Could you lend me 10,000 yen until tomorrow. I've forgotten my wallet.

Comments


In the exercise we can see various polite phrases we might use to ask somebody for a favour. These include:


I wonder if you'd mind doing me a favour.
You couldn't do me a favour, could you?



I need to ask you a favour.
I have a small favour to ask you.
Do you mind if I ask you a favour?


In particular, notice the "You couldn't ______, could you?" structure. Tags like these were the focus of 2 other recent lessons:


isn't it?..., can you?..., don't you? (Questions tags and information tags)
Everybody does, don't they? (More about tags)

We hope you've enjoyed this week's one-point lesson and found it useful. Remember that there are plenty of other lessons available on this site. Please click on this link:
Bob's One-Point Weekly Lesson Archive if you want to try some of them.

© Robert E. Jones, 2006 (revised, 2008)