Name: 925 English Lesson 22 - How to Make a Request in English | Learn Business English with 925 English
Uploaded: 2026-01-14T17:05:55.000Z
Duration: 8 min 37 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Present continuous

You're learning with nine to five English Business English for the workplace.

Hi, Tim, here with another 9 to 5 English lesson.

To-infinitive

In today's lesson, we're going to learn how to make requests in English.

There's a reason why making requests is one of the first things English speaking parents teach their children.

It's because we can't get along in life, and

that includes work without asking people to give us things or to do things for us.

In some situations, our requests can can be quite direct.

For example, with people you know well or colleagues, you don't need to be too formal.

In this case, you can make a question with can you?

That's a simple and direct way to ask someone to do something.

How about a bit of practice making direct requests?

Listen to each example, then repeat it yourself.

Take this down to the printer for me, please.

As you heard, one very easy way to make a direct request is is to tell someone to do something followed by please.

That's all right when you have a close working relationship with someone or when you are the boss.

But that can sound too direct in many situations.

If you're not sure, then you should really try to be more careful or polite.

And being polite requires more than just adding please to the end of a sentence.

The two most useful words for making careful requests are could and would.

But using a longer expression will make your request even more polite.

That might mean saying, do you think you could do something?

Or even would it be possible to do something?

Let's try some practice with these expressions for making careful requests.

Once again, repeat the examples after you hear them.

Do you think you could give me a hand with this?

Would you mind passing me those files, please?

If you're not too busy, could you look over my resume?

Would it be possible for you to give me a ride?

And did you notice the if question in those examples?

Adding an if statement can make a question with could you extra polite?

For example, you might say, if you have a bit of time, could you review my report?

Now what if someone makes that request to you?

If a colleague asks you to review his report, how can you respond?

Well, just like responding to offers, it's not usually enough just to say yes or no.

We usually add something to the basic answer.

If you want to say yes, you might add no problem, or I can do that.

And if the answer is no, you might explain why you can't or say that you're afraid you can't.

In this case, saying I'm afraid doesn't mean you're scared, it just means I'm sorry.

This time you'll be responding to requests.

Did you notice that none of those examples used the words yes or no?

And instead of no, which can sound too direct, we can use sorry or nothing at all.

Ok, so we've practiced making and responding to requests.

But now let's see how this sounds in our conversation.

Let's listen to a short dialogue between Paul and Laura.

Paul needs some help with the accounts he's working on, so he's asking Laura to help him.

Do you think you could help me with the accounts?

As you heard, Laura says no to Paul's first request, but she agrees to his second one.

We'll repeat the dialog, but this time we're going to beep out the second speaker's words.

You will have to say those parts yourself.

Remember to say no to the first request, but agree to the second one.

For this lesson, we've learned some great ways to make and respond to requests.

We'll be back soon with another 9 to 5 English lesson.