Learn to give indirect instructions in English
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| Do you know how to give indirect instructions in English? |
| Hi, my name is Alisha, and this is Three Step English by EnglishClass101.com. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn "how to give indirect instructions in English" through a quick conversation. |
| Let's look at the dialogue. |
| As you listen, pay attention to how they ask about the topic and how the other person responds. |
| Okay, everyone, I got us a taxi. |
| Jack, this cab can’t take more than four people. |
| Okay, let’s split up, then. I’ll also let Tess know to meet us at the next place. |
| Where are we going, again? |
| Tell the driver to go to 10,000 Lanes. |
| 10,000 Lanes... Is he even going to know how to get there? |
| Ask him to take you to Times Square. We can walk from there. |
| Let's go over the dialogue again, more slowly this time. |
| Okay, everyone, I got us a taxi. |
| Jack, this cab can’t take more than four people. |
| Okay, let’s split up, then. I’ll also let Tess know to meet us at the next place. |
| Where are we going, again? |
| Tell the driver to go to 10,000 Lanes. |
| 10,000 Lanes... Is he even going to know how to get there? |
| Ask him to take you to Times Square. We can walk from there. |
| Let's focus on the key part of the conversation. |
| Here, the first person… |
| Is giving this person… |
| Indirect instructions for the taxi driver. He says "Tell the driver to go to 10,000 Lanes." |
| This is considered indirect because he is not directly telling the taxi driver what to do. Instead, he is giving his friend instructions on what directions to give the taxi driver. |
| "Tell the driver…" is the instruction to his friend. The phrase that follows this is the instructions for the driver. "...to go to 10,000 Lanes." "To go" is the infinitive verb that shows what action the driver should take. |
| The second character says "10,000 Lanes... Is he even going to know how to get there?" She is not sure that the taxi driver will know how to get to a specific place, so she asks for different instructions to give him. |
| In response, the first character says "Ask him to take you to Times Square." This is another indirect instruction, where "Ask him…" is the instruction to his friend, and "to take you to Times Square" is the indirect instruction for the taxi driver. |
| Let's look at the sentence pattern. |
| This pattern is the structure that all of our examples will follow. |
| [Verb] [Object] [Infinitive Verb Phrase] |
| This pattern forms an indirect command. We use indirect commands to give instructions indirectly to another person. |
| We form an indirect command by using a verb with an indirect object, followed by an infinitive verb phrase. In our examples, the object is the person who will be getting the instructions. |
| Let’s see how a line from the dialogue follows this pattern. |
| "Ask him to take you to Times Square." |
| Here, "ask" is the verb with an indirect object, which is "him." Then, following that is "to take you to Times Square." This starts with the infinitive verb "to take," making it an infinitive verb phrase. |
| As you can see in this example, we used the pronoun "him" as the object. We can do this when the object is already established, or if it's obvious from context. If it's not clear what the object is, it might be better to use wording that's more clear. In this case that would be "the driver." |
| Now let's look at some speaking examples. |
| They asked us to leave the pizza parlor. |
| Can you see how the pattern applies here? |
| "Asked" is the verb, and "us" is the object. "To leave" starts the infinitive verb phrase. Adding "they" to the beginning of the sentence gives the context that this is actually an indirect instruction from someone that isn't the speaker. |
| Next... |
| Did you tell her to go to Times Square? |
| This is asking if someone actually told the object, "her," the indirect instruction that they were given. "Tell" is the verb, and "go to Times Square" is the infinitive verb phrase. |
| Let's try one more, |
| I’ll let Tess know to meet us at 10,000 Lanes. |
| Here, "let" is the verb, "Tess" is the object, and "to meet" starts off the infinitive verb phrase. |
| Another one. |
| Ask the waiter to bring more water. |
| "Ask" is the verb, "the waiter" is the object that will be asked something, and "to bring more water" is the infinitive verb phrase that shows what they will be asked. |
| One last example. |
| Get your brother to help you study. |
| "Get" is the verb, "your brother" is the object, and "to help you study" is the verb phrase. |
| Let's review. |
| Using the sentence pattern we learned, do you know how the words should be ordered? |
| My |
| My brother |
| My brother asked |
| My brother asked me |
| My brother asked me to |
| My brother asked me to give |
| My brother asked me to give you |
| My brother asked me to give you this. |
| My brother asked me to give you this. |
| Using the sentence pattern we learned, do you know how the words should be ordered? |
| Will |
| Will you |
| Will you remind |
| Will you remind everyone |
| Will you remind everyone to |
| Will you remind everyone to bring |
| Will you remind everyone to bring a |
| Will you remind everyone to bring a dish? |
| Will you remind everyone to bring a dish? |
| Thank you for watching. |
| Now you know how to give indirect instructions in English. |
| ...and now you can move on to the practice. |
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