Giving Advice Should, Ought to, Had Better

Giving Advice Giving Advice Patient: I feel so tired all the time. I can’t breathe and I have a terrible cough. Doctor: You should exercise more. You shouldn’t smoke. You ought to take your medicine. You had better lose weight. You’d better not eat fast food. Patient: That is very difficult to do. Doctor: Well, perhaps you should think about getting a new doctor. Patient: I feel so tired all the time. I can’t breathe and I have a terrible cough. Doctor: You should exercise more. You shouldn’t smoke. You ought to take your medicine. You had better lose weight. You’d better not eat fast food. Patient: That is very difficult to do. Doctor: Well, perhaps you should think about getting a new doctor.

Should and Ought to You should get more exercise Use should and ought to give advice. You should get more exercise You ought to take your medicine.

Had Better You had better lose weight. You’d better lose weight. Use had better for strong advice. We usually use a contraction with had better. You had better lose weight. You’d better lose weight. You’d better not eat fast food.

Had Better- BE CAREFUL! You’d better take the bus now. Had better always talks about the present or the future, never about the past. You’d better study tomorrow.

Questions Use should for questions. We don’t usually use ought to or had better in questions. Should I go to the doctor? Where should I go?

Polite Advice To give polite advice, you can use maybe, perhaps, or I think…. Perhaps you ought to eat more fruit. Maybe you should stop giving me advice.

Pronunciation Ought to is usually pronounced as… “Oughta”