1. Giving Advice
Should, Ought to, Had Better

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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?

7. 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.

8. Pronunciation
Ought to is usually pronounced as…
“Oughta”