Shadowing Practice: Difference between "Ask", "Request" and "Question" | Learn English Grammar for Beginners - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hi everybody, my name is Alicia.

In this lesson, we're going to look at the three words ask, request, and question.

We're going to break down the different parts of speech and the different patterns we use when we use these words.

So, let's get started.

First, I want to talk about the word ask.

First, I want to look at the verb form of the word ask.

Most of the time when we say ask, we're using the verb form.

So, what does this mean?

To ask means to look for information.

So we use this word when we need to get information from someone.

We can also use ask to mean to make a request.

So you need someone to do something for you or you need someone to maybe make arrangements for you for something.

We can use it for requests as well.

So let's take a look at some example sentences

and then we'll talk about the basic patterns that we use with this verb.

Okay, let's take a look at the first example sentence.

The first example sentence is, I asked my friend to help me with my homework.

Here, we see the past tense form of the verb, asked.

After this is my friend.

So, in this sentence pattern, this is the person receiving the verb, the action of the verb.

So, the person doing it is I, me, and then the person receiving is my friend.

I asked my friend to help me.

So, in this case, we are making a request.

Let's look at the second example sentence.

He asked me for an update.

Again, we have the past tense form of the verb.

Here, the person doing the asking, the person acting is him, he, and the person receiving is me.

He asked me for an update.

So, in this case, we are looking for some information, right?

Or we are requesting information in this case.

So different up here, we saw request, or sorry, we saw a request for help in this case, or I asked my friend to help me.

So here we see an action.

Here we see information, information request.

Okay, next example sentence.

Let's ask the hotel staff for restaurant recommendations.

So, a suggestion here, let's ask the hotel staff for recommendations.

The verb here is just the base form, let's ask, right?

And the person or the people receiving the request are the hotel staff.

Again, we are looking for information here.

What do we want?

Restaurant recommendations.

Let's look at the last example sentence, and then we'll take a look at some grammar patterns we use here.

So, I asked for a raise last year.

I asked for a raise last year.

Again, past tense.

In this sentence, though, there's no person here, right?

We see I asked for a raise.

A raise means an increase in your pay, in the money you receive from your job, right?

So I asked for a raise last year.

Okay, so now that we've looked at these example sentences, let's take a look at the grammar patterns that we see here, because these are really important,

as you'll see later in the lesson, it's really important to know how to use these prepositions and the other words with the verb ask.

So the first pattern I want to look at is ask for noun phrase.

Ask for noun phrase.

We saw this in the last sentence here.

I asked for a raise, right?

So in this sentence, we are asking for information or we're looking, we're making a request from someone,

but we don't mention the target of the request.

We don't say, I asked my boss, or I asked my manager, or I asked the CEO, right?

We just want to note the topic, right?

The thing we requested, what we were looking for.

So we can do this with ask for noun phrase, yeah?

We could do the same thing with this sentence pattern as well.

Like, let's ask for restaurant recommendations.

We could remove this part here.

Let's ask for restaurant recommendation.

So we don't always have to make it clear who we want the information from.

We can do this with this pattern.

Ask for noun phrase.

The second pattern though uses a person.

So when you want to make it clear who you are talking to, who you have questions for, you can use this pattern for information.

When you want information, you can use ask person for noun phrase.

Ask person for noun phrase right here.

This preposition is very important.

So, let's ask the hotel staff for restaurant recommendations, right?

We are looking for information from a person or a group of people.

The second example sentence also does this.

He asked me for an update, right?

So, asked me, the person, for is the preposition here, and then our noun phrase is the update.

He asked me for an update.

So, this is when you want to get information from someone, okay?

The last pattern here is ask person to verb.

Ask person to verb this is

when you want to request someone do something you want someone to take an action of some kind

so ask person to verb we saw this in the first

example sentence I asked my friend to help me right I

asked my friend to help me in this case with my homework

so we see again the same pattern ask plus person However, our preposition here is to.

We cannot use for here.

I asked my friend for help me is totally incorrect.

Can't say that.

So, I asked my friend to help me.

If you want to use this pattern, use the verb ask to make a request for action,

please make sure to use the to preposition here and a verb.

Okay, great.

So, this is the verb ask.

Lastly, I want to make one more point about this word before we go to the next word in this lesson.

And that's about something that's kind of rare.

It's not super common.

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However, if you maybe talk to British English speakers, or maybe even in some kind of business or professional situations,

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you might hear ask used in the noun form sometimes too.

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But there's a very specific way that we use it as a noun.

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So as a noun, it means a request or a favor, but we tend to use it in situations where it's a big favor

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or a really big request or something kind of dramatic or extreme.

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So here's an example conversation of this use of ask as a noun.

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So person A might say, he told me he needs to borrow $10 ,000.

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A lot of money, right?

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And person B could respond, wow, that's a big ask.

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So ask in this way sounds like request.

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Wow, that's a big request.

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But ask tends to be used in this case.

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We don't really say, wow, that's a big request.

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We often will say, wow, that's a really big ask.

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I'm not sure about that.

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We tend to use it in situations like this where we're kind of surprised about how extreme

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or how large or how intense something is.

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So you may hear this from time to time especially in like movies

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and in media so please keep in mind this use is not super common

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but you might hear it from time to time okay great

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so this is how we use ask i want to compare this now to the verb request

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so let's take a look at the verb form of request

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and then we'll look at the noun form as well so verb to request to request means to ask for something.

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So there is some overlap, there are some similarities in how we use these two verbs, right?

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So let's take a look at the example sentences

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and then we'll look at the grammar patterns we use with this verb too.

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So first example sentence, we requested a table near a window for our dinner reservation.

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So we requested a table near a window, okay?

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Past tense here.

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And then after this is a table.

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We have this noun phrase after it.

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This is the thing we are asking for, right?

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So this is different from ask, right?

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We have this object we want after the verb, immediately after the verb, right?

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Okay, so let's look at the next example.

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She requested an afternoon appointment.

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She requested an afternoon appointment.

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Again, past tense she requested.

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And then we have our noun phrase here, an afternoon appointment.

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So what did she want?

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What did she ask for?

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An afternoon appointment.

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Okay.

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Finally, last example sentence here, the university requested our professor give a presentation.

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So in this sentence, again past tense, but here we have a person.

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The university requested our professor give a presentation.

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In this case, we are asking or requesting someone to do something.

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So you can probably see we can use the verb request in a very similar way to the verb ask, yeah?

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But we need to follow a few different grammar patterns to make these sentences correctly.

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So let's take a look at these and compare them to the patterns we used with ask.

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Okay, so the grammar patterns we see here are request plus noun phrase, right?

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Okay?

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So.. request a table.

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We requested a table near a window, right?

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So the noun phrase or just the noun in this case is directly after the verb.

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We see this in the second example too.

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She requested an afternoon appointment.

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So that's our noun phrase.

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It's directly after the verb here.

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Remember when we talked about this kind of pattern, when we talked about a noun phrase type pattern with ask,

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we use this for, ask for noun phrase, but we don't have this for here.

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We don't say requested for something.

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We just directly use the noun phrase after the verb.

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So not we requested for a table, incorrect.

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Or she requested for an appointment, no, incorrect.

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No for here.

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So this is one difference between request and ask.

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Second one then.

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The second pattern here is request plus person and verb.

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Request, person, verb.

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We see this in the third example sentence here, right?

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The university requested our professor give a presentation.

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So in this case, we are looking at a request, someone asking someone else to do something, right?

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So we have request, person, and verb.

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You'll notice in this pattern though, again, there's no preposition we saw over here in our action

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request pattern we had ask person to verb we don't have

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the preposition here right the university requested our professor to give

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a presentation we don't use to there you may sometimes see

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people using to in this position in kind of non -standard forms of english

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but generally we do not put a to here so

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if you want to use this pattern to talk about asking someone else to take action, you can use request, person, and verb, this pattern here.

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Okay, great.

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So next I want to take a look at the noun form of request.

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So a request as a noun is something asked for, right?

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Something we want, right?

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So let's look at some example sentences so you can see how this word changes, the grammatical structure of the sentence changes.

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So, I made a request for a new office chair.

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I made a request for a new office chair.

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So, we have request here as a noun.

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Yeah, I made a request.

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And we need to use a different verb when we want to use request as a noun.

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In this case, I have made.

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So, it's very common to say to make a request for something.

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Also, you'll notice for comes after the noun, a request for the thing you want, okay?

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Let's look at one more example of this.

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Her request for time off was approved.

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Her request for time off was approved.

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Again, this one is the noun form, her request.

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In this case, what did she ask for?

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Time off, right?

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So, this follows the preposition for,

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Okay, so some common patterns I want to point out with the noun form of request are to make a request.

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This is often the verb we use.

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I want to make a request for something.

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Or you might also hear in more casual situations or in like work or school situations, to put in a request for something.

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This is used like in this situation, like when you want a new something at work or you want to get time off, that kind of thing.

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You might also hear to submit a request for something as well.

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Generally, I think the make a request pattern is probably the most common one here.

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But please note, we always use for after this to describe the thing that we want, that we're looking for.

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Okay, great.

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So with ask and request in our minds, let's move on to the third word for this lesson, which is quite different from the first two.

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So the last word is question, question.

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So we can use question as a verb and as a noun.

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So I want to start by talking about the verb form

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because it has some very different meanings from the ones we've talked about so far in this lesson.

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So there are two I want to focus on today.

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First is to ask about something.

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So when we question someone, we ask someone questions about something, okay?

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So this might sound a little bit confusing, like why do you, aren't you saying the same thing twice, right?

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But kind of a feeling when we use question as a verb, it's kind of like saying we're asking someone many questions about something.

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We're asking a lot of things, but we only have to use one verb to express that.

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So this might be confusing, so let's look at the example.

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Here, the police questioned the suspect about the robbery.

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The police questioned the suspect about the robbery.

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So suspect, the suspect means someone that.. the police thinks did a crime, okay?

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They did something bad.

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So it's not confirmed, but they think this person might be the bad guy or bad girl.

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So the police questioned, past tense here, questioned the suspect.

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So questioned the person about the topic, the robbery in this case.

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So we have questioned here.

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The use of this verb makes it sound like the police asked a lot of things, but we use only one, right?

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Questioned means they asked many, many questions, not just one.

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So this is the purpose.

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This is the usefulness of the verb question.

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Let's look at one more example.

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The CEO was questioned about the company scandal.

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The CEO was questioned about the company scandal.

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Here we have a passive sentence structure, right?

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Who questioned the CEO?

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We don't know or it's not important.

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We want to focus on the situation with the CEO.

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So the CEO was questioned about plus the topic of the question.

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So about the company scandal.

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So this is one way that we use the verb to question.

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It means to ask many, many things.

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Okay.

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Though the second one, the second use of the verb question is quite different.

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We can use to question to mean to doubt something when we're not sure about something, or when we maybe feel like something isn't right,

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we can use to question to express that.

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So let's look at these examples.

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I question your reasons for quitting your job.

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I question your reasons for quitting your job.

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This means like, I doubt your reasons for quitting your job, or your reasons for quitting your job are not clear to me, they don't make sense to me.

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We use the verb question to express this uncertainty, to express this doubt.

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One more example sentence.

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Sometimes our team questions our manager's judgment.

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Sometimes our team questions our manager's judgment.

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So your manager's judgment.

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Judgment means the ability to make good decisions.

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Yeah.

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So sometimes our team questions our manager's judgment.

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Means sometimes our group, our work group, doesn't really think that our manager has a good sense of how to make good decisions.

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So this use of question is quite different from the first use of question, but they're both very commonly used.

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The first one tends to be used more in news articles, like I talked about crime -related topics or scandal -related topics,

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something that like an official group, like the police or an investigative group, they need to ask someone a lot of questions about something, in those kinds of news articles,

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this use of the verb is very common.

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This one, when we use it to talk about doubt, it might be more in interpersonal situations, like kind of dramatic or extreme life situations, perhaps, too.

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Okay, so last, let's take a look at the grammar patterns that we see here, and then we'll finish up with a very, very easy point, maybe that most people are comfortable with.

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So let's look at the grammar patterns we use with the verb forms of question here

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so first is question person about topic question person about topic we see this pattern in these two example sentences

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so when we want to ask many questions to someone

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so we ask a lot of questions about a specific topic

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we use this pattern to do it question the person and sometimes we don't include this part about topic.

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So in this sentence, for example, the police questioned the suspect.

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In some cases, when the situation is clear, like we know there was a robbery or whatever, if you're reading a news article, sometimes you just see this sentence,

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the police questioned the suspect.

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So maybe we already know it's about the robbery.

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So sometimes we don't include the topic if we understand it from the situation.

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But if you want to include that, to be clear, you say about and the topic.

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So about the robbery, about the noun phrase, whatever it is.

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Okay, the second pattern that we see is just question and noun phrase.

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So that's used in this situation when we want to express our doubt about something.

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Question plus noun phrase.

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In this situation, in this sentence, we see I question your reasons.

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So your reasons is the noun phrase.

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So I doubt your reasons.

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In the second example, our team questions our manager's judgment.

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Our manager's judgment is the noun phrase here.

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So this is the pattern that we use to express doubt.

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Okay, great.

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So with all of this in mind, let's go to the very last point for this lesson.

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A very easy refresher that we use question as a noun.

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This is the most common way that we use question as a noun so it means

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inquiry so

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when we want to know something we ask a question right we use it with this verb right here right

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so we use this in sentences like i have a question

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about the menu right i have a question about something this

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is one of the most common ways to use this verb

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one more we'd like to ask you some questions about your work experience

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so this is maybe a job interview type question So we tend to use question mostly in the noun form, but in case you see it as a verb,

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this is how we use it.

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So it's maybe a good idea to think about the verb form

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if you're reading something or listening to something and you hear question used, but it doesn't seem to fit into this use, right?

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You can think about how we use it in the verb form as well, because these are used sometimes, especially in the news.

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All right, that was a lot of information, but I hope that you got a good idea of the differences between ask and request and question.

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Remember, there are some key differences in the grammar patterns that we use for these verbs.

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Most notably, don't forget these little, little differences like using two and not using two and using four and not using four and so on.

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So you can practice making some sentences that use these two patterns

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but express the same idea if you want to get some practice with this.

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So I will wrap up this lesson there, but I hope that this was helpful for you.

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Of course, if you have any questions or comments or if you want to practice making some example sentences with this information, please feel free to do so in the comment section of this video.

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Don't forget to check us out at EnglishClass101 .com for some other tools

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and resources that you can use to work on improving your English skills.

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Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon.

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Bye!

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This A2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Difference between "Ask", "Request" and "Question"”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: verb, request, noun, pattern, sentence. This video has 314 sentences and 3536 words to shadow. The speech runs for 21:35. The speaker talks at a natural 164 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
verb noun	/vɝb/	A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
noun noun	/naʊn/	A word that functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as person, animal, place, word, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality, or idea…
phrase noun	/ˈfɹeɪ̯z/	A short written or spoken expression.
topic noun	/ˈtɑpɪk/	A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
lesson noun	/ˈlɛs.ən/	A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided.
grammar noun	/ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/	A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
judgment noun	/ˈd͡ʒʌd͡ʒ.mənt/	The act of judging.
tense noun	/tɛns/	The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists.
recommendation noun	/ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/	An act of recommending.
robbery noun	/ˈɹɑbəɹi/	The act or practice of robbing.
presentation noun	/ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/	The act of presenting, or something presented.
scandal noun	/ˈskændəl/	An incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organization involved.
incorrect adjective	/ˌɪn.kəˈɹɛkt/	Not correct; erroneous or wrong.
compare verb	/kəmˈpɛɚ/	To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it…
dramatic adjective	/dɹəˈmætɪk/	Of or relating to the drama.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
break down verb	To stop functioning.
see over verb	To inspect something fully.
wrap up verb	To cover or enclose (something) by folding and securing a covering entirely around it.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Let's look at the second example sentence.
Let's ask the hotel staff for restaurant recommendations.
What do we want?
Let's ask for restaurant recommendation.
We don't really say, wow, that's a big request.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was approved · was questioned
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	we've looked · have made · we've talked
Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain	might hear · might say · may hear
Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group	the most common

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 44 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, we're, we'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: recommendation /ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/, presentation /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/, casual /ˈkæʒ(u)əl/, suggestion /səˈd͡ʒɛst.ʃən/, reservation /ˌɹɛz.ɚˈveɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: recommendation /ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/, inquiry /ɪnˈkwaɪ(ə)ɹi/, uncertainty /ʌnˈsɜːtənti/, reservation /ˌɹɛz.ɚˈveɪ.ʃən/, investigative /ɪnˈvɛstɪɡətɪv/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like verb, noun, phrase.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Difference between "Ask", "Request" and "Question" | Learn English Grammar for Beginners - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?