Hi everybody, welcome back to Top Words. My name is Alicia, and today we're going to talk about 10 modal verb patterns.

Okay, let's go. Can, could you? Can, could you? Okay, so this first one is can you or could you, blah blah blah. So a lot of people ask, what's the difference between can you

and could you? Which one should I use? If you're making a request, basically you can use either one.

If you want to sound a little bit more polite, I would recommend you use could you? So if you're

talking to your friend or your family member, you can say like, can you help me with this, or

can you help me make dinner, or can you buy some milk at the store, you can say like, can you help me with this or can you help me

make dinner or can you buy some milk at the store or can you please fix your hair? It looks weird.

If you want to be a little bit more polite, like when you're talking to someone at work or talking

to someone you don't know so well, you can use could you blah blah blah. So could you please send

me that file or could you please tell me where the restroom is? You can use could you blah blah blah. So could you please send me that file or could you please tell me where the restroom is?

You can use those for more polite situations.

Both of them are totally correct.

Both of them are fine to use in most everyday situations.

So it's up to you to decide how polite you want to sound.

Okay, example sentence.

Can you help me move this sofa? I may, might. I may, might.

Okay, may and might. This presents another very, very common question. When you want to talk about

your own plans, as in this example sentence with I may, blah blah, blah, blah,

or I might, blah, blah.

We have the same feeling, yes, they both express something we're not sure about, an upcoming

plan that we're not sure about.

But in American English today, might tends to be more commonly used in everyday conversation. May tends to sound a little

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