Hi! Thank you for visiting my page.
It happened at a university class. Our teacher was from the UK and he told us to ask him a question starting with ‘May I ~.’ An easy question, isn’t it?
Student A: ‘May I ask a question?’
Teacher: ‘No’
Student B: ‘Can I open the window?’
Teacher: ‘No’
All of us were puzzled. Can you tell what was wrong?
We did not say ‘please’ at all. He explained to us how important to add ‘please.’ It was exactly an ‘Aha!’ moment to know that English also has polite expressions. In business after graduation, I learned how to appropriately use ‘would’ and ‘could.’ ‘Could’ is more polite than ‘would.’
In business writing, whether you know such things or not makes a significant difference, I find, in particular for non-native speakers of English.
Thank you for taking your time.