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hi everybody my name is alicia in this
lesson i'm going to talk about the
difference between question ask and
inquire these are three verbs that seem
very similar but have a few different
uses so i'll talk about some definitions
and then i'll share some examples to
give you an idea of how you can use
these verbs okay let's get started i
want to begin with the verb question two
questions so please be careful today i'm
not talking about the noun form question
i'm talking about the verb form to
question something so to question as a
verb
has a couple of different meanings
first it means to ask for information to
ask someone for information this often
has the nuance of interrogating someone
so to interrogate someone um this is a
verb we use for example in like police
situations or like suspect or crime
related situations where police or
authority figures ask a lot of questions
to a person who is suspected of a crime
that's interrogation as a noun or in the
verb form to interrogate
so maybe a slightly less serious form of
interrogate is question so it means
you're asking for information usually
about a serious matter so let's look at
an example
here the reporter questioned the ceo
about the years changes so in this case
it's a business situation a reporter is
talking to a ceo about changes in the
company perhaps for the year and the
verb question in past tense questioned
is used to mean the reporter is asking
for information in a serious manner so
this probably also means that the
reporter is asking many different
questions not just one question but
asking a series of questions about the
same topic okay let's take a look at the
second meaning
for this lesson of the verb question
the second meaning here is to doubt to
doubt so like if you're suspicious of
something or something doesn't seem
true for example it doesn't seem genuine
we can use the verb question to describe
that let's look at an example
i can't believe you're questioning my
loyalty so here question uh in the
progressive form questioning
refers to doubting someone's loyalty so
this could be as like a member of a team
a member of a group a member of a
company whatever in other words
the person listening
is
questioning or is doubting
the speaker's loyalty meaning they're
not sure if it's true or not so to
question can mean to doubt as well
all right one more example sentence here
just to kind of refresh i think
the first meaning is applicable for this
sentence
the suspect was questioned this morning
so here it's used uh in passive and we
see that it's again in some kind of
criminal or crime related situation so
this is something you'll commonly see in
news
like in reports related to crime so to
question okay now though let's move on
to ask and inquire so let's start with
ask
the verb to ask means to request one to
request something
it also means to look for information so
you'll see actually this is the same as
i have for inquire
but one key difference here is that ask
is the most commonly used verb it's more
casual than inquire so i'll show you
some examples of how to use this
first one
she asked him for help with her report
so here ask has the meaning of request
in other words she requested him for
help with her report here we have past
tense asked asked she asked him for help
the second example sentence they asked
where the restroom was again we have
past tense here in this case they're
looking for information you could
understand it as requesting information
but here
they are looking for some information
this is a fairly simple a fairly casual
situation so ask is a good choice here
we don't need to use inquire as that
sounds a little too formal so ask is
used in these kind of
everyday simple situations to request
help for example or to get some
information
okay so now let's take a look at inquire
as i said in choir i have the same
definitions listed for inquire as i have
for ask however
inquire sounds more formal than ask so
we can use it in similar situations in
terms of the meaning um but when you use
inquire it should be for something
that's a little more serious or not so
maybe every day so maybe in like
business situations or in customer
client relations for example let's take
a look at some examples of when inquire
might be used first one
reporters inquired about the president's
motivations so reporters inquired about
so in this case it's reporters they're
searching for information about the
president's motivations so this is uh
connected to this meaning looking for
information the reporters are trying to
find some information here
let's look at the next example sentence
people shouldn't inquire about the
private lives of celebrities so here
inquire is used in present tense so in
other words people shouldn't look for
information or maybe even people
shouldn't request information about the
private lives of celebrities so these
are perhaps more formal situations you
these might be something you could see
in the news for example or in more
serious situations or in serious
discussions so when you're choosing
between ask and inquire ask yourself is
this a casual situation if so ask is
probably the best choice
if it's more formal like a business
situation
you might use inquire instead
and when you want to talk about like
interrogations and like asking lots and
lots of questions you might use the verb
question here instead so i hope that
that helps you i hope you can kind of
get an idea of some of the differences
between these three verbs of course if
you have any questions or comments or
want to try to make some sentences with
these three verbs please feel free in
the comment section of this video of
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for watching this lesson and i will see
you next time bye bye-bye
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