Hi, students, hope you are well.
Welcome to the lesson.
Today, I'm going to explain some confusing words related
to asking questions.
By watching this lesson, you are going to feel confident
using these words.
I'm going to give you some guidelines
about their correct usage, so that you
can use them in your business English going forward.
I would also like to say before we
start that the experts disagree about the correct usage
of these words, so we're going to keep it simple.
I'm giving you some guidelines to follow.
If you follow these, you are always going to get it right.
OK, let's start with the first word.
We'll go from nouns to verbs.
It's an easy one.
Of course, you know it.
A question is when you ask for information.
A preposition that we commonly use with it is "about."
May I ask you a question about something?
I have a question about biology.
Easy.
Now let's move to the verb, because the meaning
is different.
When you question somebody--
this is like an interrogation.
For example, the police question a suspect,
so their way to ask for information is much harder.
You are pressuring someone to give you the information.
So be aware when you use the verb "question,"
that the meaning can be different.
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Moving on to our next word--
we're starting to get into the confusing, difficult words
now--
we have "inquiry"-- "in-kwai-ree,"
stress on the second.
And the preposition is "into."
There can be an inquiry into something.
So this word here, "inquiry," is to do
with a legal or a governmental investigation into something.
So you can have a murder inquiry--
someone's been killed.
The murder inquiry is going to find out who did it.
And for serious things, in a UK context,
there can be a governmental inquiry
to find out what happened.
So we had a very big one with the Iraq war.
It was called the Iraq Inquiry.
So there's our noun.
Let's move to the verb.
Here we're going to keep things simple, which is--
let's not worry about using this verb in British English.
Americans use it, but not us Brits.
We'll keep it simple.
Now we have the word "enquiry."
Different spelling, but did you notice something?
It sounds the same.
Yes, I know it's surprising.
It's tempting to say "en," "en-kwai-ree," but in fact,
the pronunciation is the same as this one.
So I have a note here, which is this is a formal word,
and it means question.
So we can often use it in the same way
as "question," the noun.
We make an enquiry about something.
This is a formal way of asking a question.
For example, a student is on the phone
who has an enquiry about the course dates.
Of course, we could say it in a less formal manner,
and say question.
Now moving to the verb, "enquire."
This is also formal.
I'm also going to put "polite" here.
This is used a lot when you want to be polite,
when you're talking to staff, when you're on the phone
sometimes.
Let's imagine you wanted to book a room at a hotel.
You ring them up, and if you're a formal kind of person
you could say, may I enquire if you've
got any rooms at the moment.
It does sound a bit posh and old-fashioned,
but some people still use it that way.
Now let's go to "enquiries."
This is actually just the plural of the word above.
And when I was preparing this lesson,
I found more examples come to me when we use it in the plural.
So you may encounter this word in the plural
more often than not.
The best example I can think of is that in the UK,
we have National Rail Enquiries.
And when I was younger--
I mean a teenager--
I didn't know this word.
It meant nothing to me.
So I used to find it very confusing,
what National Rail Enquiries was.
And I would think, why don't they
call it, "Ask About the Trains."
Just make it easy for you to remember.
I think they're still going, National Rail Enquiries,
but other websites with easier to remember names
are probably doing better than them these days.
And we use the prepositions "about"
and "to" with "enquiries."
If you have any enquiries, send them to customer services.
And our last example here, which is "query."
This is another word for "question,"
but we use it when expressing a doubt,
maybe challenging information, because we think someone
might be wrong about it.
So you can have a query about something.
And this is quite well-used in professional English.
It has a professional tone about it.
You can say, I have a query about the data on page six.
That means, I'm not sure if the information there is correct.
And also the verb is the same as a query.
For example, the insurance company has queried my claim.
OK, there we are.
Now we know the difference between
these confusing, overlapping words to do with questions.
You can use them with confidence in your business English.
One more thing before you go.
If you would like to get a free business
English lesson from me--
which you can do some repeat after me practice with--
subscribe to my email newsletter,
and I'll send you that lesson.
Thank you for watching, and I'll see you again soon.
Bye.