Another beautiful day in Paris.
What shall I do?
Cake!
no I'd better not eat cake,
Fruit
stick to fruit.
ooo how a about a beer?
No I'd better not drink beer, I'm teaching this afternoon.
Chicken TV I love chicken TV.
I'd better back to work.
Hello and welcome to letThemTalk and today we're going to look "had better".
You probably already know "should" and "ought to" you know "must" and "have to". But do
you know "had better"? It's a way of expressing strong advice it's an important piece of grammar
English speakers use all the time so do learn it. Today we're going to look when we use
it and compare it to other forms of obligation. That's coming right up.
We use had better to give strong advice, warnings and make threats when something bad will happen
if the advice is ignored. Often "had better" is used to talk about advice which is immediate
or urgent.
First of all let's have a lot at the structure you need:
Had better + infinitive without to. For example -
our train leaves in half an hour
we'd better go In this sentence we use "had better" because
there is an immediate consequence if we don't follow the advice - we miss our train.
We use "had better" to talk about present and future advice only. Never past advice
even though the construction is with the past tense "had" never "have".
it's always , always "had better" and not "have better" but it's never used in the past
(that's because the "had" here is known as an "unreal past") we'd better go - we should
have gone but we've not gone so that's what we call an unreal past in English
You can contract or not contract "we'd better go" or "we had better go" both are correct
but I'd say that contracting is more common. And remember than in English "we'd" can be
a contraction of "we would" or "we had" but here it's "we had", the same is true for I'd,
He'd, she'd, they'd and it'd etc. And one further point to remember there is
no "to" after had better (this is a common mistake).
Ok so there's the structure so let's look
at some more examples.
We have an important meeting and you'd better be here on time.
She'd better tell me the truth or I'll be very angry.
The negative is "had better not"....(never hadn't better)..
You'd better not eat that, it'll make you sick.
It's after midnight I'd better not call now.
We do not use had better to talk about rules,
regulations and general observations.
For example: If you fly abroad you must take a passport
(not you'd better).
In my new job I have to start at 7am every morning
You use "should" and not "had better" for softer recommendations or those that are less
urgent or those without serious consequences. For example
I really enjoy the theatre I should go more often
I think you should wear the blue dress. (we use "should" here not "had better")
So remember we use "had better" to stress the urgency of the situation and the consequences
of ignoring the advice. Ok now it's your turn I'm going to start the sentence and you can
finish it using an appropriate phrase with had better. Are you ready?
It's starting to rain...
You'd better take an umbrella
You drank a bottle of vodka.
you'd better not drive
It's getting late
We'd better go home
I think that that the fish was poisoned
I'd better call a doctor
Ok it's getting late so I'd better go but thanking for watching more English language
videos coming soon.