1. What Are Modal Verbs?

A person who wins the lottery every year is lucky. (singular verb)

Agreement can be tricky in “one of the…” constructions. The key is to find which noun the relative pronoun is referring to.

Homelessness is a problem. The problem needs to be addressed.

Homelessness is a problem that needs to be addressed. (singular problem)

Many problems need to be addressed. Homelessness is one of the problems.

Homelessness is one of the problems that need to be addressed. (plural problems)

10.Making requests
When we make a request, we ask someone for something, or we ask someone to do something.
Asking for something
There are different ways of asking for something. We usually ask for something in a polite and indirect way, for example, using can, could, would you mind if and may:
A:
Can I have the salt?
B:
Of course, here you are.
A:
Could I ask you the time, please?
B:
No problem. It’s quarter past four.
A:
Would you mind if I borrowed your pen, please?
B:
Of course, here you are.
A:
May I have the bill, please? (May is more formal.)
B:
Certainly, Madam.
I need is very direct and is usually used for urgent requests:
I need a doctor.
I need the fire extinguisher. Fast!
I want is very direct and can sound impolite. We don’t normally use it to make requests unless we want to be very direct:
I want to speak to the manager right now. I am not leaving here until I get my money back.
Asking someone to do something
There are a number of ways of asking someone to do something in a polite and indirect way. We often use please to make our requests more polite: