Hello,我是 Andrew Shewbart，没错我是一个美国人，我会从外国人的角度，帮你了解外语国家的语言思维，学会地道美式英语的表达。（附有音频）

我举几个例子：

I will share some tips with you about how to ask questions politely. I'm sure you'll receive more positive replies to your questions as a result.

Listen to these two questions and think about how you could make them sound more polite.

Question one, can you give me more information about this article?

Question two, can we leave ten minutes earlier today?

Now, don't forget these two questions, because we'll talk about them again later in the episode.

你是不是想在句子前面加上「excuse me」或者句子后面加上「please」呢？

That's right. Excuse me and please are the most common and easiest words to use to make questions polite.

Please is used to make questions and request sound more courteous, however, excuse me, should only be used for strangers or in very formal settings, like talking to your boss. If you use it with your friends, It'll sound very strange, because It's too polite.

Here's another tip. If you change can to could, then your question will sound more polite. Let's go back to question one. Can you give me more information about this article?

Now let's hear what the question sounds like when we include polite words, excuse me. Could you give me more information about this article? Please?

如果你听到了这样的回答，会不会更加愿意帮助提问的人呢？

The two example questions that I spoke about at the beginning of the episode are both direct questions.

直接疑问句： asking indirect questions.

间接疑问句： can make you sound more courteous？

You can also add short phrases such as I wonder, do you think or would you mind to change a direct question into an indirect one?

Here's how to use these phrases with the second example question I asked at the beginning of the episode. Can we leave ten minutes earlier today? I wonder if we could leave ten minutes earlier today.