Could you correct or confirm my assumptions? (4)

Hello teachers,
Information:
The intention of the following meanings are just to see if the explanations that I give for the students sound natural or very odd. Never to use them in a conversation.

Could you correct or confirm my assumptions?

  1. Example: Would you / Could you help me with the cooking? (less direct - formal)
    Meaning: I am asking you politely to help me with the cooking.

  2. Example: Will you / Can you help me with the cooking? (more direct - informal)
    Meaning: I am asking you informally to help me with the cooking.

Thanks in advance.

With the past tense you become more polite, and formal, too.

RtL (quite correctly) hasn’t used the past tense.

Those are okay.

I think RtL (quite conspicuously) has used the past tense.

Hello Beeesneees,
Thank you for your help. Once in a while I hit the nail on the head. :wink:
One last question, can I use ‘formally’ instead of ‘politely’ in this definition, ‘Meaning: I am asking you politely to help me with the cooking.’

RtL

I think that would probably be a better option, yes.

Grammatically, you are correct, so I will modify and qualify my original statement tghis.

RtL has used the past tense, but within this context they do not carry a sense of past, because they are conditionals.

Hello Beeesneees,
Thank you for your help. Yo have really helped me a lot with these modals.

RtL

Anglophile couldn’t have survived on this forum so long without being aware of the basic nuance highlighted above.

Why are you speaking about yourself in the third person?

To be humbled by the avoidance of ‘I’ in the above context.

Why have you suddenly decided to avoid using ‘I’ and what exactly is more ‘humbling’ about avoiding it?

Let’s shift our topic to something useful. It is 11.30 pm here. My time to go to bed. See you later. Good night.

I just watched a TV show where someone spoke about himself in the third person. He was ridiculed to a high extent as a result.

Yes, possible if in an out-of-context situation.

In what context do you consider it would be more appropriate to refer to oneself in the third person, rather than using the pronoun 'I/me. etc.?

I have only ever heard teachers of very young children use this form, when addressing their charges.