From silly to serious, giving advice is part & parcel (ein fester Bestandteil von etwas sein) of our everyday lives and so something you will need to know in English too.
“What would you do (, if you were) in my shoes?“ is the question commonly used to invite you to give your two cents (Senf dazu geben).
Grammar boffins (Experten) will immediately notice the 2nd conditional form, which is used when we want to talk about unreal, imaginary or hypothetical situations like putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. You are not the other person, but if you were and in that situation, how would you handle it.
Here are 7 ways to offer you advice
- Have you ever thought of …….(ing)?
- Why don’t you ….
- You could always ….
- Your best bet is to …..
- If I were you / in your shoes, I’d* ….
- You should …..
- You’d** better ….
*”I’d” is short for “I would”
**”You’d” is short for “You had”
Be aware that the phrases increase in “forcefulness” as they go down. “You’d better” tells sb if you don’t heed the advice, you could get/be into really hot water.
QOTD I don’t usually like getting political in my blog but, here’s one for today
“If you were in Angela Merkel’s shoes, what would you do?”
I’ll get the ball rolling. Dear Mrs Merkel: You’d better start rolling up your sleeves, getting down to work and putting in the overtime (like most of us do) and get shit done and not stop kicking the can down the road (das Problem aussitzen wollen) .