ENGLISH LANGUAGE TIPS

Making Suggestions with Let's and Shall

Making Suggestions with Let’s and Shall

by St Giles Vancouver

Let’s go!

Let’s take a break!

Let’s grab some lunch, shall we?

Let’s touch base later.

We use LET’S when we don’t expect disagreement.  We want to do something  and we want someone to do it with us.  We are including someone else in our plans.

Shall we meet in front of the theatre?

Shall I bring a bottle of wine?

Shall we open our gifts now?

We use SHALL only with WE and I.  It is similar to SHOULD, but contains the idea of invitation to agreement.  It is usually used in question form rather than in a statement.

However, there are some formal situations where SHALL might be found:

We shall always remember him. 

I shall do my best.

Shall is also used as the tag question modal when we use LET’S in the first part: 

Let’s walk in together, shall we?