Shall or Will?

[ukteacher]

The use of "shall" is limited now in spoken English. It is not grammatically incorrect to use it, but its general use by native speakers has been dropped. Where as before you would hear "Shall I help you?" or "Shall we go to the cinema Saturday?", you will now hear "let me help you" or can I help you?", "let's go the cinema Saturday? or "how about going to the cinema Saturday". Dropping the regualr use of "shall" in English was discussed in Fowler's English Usage years ago, and yet some schools still insist on teaching its use. Using it in normal conversation sounds a little archaic

[mlc]

I love using shall, but admit that I seldom hear it used by others. I'd hate to see its use disappear entirely.

[Teia]

Originally Posted by riverkid

Would I help you..."-- polite

This isn't a polite form, Sheena, it's a conditional statement. We don't use 'would' in this form with 'I' unless we want to make the conditional statement I mentioned above.

A: Help me, okay?

B: Would I help you, hmmmmm, if you were to pay me I might.

To make an equivalent polite question to "Could I help you?", we use,

Would you like some help?

Would you like me to help you?

[probably some others]

Hi Riverkid

Yes, you are right
My intention was to say : Would you like me to help you ? I made a mistake and I am sorry.
Thank you for your intervention.

Note : I changed my former username [sheena55ro] into this one.

Regards

[nobita]

i think it should be shall

[normsinan]

Dear Sir.
Now i not clear when we use will and when we use shall?

[syed zain]

i think either is coming and suitable word for this sentence. but u plz inform the diferrence b/w these words

[katahalley]

could we use "may I..." ?

[vuquangthieu]

i think " Shall or Will " is not a matter.

[shekos]

i think we will use "shall"
because it's a quistion

[ksa32]

I think both shall or will are possible