Can you (do something)?

This is a way to ask someone to do something. It's appropriate for:

• a boss to use with the people who work for him or her
• a customer to use with a store employee
• a parent to use with his or her children
• asking a friend to help you with something

"Can you ___" is more direct than asking "Could you..."

Sometimes a person will include "maybe" in this question:

Can you maybe call him and tell him to meet us there?

Can you maybe turn the volume down just a little?

(do something) just this once

When you're trying to convince someone to do something that they don't want to do, one way to persuade them is to say that it's "just this once". It means that they only have to do it one time. In the future, they won't have to do it again.

People use this phrase a lot when asking for favors from people. Like when you want to borrow money from a family member:

Can you loan me a couple hundred bucks? Please, just this once.

Please!

Imagine that you really want something, so you have to beg for it. When you beg for something, you say "Please!" For example, imagine that someone attacks your boyfriend. You would yell:

Please! Don't hurt him!

Or imagine that you're a child who's found a stray puppy and brought it home. You would beg your parents to let you keep it:

Let us keep him, dad. Please!

loan (someone) money

A "loan" is money that one person lets another person use, which they expect to be paid back.

We use the word "lend" to talk about giving someone a loan:

They might agree to lend you a few thousand dollars.

In American English, we can also use "loan" as a verb:

Can you loan me a few bucks?

Some people feel that "loan" should only be used as a noun ("a loan"), so use "lend" if you're writing or speaking formally.

a couple hundred

"A couple" means two. It's less specific than the word "two" though. We use it liike this:

We split a couple of appetizers — the grilled octopus and the eggplant dip with pita.

We often use "a couple" along with a number category:

a couple dozen

a couple hundred

a couple thousand

a couple million

You can also use "a few" in the same way:

There were a few thousand people there.