Master Polite English Speaking

You might be advanced while speaking English, but you may not be speaking politely. In today's English lesson, I'm going to help you master politeness in English so that you can speak with your colleagues, your friends, your neighbors, whoever it might be, and they will know you are a kind and polite person. In today's lesson, I'll teach you phrases and I'll give you some tips to help you be more polite while speaking English Let's get started. Way to go. Way to be prepared. Way to get that done. Hey, way to be on time. So this phrase, way to, or commonly way to go, is a really kind and polite and genuine way to compliment someone's effort or compliment the way that someone is doing something. Way to go, Jack. Way to go. Now we do say congratulations sometimes in English, but not as frequently as other languages use the phrase congratulations. So maybe your colleague at work has been working really hard on a project and their finished product is really good. You can say, way to work really hard on that. Now you have to use a warm and genuine tone when you're giving this compliment so that the person understands that you're being very serious and very genuine. The easiest way to use this phrase is just to say, way to go. So maybe your friend aced the exam. That means they did very, very well on a test. You can say, you aced the exam. Way to go. This is just a polite and friendly way to congratulate them for doing so well. Maybe your friend at work finishes a project before the deadline. You can say, you finished ahead of schedule. Way to go. So again, it's just a really polite way to praise someone's effort and you might have your effort praised by someone with this phrase in English as well. They might be saying, your English sounds so great. I can tell you've been studying so much. Way to go. Sometimes we use this phrase in slightly different ways. Another way we can say this phrase is, way to be. It means the exact same as way to go. It's a bit less common, but you will hear it once in a while. Another thing that's really common to say with this phrase is, way to handle something. Maybe you're at work and you have a customer that is trying to argue with you and you are just very polite and calm and you figure out the situation and you get a compliment. Someone might say, way to handle that rude customer or way to handle that argument. It just means you did a really good job in staying calm and composed and polite in general. If you want to encourage someone that has not given up on a goal or they haven't given up despite some setbacks or some difficulties, you can say, way to stick with it. Maybe your friend has been running and training for a marathon race for almost a year. You can say, you have trained for almost a year. Way to stick with it. This means I'm complimenting you on your efforts and just not giving up for doing something for so long. The next way we use this phrase very commonly is with this idiom, way to think outside the box. This phrase is just complimenting someone's way of thinking. They thought of a solution to a problem that is not the normal or conventional way of doing it. And because they thought of something so original, it solved the problem. So the phrase we would use is, way to think outside the box. Hey, way to think outside the box, Frank. When someone starts something new without someone telling them to do it or they take the lead on something, again with not someone telling them that they have to do it, you can compliment their initiative. You can say, way to take initiative. This is a really common compliment as well. Maybe you have someone in your life that started a business and it's a side business even though they have a full-time job and they started making a lot of money with their business, you could say, way to take initiative and just start a business on your own. So you're just complimenting their leadership and the way that they do things. Now for this phrase, way to go, or way to take initiative, way to think outside the box, whatever it might be, I would say this phrase is best used in a bit of a more informal setting. Like you wouldn't want to be in a meeting and necessarily say this if you're at work, but you can definitely say it with your friends at work. And it's not slang, it's not so informal, it's just a bit less formal than what you would say when you're writing an email. We better not go in there, Linda is sleeping. We better not take too much, other people might be hungry. It's best not to go in there, Linda's sleeping. It's best not to take too much, other people might be hungry. It's best if we talk quietly. We better talk quietly. One thing that I notice when I speak with English learners, even very advanced English speakers, is that sometimes they're becoming a bit rude because they're not using suggestion, they're just telling things or giving orders or they're being bossy. And I think that this is because in some languages, the way that we speak is, you know, we're very direct, we say what we want to do, who we want to do it, whatever it might be. In English, in order to be more polite, you do have to give more of a suggestion. This next phrase that we'll go over will help you with this. So the phrase is, we better not. Or even say, we better. We better not. So if you want to give a caution or advisory against doing something, because it either is not the best option, it might get you in trouble, it might offend someone, you can say, well, we better not. It just suggests that this is not a wise choice. There is a good reason not to do this, but it's not so confronting as saying, don't do this, we shouldn't do this, stop this right now. That comes off as a bit more confrontational and again, direct, which we tend to be less direct about telling people things in English. So we better not do something or we better do something. This phrase is used in a bit more of an informal context, again, acceptable most of the time, but we typically wouldn't use this in writing in a formal email. Now, the more formal version of this phrase is, best not. Or, we best. Best not. The full phrase here is, it's best not to. For instance, maybe your friend is sleeping and they haven't been feeling well, you could say, best not to wake them up. They haven't been feeling well. So you're giving a suggestion that we shouldn't do this. So again, this is a bit more formal than saying, we better not. It's best not to leave your valuable items in your car while it's parked, especially if you're in a big city. You could also say, you better not leave your valuable items in a car in a big city. This is implying it's not good to do this because someone could break into your car and steal your computer or your money or whatever it might be. Maybe you need to go talk to your boss and you have a problem that you need to bring to their attention. Your friend might tell you at work, well, it's best not to talk to them while they are hungry. Maybe wait till after lunch. Or they might say, you better not talk to them now. They're hungry, wait till after lunch. So they're giving you a suggestion that you should wait until later. So you can use either of these phrases in English. Maybe you've heard through these examples that it's best not to is more formal than we better not do this. But again, they both just suggest caution and they just suggest that there is a better way to do something. Again, if you're trying to be more friendly, I think I would recommend the phrase, we better not do this, rather than saying, it's best not to do this because it's best not to do this becomes a bit more formal and authoritative. And we better not do this is more of a suggestion and polite, but people take it very serious even though you're not being super direct. If you wanna give a reminder to someone, maybe you want them to remember to do something like lock the door at night, you can say, we better not forget to lock the door tonight or we better lock the door tonight. This is again, a really friendly thing and just the communication difference in the style that Americans speak versus the rest of the world is like we'd like to be more suggestive rather than direct and just giving orders. Since we're talking about food on that note, let's go get lunch. On that note, how's your health been? Speaking of family on that note, how are your kids? One way that you can improve on your politeness is by working on your transitions in a conversation. In a conversation, each subject should flow into the next when you're speaking English, if you're just trying to maintain that polite and friendly demeanor. So for instance, instead of saying, can we talk about this now? Or, oh, now I wanna tell you about this. We can help flow the conversation by using this next phrase, on that note. And on that note. So on that note is just the phrase or the idiom that English speakers use to mean kind of related to this subject, I want to introduce this next topic. When you use this phrase, you are implying that something that you are about to talk about kind of relates to the last subject that you and the other speaker were speaking about. So let's say you are in a work meeting and everyone's talking about emailing people for a project, you can say, on that note, I'd like to talk about communication more, how we can improve our communication. So instead of just introducing the topic as, we need to get better at communication, you're kind of relating it to the last thing and making it seem more natural to bring up in the meeting or the conversation. You can also use this phrase to conclude a meeting or conclude a conversation. So maybe you start talking about a subject that's a bit more negative or more sad, you can say, well, on that note, I'm actually gonna leave now, see you later. You just have to make sure that when you use this phrase, you're relating a bit to the last subject that has been talked about, you're not introducing something that's completely new. Or if you're using this phrase to conclude or end a conversation, make sure you're ending on a spot where the conversation stops pretty naturally. Maybe your friend is starting to talk about how they are trying to be more healthy and they're starting exercising, you can say, on that note, would you like to go get a salad with me? So you're implying that, because you're trying to be healthy, let's go eat something healthy together. Or maybe someone is brought up in a conversation and you want to ask how they're doing. Sometimes my friend will talk about her family and I'll say, oh, on that note, how is your sister doing? So it just transitions the conversation to where you want it to go while relating to what they were saying. Could you possibly lend me your notes from the lecture? Would you be so kind as to lend me the notes from the lecture? Could we possibly arrange a meeting for Monday? Would you be so kind as to arrange a meeting for Monday? Could you possibly update the document with the latest numbers? Would you be so kind as to update the document with the latest numbers? In English, again, as I've mentioned before, it's best not to be super direct and forceful in your language if you're trying to come off as very polite and more friendly. Of course, there's a time to be direct and forceful, but in this case, I'm going to give you some phrases that can help you make requests or ask for something without being so forceful and direct. But you can come off as more friendly and you can start to build relationships before you can be more direct with someone. The first phrase is, would you be so kind as to. This is a way to ask someone to do something. So let's give some examples here. Please, would you be so kind as to call my wife? This can be used in a really formal setting. You can send an email to someone in a business setting saying, would you be so kind as to send the documents by the end of today? This means, you know, I'm making a pretty big request. It's very kind if you do this for me. Or you can use this in a bit of a less formal setting as well. If you're at a dinner table and you want to ask someone to pass you something like the salt shaker, you could say, would you be so kind as to pass me the salt? This phrase is used to make requests in a very polite manner. And it's even going a step beyond just saying, can you please do this? Would you be so kind as to do this? If you want to ask for a conversation with someone, you can say, would you be so kind as to spare a few minutes to talk to me? This is, you know, making a request that you have time to have a conversation with them. If you are asking for someone's opinion in a really respectful way, you could say, would you be so kind as to tell me what you think about this? And again, it's just very polite and respectful way to ask for something. Another phrase that's very useful for requesting things in this kind way is to say, could you possibly? It's very indirect way of asking for someone to do something. Of course, you're not asking if they actually can do it. You're asking, you know, would you mind doing, would you do it for me? Could you possibly? Could you possibly send me those documents by the end of the day? This is a less formal way of asking, but again, it's very polite. Or you could say, could you possibly hand me the salt? Again, of course they can hand you the salt. They have the ability to do it. They have the skills to do it. But you're just asking if they can do it. They can spare the time. You're being respectful in your request. Could you possibly fix? Maybe you're going into a government office. And as we know, government employees can be a bit rude and hard to deal with. No offense if you're a government employee, but that's just the reputation that you have. And you are looking for the correct form that you have to fill out for something. You could say, could you possibly show me the correct form to fill out? Or would you be so kind as to give me the correct form to fill out? Make your requests very polite and very respectfully and hopefully they will treat you the exact same way. If you're asking your English teacher to help you out with something, you could say, could you possibly take a look at this document I typed to look for mistakes? This is just a really nice, friendly way of asking for help. And make sure when you have these requests and the person helps you out or does whatever you ask, you show your gratitude and you say, thank you so much. Or you're so kind, that's great. Thank you so much for the help. Thank you for taking the time to study these English phrases with me. I hope this will help you master the art of politeness and just making requests, complimenting, building good relationships in English. If you want more English lessons about how to be polite, check out the videos that are gonna be on screen next. I teach a lot about this topic because it's so important for English learners to study. Visit englishwithkayla.com to check out my English course and I'll see you guys in the next lesson. Goodbye.