How To Speak Polite And Diplomatic English? 10 English Phrases That Sound Rude! Learn Polite English

Hi everyone, my name is Hridhaan, I welcome you today on this very interesting lesson

on Let's Talk. In today's lesson we are going to talk about certain ways in which you can

tailor the way you speak in English, you can change the way you speak in English and sound

more polite and diplomatic so that you can get, you can communicate the message and also

get your work done. So what are we waiting for, let's stop thinking and start working…

The first sentence that we have on the board is, “that's a bad idea”. Now if you say

the sentence straight ‘that's a bad idea’, it sounds a little rude, because it is abrupt

and it is quite straightforward. Now in today's class we are not talking about straight forward,

it is a better idea we are not debating on that, we are talking about how to be polite,

now how can we say this sentence that's a bad idea in a polite language, well let's

have a look at it, instead of directly saying that's a bad idea, it is a good idea to tell

the person that I am not saying that it is a bad idea, I'm just saying that you can think

about it in a better way, so that you can come up with a better idea basically. So saying

directly ‘that's a bad idea’ would not be right, and saying I think it can be said

in a better off way is something that you can go ahead with. And now let's have a look

at the second one in the list of impolite phrases, “come here”. Come here is more

like an imperative in English language, ‘imperative’ means it's like an order, if I say come here

to my friend it sounds quite rude, for example, “come here Rahul”, it's quite rude how

can we say this politely and most importantly how can we make a better sense out of this

phrase? I have added two magical words to the rephrased version of this phrase. I have

added ‘could’ and I have added ‘please’. ‘Could’ and ‘please’. Does do incredible

magic in the way you speak English ‘could’ is basically used for requests in English

and ‘please’ is a very, very polite word in English that we should use all the time

whenever we want to sound sweet, polite and most importantly respectful, so ‘come here’

can as well change to ‘could you be here please?’. The next one in the list of impolite

phrases is, “I hate this colour” hate is a very, very strong word in English language

and we should try to do away with this word as much as possible. There are a lot of other

alternatives that you can use in place of this word and we can say this like this, ‘I

am not sure about this colour’… now the moment you say, ‘I am not sure’ you're

communicating to the person that simply you do not like this colour. The moment you say

this the person easily understands that you basically are trying to politely disagree

and thus, it is a better idea to not use the word ‘I hate’ but use ‘I am not sure’

in replacement of that’ I'm not sure about this colour’. You can also say ‘I dislike

this colour’ but again ‘dislike’ turns a little negative and straight forward, so

it is always a good idea to say, ‘I'm not sure about this colour’. The next one is,

“leave me alone”. ‘Leave me alone’ is more like again an imperative like ‘come

here’ how can we say this politely? Using this… ‘Leave me alone’ can as well be

said in a very polite way, “I would like to be with myself”. ‘Would’, ‘could’

these are words that people generally use and we must always use whenever we want to

communicate a polite message, because they all come in the family of polite words and

thus whenever you want to say, ‘leave me alone’, it's a better idea that you use,

‘would’ and communicate, “I would like to be with myself for some time please”.

So if you are let's say, not happy with something and you want to be just with yourself, it's

a good idea to use this phrase, the next one in the list of how to be polite is, “this

is bad”. Imagine, you go to a store and you're talking to the shop assistant, the

executive in the shop and you say, “No, this is bad, this t-shirt is not good, show

me a different one…” It is a very rude language. People do not realize it and that

is why they translate these messages when they communicate, the same messages, same

intonation when they speak at the workplace as well and so it is a good idea do not speak

like that, the better thing is, ‘this is bad’, ‘this is bad’… “this can be

better” or “this could have been better”, ‘could have been better…’ So instead

of saying directly ‘this is bad’, it's a good idea to say ‘this can be better’

or ‘this could have been better’. “No”, immediately saying ‘no’, for example I

say, ‘would you like to have some water?’ and I say, ‘no.’ how can we correct and

rectify this phrase? By just saying, ‘thank you’ again is one very interesting and sweet

phrase that you can add in your vocabulary to make it sound polite and very, very sweet.

So instead of saying ‘no’ for example, I don't want to do this, ‘would you like

to have some water?’ The person says, ‘no’, instead of saying that, you can say “no,

thank you.” You're basically saying that, I am fine without it thank you very much.

The next one in the list is, “call me”, same imperative. You're just, you're speaking

as if you're ordering something. The moment you say, “please contact me” everything

changes. Now let's look at ‘contact me’ as well, if you say ‘contact me’ again

very rude. The moment you say, ‘please contact me’ the language becomes really professional,

sweet and polite. So do use that. “You are not confident”, imagine you're giving feedback,

you're a teacher or let's say you're a parent who's giving feedback to your child, would

you say, “you're not confident”, the very intonation and the very sense of the word

‘not’ is not positive, it's negative. How can we say the sentence in a positive

manner but still convey the same meaning? Using this… ‘You are not confident’

can as well be said as, “you can try to be more confident”, one more time, ‘you

can try to be more confident’, do you know what is the magic? The magic is do not use

‘not’ in your sentence ever, just say the same message in a positive way, as if

you're giving a constructive sort, form or feedback to the person that you're trying

to communicate to. So remove ‘not’ and add a positive constructive feedback to your

message. Next one, “can I take your pen?” You're asking somebody, ‘can I take your

pen?’ What is wrong in that everybody asks us…? But the very connotation and meaning

of the word ‘can’ is capability. Imagine if the pen is here and it is somebody else's

pen and I say, “can I take the pen” it is my capability, ability I can definitely

do that, I can do that, I have a hand and I can do the motion and take the pen, so what

is wrong in that? It is not a request, it is an ability, it is my ability and of course

I can do that because I've got a hand and I can move it, so instead of saying this,

you could say, “could I take your pen?” ‘Could I take your pen’ and again ‘take’

is a word that can as well be replaced by another word and that is ‘borrow’. ‘Take’,

has the sense that you're taking it forever, but you're not doing that, ‘borrow’ is

something that you're taking for a short period of time. So you can say ‘borrow’. “Could

I borrow your pen?” The second one in the list is, “tell me when you are free”,

what is wrong with, tell me when you're free? It is again quite similar to ‘call me’,

‘tell me when you're free’, imperative, order… how can we correct that? “Please

do let me know as you are available”, one more time, ‘please do let me know as you

are available’. Look at the way I have changed, ‘tell me’, ‘tell me’ has been replaced

with ‘please do let me know’, ‘when you are free’ has been changed with ‘as

you get the time’ or ‘as you are available’. So please try using it in the same sense.

And the last one in the list is, “I want water” imagine you come to your own home

and you say, “I want water” and if you speak in English to your sibling or to your

parents, what is wrong with, ‘I want water’, it is again quite more like an order, ‘I

want water’, how can this be corrected? We can say, “can I have some water?” If

you are at your home, this is polite, but if you are at somebody else's home you can

say, “could I have some water?” one more time, please repeat after me, “could I have

some water?” and if you want to add ‘please’ to it, you can in a very formal setting. So

there are certain words again that I'd like to highlight, ‘would’, ‘could’, ‘thank

you’, ‘please’… these words add a lot of value when you speak in English, when

you try to be polite and sweet and at the same time diplomatic. So whenever you're speaking

in the future about any of this, about any of the ideas that we have spoken about today,

please use the ones in black towards your right hand side. Have a great day ahead, thank

you for watching my video and if you liked it, please to subscribe and do let me know

in the comments what lessons you would like to study next. Thank you very much and have

a great day ahead.