In our every day communication we may certain English phrases that may sound rude in English. You may use these phrases unknowingly, thinking they are okay to be used, but they may offend someone. In this communication skills training video with Michelle understand what are these 8 phrases that you should stop using immediately and drop them form your Everyday English communication.
Complete Video Transcript : –
Have you ever heard someone say something rude, that had you wondering, what was he even thinking when he said that? Most people have experienced that, so much so that I have had people say really rude things to me, things like, “hey, you’ve lost a ton of weight”, well is that even rude? Yes it is. I’ll tell you later in the lesson why. So people say rude things all the time, but that doesn’t make it okay. We need to learn to be good conversationalist, that means a person avoid saying things that are nosey, rude or sarcastic. Well if you have a tendency to say the wrong things or have bad timings with your comments, you need to change your behavior. Maybe you can study a list of conversation starters before going to a party or maybe you could have a friend to give you a sign that, ‘hey, you are about to say something that someone may not like’. Okay, it’s important to remember that social etiquette includes what you say. So you need to be careful about what you say to others at home, in the office, at parties and even in your college. So in today’s session you are going to learn about “eight rude things that you should never say”, my name is Michelle and you are watching me on Skillopedia, the place to develop skills for the real world. So the first rude comment that I’ve heard is, “have you lost weight?” Umm, so when you ask someone if he or she has lost weight, you are actually suggesting that the person was really fat and that’s why the comment is more negative than positive. Instead you could say something that, “you look fabulous, I wish I had your secret”, so this way you have the opportunity to find out about a great diet, probably their secret to losing weight and also giving a pleasant compliment which will add to your liking. The next rude comment is, “Are you not feeling well?” This is even an insult I think, even if you say it out of concern, because you’re tell the person that they don’t look good especially at your work place. So you would rather say, “How are you?” that’s a better way to ask someone about how they are feeling instead of putting it negatively and saying, “are you not feeling well?” So you can act something about how long it’s been since you saw them last, you could say that, “hey it’s been so long since I saw you, are you okay?” Maybe the person will even tell you that they had a tragedy in their family or they may tell you that they just got over Flu and you will get your answer without having to ask the question, “are you not feeling well?” So you could frame a question about someone’s health in a more polite manner like this, “how are you, didn’t see you for three days.” Moving on, the next rude question that I’ve heard is, “are you still single?” Hmm, a lot of people ask that to each other. So asking a single person this question, give the impression that you think something is wrong with them that’s why they don’t have a partner and if you feel that you should know the person’s relationship status, simply ask if he or she has been seeing anyone? This means that he or she has been dating anyone lately, so you could say something like, “have you been seeing someone lately?” or if it’s a very close friend you could say, “What’s cooking?” but don’t say, “are you still single?” The next comment is, “I don’t like what is being served”, so when you’ve been invited for a dinner, and your host serves something that you don’t like, please don’t say that you don’t like it, you have to try to act like it’s your favorite food in the entire world. And when you sit down at the table you can have small bites of that even if you don’t like it. But please avoid saying that, it’s something that you hate. If you are asked that why you didn’t eat much? You can simply say, “I’m not that hungry but I enjoyed the conversation.” So the thing is, if you say you don’t like it, it can come across as an insult and it may happen that you’ll not be invited to another dinner party by that host again. Another rude comment that I heard recently was, “I paid so much money for that watch.” Okay so don’t be one of those people who focus on the cost of everything. My colleague recently bought a smart watch, and the first thing he told me about the watch was the cost. So the problem here is that you will sound like an arrogant person if you come right out and tell people how much something costed you or how expensive something was. Besides it’s really doesn’t matter how much you’ve paid, and you may cause the other person feel inferior if their watch is not expensive. So the strategy for this one would be, to not share the price at all unless someone asks you, how much something cost you? The next one is, I heard my colleague recently tell me, “my boss says, I am her favorite” well this is playing rude, especially when you are talking to your colleague, you are telling them you are not as good as me. So instead of saying something like that, just praise your boss or praise your superior and mention something you like about your job. Of course you don’t want the other person to feel inferior and kill their confidence. So you’d rather say, “I am having a great time working here because of our boss, he has made me feel very comfortable” So don’t go about telling people that you are your boss’s favourite because that can make them feel inferior. Okay another comment that usually comes from my friends is “I told you so…” okay even I have an urge to say this when someone makes a mistake related to something that I warned them about. So this one is a common mistake but it’s a big no-no. So what they hear is, you did not listen to me, that’s all your fault, I’m so much better than you. I know you didn’t say that, you just said, “I told you so…” but it’s not good to insult someone when the other person needs your help more than ever. So instead of keeping tabs on the rights and the wrongs, think of ways how you can help your friend in trouble. You could offer help by saying something like, “hey how can I help you in this situation?” Instead of saying, “I told you so, you shouldn’t have done that.” The next one is, “This should be easy” Okay so for different people, different things are difficult, everyone has their own Everest and if you are telling somebody that their job is easy then what you are doing is, you are reducing the value of their effort, and you are telling them that they don’t deserve the salary that they have” And what they actually hear is, “It’s easy for most people, if you are finding it hard, probably something is wrong with you. So someone is struggling and coming for help then they have trusted you enough to show you their weaknesses, you shouldn’t be rude by saying, that it should be easy, right? So avoid saying this to people you ask you for some help. And now the last one is, “Good luck”. Well, this one does not have much of a problem, I’ve heard this from so many people, and there is nothing really wrong with it. But it kind of sound as if they are saying that, there’s nothing you can do that will make you succeed, only luck will. Let’s hope that you can succeed. I often choose to not use this one. I say something like, “Show them your guts” or “give them something they’ll never forget” I just choose one of these to encourage my friend instead of saying, “good luck”. So you’ve just said something wrong, the other person is looking at you with a red angry face but the issue is not about what you said, it’s about what they’ve heard, so there are some sentences that act like deadly silent ninjas killing self-confidence. So these were the ones that I’ve told you today. These are the rude comments and questions that you should avoid asking your friends or your colleagues. So today you’ve learnt ten things that you should never say to someone, I hope you’ll be careful in the future, to never use these ten statements instead use the alternatives that I’ve given you. So thank you so much for staying with me here on Skillopedia, the place to develop skills for the real world, see you very soon, bye.
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