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Stop Saying This You Might Be Rude In English

Hello everyone and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Your newly engaged teacher. How exciting is that don’t make me cry, I have cried a lot we designed the ring together. very exciting. but, back to English today, I am doing 20 engagement related, not just kidding. You guys made me laugh so much on my community tap, when I told you I was engaged. But enough about that today’s lesson is how to be polite in English. And the things you should say and the things you should definitely not say. So, I’m going to teach you really how to avoid being rude and how to avoid accidentally offending people.

So, you’re all making a valiant effort to improve your English speaking skills. I remember when I was learning Spanish I was always really, really nervous about accidentally offending somebody or seeming rude without intending to. Naturally you want to appear polite, but obviously non-native speakers don’t always know all of the rules. so, in this English lesson I’m going to teach you about British English etiquette. What you definitely should say and most importantly what you definitely shouldn’t say. I love participation with my students. so, please do comment down below with any thoughts that you might have, especially if you want to comment on whether things are different or the same in your country or culture.

So, let’s start off with something fairly basic. But, very, very important questions to acquaintances. Firstly, what’s an acquaintance? An acquaintance is somebody you know, but are not close friends with. in my somebody you see at work every day. You might know their name, but you’ve never had a proper conversation with them. I have had acquaintances from other cultures ask me really personal questions and I have to admit I was taken aback. This is more of a cultural issue rather than a linguistic issue. But I think the two go hand in hand.

So, the sorts of questions that you should really only ask the people that you know well are, how old are you? Especially two females for some reason that’s a big stereotype you should never ask a woman her age. Some reason people get really offended when you ask how old they are. I don’t mind, now I’m 25 I’m happy to say that. No, no, oh my god. I got my age wrong I’m 24 I always think I’m 25 even when I was 23. I thought I was 25 that’s so dumb. anyway when I was younger like 18, 19 I almost didn’t want to tell people my age. Especially in the workplace. because I didn’t want them to doubt me they’ve treat me like an equal until they realized I was a teenager and then they thought that I was incapable of everything.

Another one is talking about marriage. Are you married? Why aren’t you married? That’s a really big one. I’m desperate for everyone to ask me if I’m married or engaged yet, because I just want to show everyone. But some people find it really offensive. Now one big one which I definitely don’t like to answer and I come up with certain responses. So, don’t so, I don’t have to say anything. Is how much do you earn? And this was one that I experienced in Spain it seemed that just quite common conversation. Quantico dress well most you earn in England. You were just a hundred percent, unless somebody offers you that information which is considered impolite as well you really shouldn’t talk about money.

The same goes for how much do you pay for rent. I remember being asked that a lot in Spain as well. And you just wouldn’t ask someone in the UK the rent. One I don’t think is for me that’s not so rude. Because you know I want to know the house prices in the area and if you don’t tell me. I can find them out online another one is about religion. Generally we don’t talk about religion. So, I wouldn’t ask do you believe in God? I wouldn’t ask what’s your religion. Times I have mentioned my beliefs or disbeliefs. Sometimes you know it’s actually started a debate and people have started to question. Why I think a certain way? And that’s not what I’m here for, and the last one politics and especially how do you feel about brexit, what did you vote in brexit leave or remain. Oh my god, I don’t want to talk about it, and quite a few people would not be comfortable with talking about it.

British people hate offending people and with something as divisive as brexit chances are you are going to offend somebody or have somebody question your morals and ethics. So, in general we don’t talk about sex and relationships politics, money and religion is that the same in your country. Please comment down below, I’m dying to know now non-native speakers are not at fault for appearing rude by making this mistake it is complex and I’d like to think that most native speakers.

Would appreciate non-native speakers making the effort to speak their language. But, there are some things that can appear quite direct and to the untrained ear could be deemed offensive. Now, in some languages and cultures. It’s not impolite to use the imperative in everyday life. In British English the imperative is used to issue a command or an order in some languages you might just say, pass the salt and that’s absolutely fine in English.

It sounds rude we need to say please and if you receive the salt you have to say thank you. So, I would never say pass the salt I would say please, could you pass the salt? You can use the imperative as a request by adding please to the end like pass the salt please. But, it still doesn’t sound very polite. it sounds quite abrupt another example give me the pen, I would say, please could you pass the pen. So, what are some ways we can make our requests more polite in English. Let me give you a really good template and format for making requests in English. we can use could you plus the base verb? Let’s pretend that I want somebody to hold my suitcase, I could say could you + base verb. Could you hold my suitcase? I could also say would you mind, plus ing, verb would you mind holding my suitcase? another option I wonder if you could + base verb. I wonder if you could hold my suitcase. you can also add possibly, I wonder if you could possibly hold my suitcase? It is a bit much. But, maybe you really want them to hold your suitcase. Now there is another format, this is slightly more persuasive, we could say you couldn’t + base verb, could you you? Couldn’t hold my suitcase? could you or you wouldn’t be able to + base verb would you? You wouldn’t be able to hold my suitcase, would you it’s quite warm and friendly I like this way, and the last one I don’t suppose you could + base verb could you I don’t suppose you could hold my suitcase, could you?

So, that was talking about being overly direct using imperatives. Now, let’s talk about being in direct with idioms. We like to use idioms to beat around the bush to soften the blow a little we always want to avoid offending people. so, we like to express things in an indirect manner. Now, obviously for non-native speakers, this is difficult. Because, you need to know these idioms if you don’t learn them. you don’t know them it’s as simple as that. I’m going to give you a couple of options to use in the workplace. You can switch from just saying it directly to using the idiom. For example, you might say I think the receptionist is pregnant. but, that could be offensive, especially if she’s not pregnant. So, it would be better to say. oh, I think the receptionist might have a bun in the oven. Which obviously means she might be pregnant. another one you could say, I heard the CEO died. or in the British Way, you could say I heard the CEO passed away - pass away is much softer than to die and the last one you could say, unfortunately we had to fire him or much better, much more polite. unfortunately, we to let him go we allowed him to leave by firing him. British people dreadful.