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TOP 10 Polite English Expressions

Hi, I’m Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Do you want to be polite? Let’s talk about it. Everyone wants to be polite, right? Well, most people. Sometimes you have a small favor to ask someone. “Could you open the door? My hands are full.” Or maybe you have a big favor to ask someone. “By any chance, could you feed my cats over the weekend while I’m gone?”

You need to use the correct polite expressions for each of these situations to continue having good relationships with people around you. Today, we’re going to focus on the top 10 polite expressions that you can use in daily life. I use these all the time, and so can you.

I’m from the U.S., and when I studied abroad in the UK, I found this funny survival guide to how to live in the UK, and this was one of the images in that survival guide. On one side you can see the man is drowning and he says, “Help!” and it says “This is wrong.

You shouldn’t say this,” and on the other side it says, “Excuse me, sir. I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you would mind helping me for a moment, as long as it’s no trouble, of course.” Do you think this is realistic? Of course not.

This is an exaggeration of British culture. It’s not true in the UK, it’s not true in the U.S., but it is nice to include some polite expressions, not when you’re drowning, you can say, “Help, help, help!” of course, but in daily life it’s great to use a few polite expressions. Let’s talk about them.

The first seven polite phrases are great for asking a favor. A favor is when you’re asking someone to do something for you. The first one is using could or would. They are both exactly the same. Could you do me a favor? Would you help me? Would you please tell me where the closest subway station is?

Can you use can in these situations? Maybe if you’re with some close friends and you’re asking them to do something simple like, “Can you pass me that paper?” “Can you look at the GPS while I drive?” That’s fine. But if you want to take it up to the next level, you could say could or would.

That was a pretty basic expression, so let’s go on to some more advanced ones. Expression number two is “If you don’t mind, would you help put the dishes in the dishwasher?” “If you don’t mind, would you” something. “If you don’t mind” means if it doesn’t bother you, but make sure that you don’t say, “If you don’t care, would you put the dishes in the dishwasher?”

The word care is a little too strong and can seem kind of rude, so make sure you say, “If you don’t mind, would you help put the dishes in the dishwasher?” I have a good friend that often comes over to dinner at our house, and after dinner, Dan and I are busy putting Theo, our toddler, to bed.

The process, bath and reading books and all of this, takes about 30 minutes. And because she’s my good friend, I don’t asking her, “If you don’t mind, would you help put the dishes away in the dishwasher while we’re putting Theo to bed?” This is a great thing to ask. Expression number three, “If it’s not a problem, could I, or can I, call you back in 10 minutes?”

Dan and I just moved into a new house, and on our moving day, as we were moving things into the house, our realtor called. A realtor is someone who helps you to buy a house. She said it wasn’t an emergency, and things were kind of hectic because we were moving lots of boxes in, so I used this expression, “If it’s not a problem, could I call you back in 10 minutes?” You can also use can here.

“If it’s not a problem, can I call you back in 10 minutes?” Beautiful. Expression number four, “When you have a moment, can you, could you email me those documents?” or “When you get a second, can you email me those documents, could you email me those documents?” I have a tax accountant who helps me to process my taxes, and this is a sentence that I used in an email with him. “When you have a moment, can you email me those documents?” He’s a pretty chill, relaxed guy, and so happy.

I don’t know how anyone who does taxes can be so happy, but he always is, and I asked him, “When you have a moment, can you email me those documents?” You can also use the word get here. Get is more common in spoken English. You can use have or get in spoken English, but we don’t often write the word get. “When you get a second, can you email me those documents, could you email me those documents?”

It’s more common to use get in spoken English. Expression number five, “If you get a chance, could you water our plants too?” When Dan and I are gone for a couple days, we ask our neighbor to watch our cats, and this is an expression that I often use if I forget to ask the neighbor to do something. “If you get a chance, could you water our plants too?” This means that it is not necessary, “if you get a chance,” because they might not get a chance, or they probably will, but it’s just saying it’s not necessary.

Feeding our cats is necessary. They have to do that. But watering the plants is not necessary for a few days, so you can use this. “If you get a chance, could you water our plants?” Make sure when you use this expression that it’s for something that is not necessary, because they might not do it, or you can just use it to say, “Hey, I know I’m asking you something extra.

It’s not necessary, but if you get a chance, could you do this?” If you have a necessary task that you want to ask someone, just change one word. Say, “When you get a chance, could you check our mail, when you get a chance?” If you’re gone for a week, it’s necessary to take the mail from your mailbox and put it in your house. It’s necessary for the mailman. It’s necessary for you.

So you could just say “when you get a chance.” You’re not saying do it now. You’re just saying, “When you get a chance, could you put my mail on the table? I’m sorry, I forgot to ask you.” This is really polite, and it shows that it needs to be done when you get a chance. It’s not if you get a chance, but when you get a chance, could you do this? Super polite. Expression number six, “By any chance, could you give me a ride home from work today?”

This is really polite. I use this one a lot. In fact, maybe if your car is in the shop, in the shop means at the mechanic, if your car is in the shop and you don’t have a ride home, you might approach your coworker and say, “By any chance, could you give me a ride home from work today?”

It’s usually for a big task or something that you know will be something important or big for the other person to do, so you can use this to say, “Oh, by any chance, could you give me a ride home from work today?” Sentence number seven, “I’d appreciate it if you would have the report done by this afternoon.” Be careful with this one. You can only use this if you are the boss, if you are the teacher.

Do not use this with someone who is your equal. Do not say this to your husband, your wife, your coworker. “I’d appreciate it if you would finish that report by this afternoon.” You could only use this if you’re in a position of authority. This word, appreciate, is different than “I appreciate it. Thank you.” We can use that to just say, simply, thank you. “Oh, you bought me some flowers. I appreciate it.”

But when you say, “I’d appreciate it,” this means I would appreciate it if you’d finish that report. This is showing that you need them to do something, and you’re kind of politely commanding them to do something. So if you are the boss, this is a polite expression you can use to tell someone, “Hey, I need you to do this, I need you to do this by this afternoon, but I want to tell it to you in a polite way.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d have that report done by this afternoon.” Good. Make sure you use a polite tone of voice. The next three phrases are for giving suggestions. Number eight, “What if we reschedule for another day because it’s raining today?”

My father-in-law is an engineer, and he often has clients and customers and people from other departments visiting from Japan, China, France, Germany, and when they come to his office, they often take those people out to play golf. I’ve never worked in a company like this, so I haven’t experienced this, but he said it’s pretty common for his company. So if it’s raining that day that they plan to play golf, he might say this.

“What if we reschedule for another day because it’s raining today?” He’s giving a suggestion, but it’s also pretty direct in a polite way. Number nine, “How about if we go out to eat instead?” Let’s imagine that you’re the one who’s visiting my father-in-law’s company, and it’s raining. You plan to play golf, but you can’t because it’s raining. He might say to you, “How about if we go out to eat instead?”

He’s presenting another alternative. He’s suggesting something else. The other day, Dan asked me what I wanted to do in the afternoon, and I said, “Well, we could go to the park, but we always go to the park. How about if we go to the creek and we splash around in the water, because Theo loves to do that and it’s the perfect summer activity?” I was suggesting something.

“How about if we go to the creek and play in the water?” Even though Dan is my husband, we’re not in a business relationship… Well, he does help me with these English lessons, but we’re not technically in an office in this kind of relationship. So I could use this in a personal way as well. It doesn’t have to be just in a business situation. “How about if we go to the creek?” I’m just presenting, suggesting something else.

Polite expression number 10, “What do you think about this place?” This is a little bit more indirect because you’re asking what someone thinks. You’re not directly suggesting something else. So let’s take a look at some of those scenarios that we just talked about, using this expression, so that you can see the difference. “What do you think about rescheduling our golf game?”

“What do you think about eating out instead of going to play golf?” “What do you think about playing in the creek?” I’m asking, “What do you think about this?” I’m not saying, “I want to do this,” so it’s pretty indirect, but it’s another polite way to give a suggestion. I have two bonus miscellaneous polite expressions that I’d like to share with you.

This is number 11, bonus expression, “You should probably check the oven because I smell something burning.” If you come to my house and you’re about to eat dinner, but you smell something burning, you might use this to politely say, “You should probably,” probably here is our polite word, “You should probably check the oven because I smell something burning.”

Great way to ask someone to do something. You’re not saying, “Go do it now.” You’re saying, “You should probably check the oven.” Great. The next bonus expression, number 12, is “I don’t want to keep you.” Do you need to get out of a conversation, or maybe you feel like the other person needs to leave the conversation and they don’t feel comfortable just saying goodbye?

This is a great way to say, “Okay, I understand that you need to go,” or maybe you’re telling them, “Hey, I need to go.” You can say, “Well, I don’t want to keep you, but it was great talking with you.” You’re not saying, “I have to go.” Instead, you’re just saying, “I don’t want to keep you in this conversation.” You’re trying to be polite about this.

“I don’t want to keep you. It was nice meeting you,” or “I don’t want to keep you, so I guess I’ll see you the next time.” It’s a great expression to add when you’re saying goodbye to someone politely. That was a lot of polite expressions. Let’s review. I want you to say these sentences out loud with me.

Try to practice pronouncing them, practice saying them out loud, so repeat them. Are you ready? Would you please tell me where the closest subway station is? If you don’t mind, would you help put the dishes in the dishwasher while I put the kids to bed? If it’s not a problem, could I call you back in about 10 minutes? When you have a moment, can you email me those documents?

If you get a chance, could you water the plants too? By any chance, could you give me a ride home from work today? I’d appreciate it if you would have the report finished by the end of the day. What if we reschedule for another day because it’s raining today? How about if we go out to eat instead?

What do you think about this place? You should probably check the oven because I smell something burning. I don’t want to keep you, but it was great talking. That was a lot of wonderful polite expressions.