How to Soften Your English | English for Business (with workbook)

1. Welcome to the course!: Welcome to this class all about how to soften your English. In this series, you're going to learn some important tools that you can use to be more diplomatic when speaking, when speaking in English, especially when you have to give bad news to somebody. If you work in an English speaking environment or you have ever felt like you were speaking to directly. Like maybe people thought you were being a bit rude, then this class is going to help you fix that specific problem. Even if you don't work in English every day, learning how to communicate softly with English speakers is an extremely valuable skill for you to learn. We're going to break down some of the best softening strategies and tactics to make sure that you are ready to speak with your boss, with your colleagues, and especially with customers in a very diplomatic soft way. So if you're ready, let's get started with the first video and I'll see you there. 2. How to use this course: The first thing you should do now is download the workbook that comes with this video series. You can use the workbook to take notes as we go, as you watch the videos, to take notes so that you can remember the things that you have learned and review them later on. You can also complete activities directly inside of your workbook. You can write directly on the page. You can write, you can write here. So you can write directly on here, so there's no need to, to print off anything, but you can still practice everything that you learn in this course. So go ahead, download the workbook that comes with this course, and I'll see you in the first video. 3. Breaking the News: In this video series, we're going to begin looking at some ways to break the news to somebody. And what I mean when I say break the news, breaking news is to deliver or to give, to give bad news to somebody, to give bad news. And it's never fun to give bad news to somebody. We don't like doing it, but there are some tools that we can use to make it easier for somebody to hear bad news. So that's why we need to use this. We can call these methods, we call them softeners. And we're going to look at in the next couple of videos how we can use softeners to give bad news or to break the news. So the first thing I want you to do is to go into your workbook that you downloaded with this course and answer this question. It says, Imagine you are not going to finish a project on time. What would you say to your boss? Right? So imagine you're in a situation, you're at work, you have a deadline, and you're not going to finish your project on time, how would you tell your boss this bad information, right? What words would you use? So you can think about this or you can go in your workbook and there's a space there where you can actually write directly on the page and think, and think about what you would say here. Now, I'm going to give you a couple options in the next slide. But if you want to think about it on your own first, then pause the video and think for a moment, alright, but we're going to continue. So here are some different ways that we can deliver this bad news, that we can break the news that we are not going to finish our project on time. Here's the first one. The first one here it says we've had problems and we need more time to finish. We've had problems and we need more time to finish. Well, this is a great way to break the news, to give some bad news to somebody, right? It's very clear. It's very clear and it's very direct. You're saying exactly what you're thinking. It's clear and its direct, right? And so a lot of people would use this structure here to give the bad news or to break the news to this person. However, what we need to remember is that in English, directness is generally not a good way to communicate, especially in formal situations or especially at work, especially when you're giving bad news, okay, it's better generally to be a bit more diplomatic and a bit more indirect. So that's why we have option number two here. Option number two says, Unfortunately, we have had a few setbacks and we might need a little more time to finish everything. So this one is a bit more complex. That's true, a bit more complex, but it's also more indirect. Indirect. And when we are communicating at work or communicating in formal cases, formal situations, the indirect form is generally the best. This is not the same in every culture. If you come from a culture where directness is more important than it can feel very strange to go to an English speaking environment and have to be indirect All the time. I worked with lots of, I have worked with lots of students who have had exactly this problem. They say what they're thinking and people get offended, or people freak out, people overreact. And it's because we reserve these direct statements for very serious situations. And so when you are, when you use directness, in all cases, people don't understand it the way you intend. So that's why we need to use these indirect structures. Okay? Now, in our sentence here, we have four elements that we use to be indirect or to soften our language, okay, we have four elements and so in our next couple of videos, that is what we are going to focus on. We will focus on breaking down these elements, these words like unfortunately, a few setbacks, we might need a little more time. We're going to go one by one and we're going to attack these types of softeners so that you can use them in your day to day English Communications. Alright, if you're ready, go ahead and join me in our next video where we will begin talking about qualifiers. I'll see you there. 4. Qualifiers: As we mentioned in the last video, there are four tactics that we can use to break the news or to deliver bad news in a softened way. In this video, we're going to cover the first one, which are called qualifiers. Alright, so we're covering qualifiers and now qualifiers looked like this. We see some in our, in our sentence here. It looks like this. A few setbacks, a little more time, and there are lots of other ones that we can use. And I'm going to give them all to you in this list. So to begin with, let's take a look at this picture here we have a gentleman in the picture and he's looking at his watch and he's thinking, we're going to be late, right? He's thinking we're going to be late. Now. He could express himself on the left side. You could say we're going to be really late. Or he can say we're going to be a bit late so he can qualify, he can change the degree or the severity of his sentence, the intensity of his sentence by adding these words called qualifiers. Now on the left side we see a certain type and this is called an intensified because it makes the sentence stronger. It intensifies the sentence. We're going to be really late is stronger than we are going to be late. And on the other side, we have what we can call these qualifiers. And these sentences make, these statements make the sentence weaker. We're going to be a bit late, is less severe or less strong, then we're going to be linked. Alright, so we have this degree, we have these grades that we can give to our sentences to make them more or less intense, more or less strong. So we had these qualifiers. Now, we have two types of qualifiers that we can, we can use that we have in our toolkit. We have our noun qualifiers. These qualifiers modifying nouns to make them seem smaller or fewer. We see some examples with our group here. We say, for example, I have just one or two questions. I have just one or just have one or two questions. Instead of saying I have questions, we can say that I have one or two questions. One or two is an excellent qualifier. On the other side we see I would make a slight change to the design. I would make a slight change, not a big change NOW, a slight change or a small change or a little change, right? So we can use these words to make it seem smaller or fewer. In this case, in the case of number one, we're making it seem fewer. I only have one or two questions. And then the second one here, we're making it seem smaller, a slight change. So we have both of these opportunities to the other type of qualifier that we can use, our adjective, qualifiers. And these modify adjectives make them seem less intense to make them seem less intense. So in our first sentence it says, I think we are pretty close to finishing pretty is an excellent one to use. Pretty closest is less intense than close. We're close to finishing. We're pretty close. And the one that I probably use the most. And you may have heard me use this in several, in several videos so far. But this one is a bit, a bit, you'll have to work a bit harder to get it done. This is an excellent qualifier, this word a bit. I use it all the time and it makes our sentences seem softer, smaller, less intense. So we have these different, these different types to work with. Now in your workbook, I've given you this table here, this chart that includes seven of the most common of each type of qualifier. So you can, you can use these, remember them and apply them whenever you want to make your sentences softer. If you're using a noun, then you have all of these words here to choose from. If you're using an adjective, then you have these words to choose from. We can say I'm having a minor setback, right? A minor setback, a small one, right. So minor again means small. We can say, I have just a few questions about your proposal before we saw one or two questions, and now we see a few questions, so we have several options here. At the bottom we see other words like a bit, of course, kind of, sort of pretty fairly, slightly and somewhat somewhat is an excellent one like this here that this meeting is taking somewhat longer than I had expected. Somewhat longer than I had expected. Again, very similar meaning to slightly longer, fairly longer, kind of longer, a bit longer. But somewhat is a good one to use as well. Alright, so go into your workbook. You have some practice for this. You have to, you have to practice using this, these qualifiers. And I'll see you in the next video where we get into our next topic. 5. Modal Verbs: We've just seen how to use qualifiers to break the news to somebody or to soften our language. Now we're going to look at what are called modal verbs. Modal verbs. So that's this word right here. This word might, and by changing this word to mite or by using the word might, we have changed the entire feeling of the sentence? I'm going to show you how to do that now. So let's compare these two statements. One of them says, I will be late picking you up from the airport or sorry, I will be a bit late, right? We have our qualifier very important. And the second one says, I might be a bit late picking you up from the airport. Now they're expressing the same idea. I'm probably going to be late. But I have expressed the first one with will and the second one with Mike. So what is the difference? Well, when we use the word will, it shows that we are certain and confident in the information that we share. This can be good if we are certain or we are confident and we want to express that, then we can use the word will. It's an excellent word to use. However, if we're delivering bad news, if we are breaking the news to someone or if we're sharing something that is not nice. And we want to soften it and make it seem not certain but possible. Then might is an excellent word to use. Might expresses that it is not certain that it is possible. Now this person expects me to be late. But if I'm there on time, then, you know, that's fine too. Right? So we're generally expressing the same idea, but we soften it by using the word mind. Now, might is not the only word that we can use. There are actually three modal verbs that we can use that express very, very similar levels of possibility. One of them is might, of course, another one is male, and the other one is could. And these are the three modal verbs, the three words that you should keep in mind to know that when you want to make your sentence less certain, less certain, you should choose one of these three words. For example, in our first video, we saw an example of a person who was not going to finish a project on time? Well, they could say this. They could say we need more time to finish, or they could say, we may need a little more time. We can include are qualifiers. We may need a little more time to finish. If you want to tell an employee that they have to work late this evening, you can say this, you have to work late this evening. That's very direct. Or you can say you might, you might have to work late this evening and that's a little easier to hear. It adds a bit of doubt, although they probably understand that there's no possibility that it is going to happen. And finally, we can use this expression. We can see we will be late if we don't get a taxi soon. Or we could say we could be late if we don't get a taxi soon. And they express, again very similar ideas, but could shows that it is possible and not certain. So when you want to add possibility at doubt to your sentences, these three words here should be your go to the best words for you to use. Change will, into may, might, or could, and you won't have a problem. Alright, go ahead and go to your workbook now, complete the activities, and I'll see you in the next video. 6. Loaded Language: In this video, I'm going to introduce you to the third way of softening language and making your language more diplomatic. And that is using what is called loaded language. Now, an example in our sentence here is the word setbacks. This is an example of loaded language that I'm going to show you in this video. Now, let's start this by looking at this gentleman in the picture here. You can, there are lots of words we could use to describe this person, but three of them are right here. We could say he's confident, we could say he's proud and we can say He's egotistical. And if you'd go to the dictionary and you look up these three words, they will have very similar definitions. They'll have very similar definitions. They all talk about a person who walks confidently or who, who, who thinks very highly of themselves. However, if we say he is confident, that's understood to be positive. But if we say he's, He's egotistical, that's understood to be negative and proud. You can make a case for either one, but it's generally a pretty neutral term. So even though these words all have similar definitions, the feeling of the word is not the same. And that's what we mean by loaded language. We mean that these words have extra meaning on top of their definitions in the dictionary. And we can use this to our advantage to make our language softer. So here are some examples of other loaded terms or actually not loaded terms, but softer terms, right? They're loaded in a softer way. When you're in business, when you're at work, all of these words can come up and they can all be excellent examples of how to soften language. For example, instead of describing something as being difficult, say that it's challenging, right? That shows that it's still possible to overcome difficult as a complaint, challenging is challenged, it's an opportunity. Instead of saying a problem, you can say a setback. That's the one we've seen before. You can say an obstacle, something to overcome. You can say an issue, meaning a small problem. Instead of saying You are late, late is a very strong thing. You can say you are behind schedule. Instead of saying something is expensive, it's out of my price range. It's an excellent one to use there. If you're ever negotiating, it's not expensive. No, it's out of my price range. I cannot afford it. Instead of making a critique on somebody's work, you can ask a question. Instead of changing something, you can adjust it. Adjust as a software term, it's just a small change. Instead of firing somebody, you can let someone go. So it's just a softer way to say it. And finally, instead of there being a negative, we can say that there is a downside to something. Or we can also say a drawback. Drawback is another good one. There. So a downside or a drawback. So we have this loaded language, all of these terms, the blue terms are generally the ones you want to use. If you are using, if you want to soften your language, if you want to be extreme, if you want to be severe or direct the Navy, the orange terms are better. But if you're trying to soften language, the blue terms are the best. Now there are a few extra little pieces to this. For example, we cannot just simply replace the words every time it doesn't always work out so simply, for example. So sometimes we need to adjust the sentence. There's our word adjust instead of changed, adjusted a little bit. We can say instead of we're running a bit late for the meeting, there's a word a bit again, instead of we're running a bit late for the meeting, we just say we're running behind schedule. We don't put anything after it behind schedule. Or instead of saying, I want to make a critique about your design, I want to ask a question so we need to change the other parts of the sentence. This is something that could be an entire course on its own. This is going to come with practice, okay? You need to practice this and as you do it over time, it becomes easier and easier to use these terms correctly. But most of the time you can simply replace them and it will be okay. Alright, now the last part of this is that loaded language can sometimes be what is called an idiom. Now an idiom is just another way to say an expression. An expression. We know lots of them in English. We know a cup of tea or raining cats and dogs. There are lots of these expressions in English that we love to use. And sometimes we use them to soft in our language. So for example, with the word sick and with the word nervous, we have two idioms are two expressions that we can use to soften these expressions or to change them into something new. Pause the video and see if you can think of these expressions on your own. If you can, That's very impressive and congratulations. Or if you just want to see my answers, then I'm going to share it with you now. Okay, so pause the video if you want to try it on your own or just wait 1 second. All right, here are the answers. Here's what we can change them to with sick. We can change it to the expression under the weather, under the weather. Now remember with expressions with idioms, the words have nothing to do with the meaning. So sick under the weather, just understand that it's another word. So instead of saying, I didn't go to the office because I was sick, we can say I didn't go to the office because I was under the weather. And with nervous we have another expression. The expression is butterflies in my stomach. That feeling you have when you're very nerve as it feels like you have butterflies in your stomach. And so we have this expression that says I always get butterflies in my stomach before a big presentation. So we have this idiom as well. You'll actually, sometimes you'll hear somebody say, I get butterflies, they'll take out this in my stomach part. And then it really doesn't make sense. I get butterflies before a presentation. Well, it means that they're nervous or anxious, right? So we have all of these loaded language terms. We have all of these that you can use to make your language software. We have these eight right here plus two idioms at the end here. So go into your workbook, you have some practice to do there, go do the activities, and I'll see you in the next video. 7. Softening Phrases: The final type of softener that we're going to look at in this series is called a softening phrase or softening phrases in our sentence here, the example that we see is the word. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, this is an example of a softening phrase, but there are lots of different softening phrases that we can use. So let's take a look at some of them now. We can see an example of a person here, maybe a receptionist at a hotel telling the customer that they do not have any rooms available. So she has to break the news, she has to give bad news to them. And she can do it in two ways. One, she can say, We don't have any rooms available very direct once again, but not very diplomatic, not a good, not good customer service, not softening anything. Or she can use her softening phrases and she can say, unfortunately, it seems like we don't have any rooms at the moment. At the moment. Alright, so unfortunately it seems like we don't have any rooms at the moment. And by adding these elements, she has softened her phrase. Now notice that nothing else has changed. We don't have any rooms available. That's exactly what she said before. But by adding the softening phrases, she has softened the message, has made it easier for the person to hear, and she shows that she is, she's giving bad news. So how, how can we use these softening phrases? Well, let's take a look at them. We can break it into three types of softening phrase. So we have our sentence up at the top, so you can see that. And we're going to look first at this one that says, Unfortunately, now this is called a sentence starter. And the sentence starter sets the tone for the whole sentence. These words or these phrases generally go at the very beginning of the sentence. That's why they're called sentence starters. And they set the tone for the whole sentence. These are phrases like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But we don't have any rooms available. Unfortunately is a great one, I'm afraid is another one. If we can say I have to admit or to be honest, if we were if we're sharing our opinion, we can use this one here. It says with all respect, with all respect, this is to show respect to somebody before we share our opinion. With all respect. I don't think this is the best way for us to go. So we have these sentence starters that we can use to first set the tone for the whole sentence. Then we could include what are called doubt statements. Doubt statements, and these statements reduce the certainty what we're saying. They function very similarly to the words might and may include that we saw before. They reduce certainty, they make it more possible. Or they show that we are using our, that we are using our deduction or wish using evidence to see that something is true. For example, we can say, it seems like Are there seems to be, there seemed to be. We can say, I think we can say, I'm not sure, we can say, I imagine it looks like, right. So with these expressions were showing that there, that it's not a definite statement, but that it is a bit more possible or a little bit less certain. Now we could say, I'm not sure if we have any rooms at the moment. I imagine you could find a room and another hotel. And finally, we have what are called reassuring statements. Reassuring statements. And these statements show that a situation is temporary. We're saying right now, Not always, not generally, but at the moment in at this time, we don't have any rooms available at this moment, at this time, right now. For now, another good one is to use the word yet, the very good one. In some cases, we don't have any rooms available yet, but if you call later, maybe we will. So we can use all three of these types of phrases. So the next, so let's look at an example of this. Let's see an example. So imagine you have lost your keys to the office, right? So you have lost your keys to the office and now we can not get into the office. So you need to tell us to soften this by using these softening phrases, the sentence starters that doubt statements and the reassuring statements. To give us this information, think about how to do it. Try to figure it out in your mind exactly what you would say. Pause the video if you want and think about it. And now I'm going to share with you a couple of answers, a couple of ways that we can combine these things together. So here are two examples. One of them says, I'm afraid it looks like I've misplaced the keys and notice that we say misplaced, right? If you think back to our previous lesson, you might be able to think of a reason why we say misplaced instead of lost, right? Maybe it feels a little bit softer. It's a little bit less loaded. So I'm afraid it looks like I've misplaced my keys. Right. That's one option. Or we could say I'm not sure where my keys are right now at this time, in this moment, right? So we have lots of ways that we can use softening phrases to soften our sentences. We have all of these expressions here. Alright, now the last thing you need to do, go to your workbook, complete the activities for the softening phrases, and then join me in our next video where we're going to put all of this together and practice. 8. Final Assessment: We've seen four different ways to use softeners to express yourself in a more diplomatic way. Now you can use these softeners. You can use qualifiers, modal verbs, loaded language, and softening phrases to break the news to people or to give bad news in a softened or diplomatic way. Now, it's time to practice. So I'm going to present for situations to you. And your job is to write in your workbook to say exactly how you would soften these situations, how you would present the information in a softened way. Alright, so let's look at the four situations. Here's the first one. The first one is you are buying a car and you need to tell the salesmen that the car is too expensive. Alright, this is an uncomfortable situation, but you need to do it anyway. Now, my trick for this one, my key is remember that we have a and a loaded expression for saying something is too expensive. Alright, so that's a good starting point for this. But you should try to use other softening tools as well. So that's the first one. Tell the salesman that the car's too expensive. The second one is this, it says Tell your employee, so you're the boss now, tell your employee that she has to work this weekend. She's not going to be happy when you say this, but you have to tell her anyway. Alright, so tell your employee she has to work this weekend. The next one is tell your coworker that he is using the wrong spreadsheets. So he's been working for hours on this project on the spreadsheet. And you realize that he's using the wrong one. So you need to present this information to him, break the news and a softened way so that he doesn't get upset. And finally, the fourth situation is tell the interviewer that you've decided not to accept her job offer. You've just done an interview. They offer you a job and you've decided not to take it. How can you make this software? How can you present this in a softened way? They're not going to be happy, but you have to do it anyway. Alright, so go into your workbook and complete these four activities. Say exactly, write down exactly what you would say in those situations to be softer. And if you want to share this information, share your answers in our class discussion. 9. Review: Thank you so much for joining me in this video series where we broke down the softeners and ways to speak more diplomatically or to break the news in a softer way. Very quickly, let's recap and review everything that we learned so that we have it fresh in our minds going forward. First, we looked at our qualifiers. We said that we can use these qualifiers to make our sentences softer and less intense. Then we looked at these expressions, may, might include these three modal verbs that we can use to add possibility in our sentences. Then we saw are loaded language and you've got this long list of excellent blue phrases and expressions that you can use to, to change into your sentences and make them a bit softer. And finally, we saw these softening phrases, these three types that you can add to any sentence to immediately snap your fingers and make it softer and more diplomatic. I hope you have enjoyed this course. Now the next step and the final step is to go out into the real world and use these tools that you have been given. By doing so, you will solidify this in your mind and you will be able to use them much better in the future. Alright, thank you so much for joining me. See you next time.