1. Sorry. 2. Excuse me 3. Pardon 4. I beg your pardon? 5. What was that? 6. What did you say, sorry? 7. I don't understand, could you say that again please? 8. Sorry, what did you just say? 9. What did you say just then? 10. Sorry, I didn't quite catch that. 11. Sorry, I didn't quite get that. 12. Would you mind speaking up a bit? 13. Sorry, I'm not following what you say. 14. Wait a second - I'm a bit lost 15. Would you mind slowing down a bit? I'm struggling to follow 16. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 17. I'm sorry to Interrupt but... 18. This is all Greek to me. 19. That was as clear as mud. 20. That went right over my head 21. What are you on about?
As an American, I have a few comments. 1) I thoroughly enjoy watching these videos, as they’re extremely informative, comical, and plain fun to watch. 2) I wish there were videos exactly like yours but for other languages! The format you follow and design of the video is incredible. 3) “What are you on about” is a phrase generally not spoken in the United States, but if said to me, I would 100% understand. Thank you for posting wonderful content that I look forward to watching!
It`s funny how English language is called English language in America, but Serbian language is called Croatian language in Croatia, Bosnian language in Bosnia, Montenegrin language in Montenegro. Despite that it is totally the same language. Any red flags popping up?
when i listen to you, often times I forget that I'm watching a video and feel you are live taking to me. Lucy you are magnetic! you've been a boon for an English learner like me
Dear Lucy I just found your channel a couple of days ago and wished I had found you earlier. Your friendly nature and your ability to explain english in an easy and understandable way is amazing and because of that you have now a new subrscriber!🥳 I can see without a doubt that you love what you do. Keep up the great work! 👏
Rather than listening I always like to watch Lucy’s expressions while speaking. In medium of communication expressions are also important. So nice of you Lucy.
In aviation radio communication, it is critical to understand exactly what Air Traffic Controllers say, so if a pilot (who often is, like me, a non-native English speaker) doesn’t quite catch it, there’s a standardized request: “Say again”. It might not be the most polite or posh request, but brevity is at a premium over the radio.
I'm a native speaker. But she has such a beautiful accent and balanced intonation - and is so easy on the eye, that I find myself watching quite happily! Seriously, she is very thorough, and really understands the difficulties for speakers of other languages. A true professional. I hope this doesn't sound creepy. It's genuine. Stay safe!
Thank you Lucy for teaching me these nice words to use more politely in English instead of saying I can't and I don't understand. I love joining your English class everyday Lucy. You sre great always
I find saying "Sorry (pause) What was that?" better than "What was that sorry?" Because the "Sorry" prepares them. As a deaf person, I say this a lot, and with people wearing masks, I'm like "I'm terribly sorry but I'm deaf and I need to lip read, is it possible you can remove your mask and repeat that?" As I rely on lip reading and I'm glad your videos come with subtitles.
Lucy. I can't stop watching your videos. You're the best teacher I ever had. So clear, so interesting, no native teachers maybe don´t know all the options you gave. Thank you for that. Greetings from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
My favourite phrase is definitely “Pardon?” It has such a nice subtle pronunciation. I watch your channel to perfect my vocabulary and pronunciation. Someone recently thought that I was born and bred here! It gave me such a boost and sense of achievement. 😁
I love your lessons and have been learning a lot from you. Right now, I'm living in California and my wife is still learning the basics of English and your videos are great tools for both of us, thanks!
A native speaker with a hearing loss in my later years this is helpful for me, too. We do tend to say and do the same things if not reminded of other ways to express ourselves. Thank you!
Love you Lucy!! I adore your lessons!! 😍😍 It helps me a lot. Is so hard talk to natives and have to ask many times to them to repeat. I appreciate it so much!!💙
I don’t have a problem in English, but I still watch your channel, so that I can expand my knowledge of English more. You really are a great teacher! I use ‘I beg your pardon?’ Or ‘Sorry?’
A variation of #7 that is taught in military communications is "say again, please". Commonly used if there is a bad connection and the message is garbled. It's also very useful in conversation as it has a neutral feel, is clear in the intent, and is inoffensive.
The trouble is, the shorter you make it, the less polite it sounds. That's why 'What?' is really impolite. Even "Say again, please" would seem disrespectful if you were asking for directions, talking to a person you just met, or talking to your boss. 'Sorry?' is unique because it's short but still very polite.
To Max Whitestone: This is number two to "come again:" This rolls of the tongue efficiently, and without so much need to focus on one's tone and countenance.
Amazing! I’ve been following you for a while but I honestly didnt give myself the time to dive in. I will from today :) The reading/listening at the same time is a great tip! As i dont have any Amazon account I do this while watching movies/series. I set the language and subtitles both in English and I have kinda the same result 🙊
You’re such an amazing person ❤️ I really like to listen to you and I can understand you so well, even tho I struggle with British accent sometimes😄 I am from another European country. Thank you for your videos, it’s soo helpful❤️ Fun fact: Just imagine me being call out for an exam and saying my teacher: “That was as clear as mud” Or “That went just over my head”😂
I would use ''could you please rephrase that'' this is especially useful when you want the speaker to repeat their sentence but with simpler English instead of complex words.
Thank you Lucy! You were doing a great thing here. Helping us each other in society especially during these times when the world is so divided, you making an effort to teach us ways to communicate with others in a nice and impactful way is really major! Great work you were doing here I just came across this video and I don’t know what you’re up to these days but I hope you’re still making the world a better place
Lucy, I really enjoy your videos. Even though a simple expression, you give a very indept analysis. Being a foreigner, what we can learn from dictionary is only the surface meaning of a word or expression. We have no idea what will be the feedback from a native speaker to different kind of expressions. With you explaination, not only could I understand the effect of different expressions but also the UK culture. Great thanks!
@@MANGLE111 no hahaha but I can help u with my language and English channel and my community!! if u join my community i can help you whenever and with whatever you want and every Saturday i go live on RU-vid so I can help you! If you want to join u need to subscribe and join my facebook group called international English learning Community and if you want I can send you the link to everything!
If you Learn English and want to improve your English ,,This is my advice for you ⬇.. . . To improve your English, guys, you should only do one thing. You should practice. try to go back in time and imagine yourself as a baby. How could you learn your mother language? By listening, right! by Listening and trying to speak. So, Try and make mistakes, it's fine, But in the end, I promise you. You will do it.
@SisterCat Gacha! シスターキャット hey are you conversational or just know some words and phrases? Cause I wanna learn korean so I wanted to know if watching k-drams would be of any help?
SisterCat Gacha! シスターキャット If you're serious about learning Japanese you shouldn't use anime as a platform for that. Actually most of the sentences spoken in anime aren't really used on a day to day basis, plus anime can be quite inaccurate at times. Take this with a pinch of salt cuz I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life.
Lovely presentation. Really gets to the nub of the issue, with body language, facial expression, and vocal intonation. For learners a very good forum. 👏👏👏 I like the suggestion regarding audio books and reading.
Very useful lesson, a very sensible approach to what seems to be an easy question at first. This was great as it helped me figure out what was missing from my own English practice . Thank you for this informative piece of work!
11:30 In polish language we have something similar. "Nie udawaj greka"-Don't pose/act as greek. Which means "don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about" or "don't act like you don't know what's going on" when we're certain somebody pretends to not know what's going on.
2nd one to comment here I love you Lucy It's like a bed of roses watching your videos I'm spellbound by your videos and it encourages me to speak English a whole day with my whole family 😛♥️🥰
Thanks for the excellent episode, Lucy. It's most helpful. As a native Chinese who grew up being taught British English, we learnt and took 'pardon' as a standard way to request repetition. But it's only natural for Received Pronunciation and very formal grammar which is widely associated with it to be taught together, though in real life I never say 'pardon', lol. xD
The most enjoyable and valuable English tutorial channel! So many have been browsed here on YT. I adore British pronunciation and long long to master it. And then...all's to the point, no affectation and mannerisms. Thank you
We used to learn "I beg your pardon" at school. It was too long to pronounce, but usual for us. And now I'm discovering, that it is posh 😂 Many thanks to my school teacher!
I have also learned pardon?/I beg your pardon. I owe to the person/book a lot. Are you a French. French 'excusez moi' means 'excuse me' in English. 'C'est Moi' means 'you are welcome'. Am I right?
When you say "What did you just say?" instead of "Sorry, what did you just say?" you may sound very rude, because that means you think someone was insulting you. You omit one word and you seem like an angry person :D
I think that only applies in textual conversation. If you see and hear the person speaking you can usually tell whether they are asking for clarification or are offended. Also you can tell by their body language and intonation whether they’re simply messing with you or if they are seriously offended.
Some New-York-isms: "What?" "Huh?" "Haahnnhh?" (said with the French nasal "n"). "Say what?" "Howzat?" "Whuzzat?" "Run that by me again?" I really enjoy your take on British English. As an American with many British friends, I sometimes find myself struggling to understand. Especially my friend from Glasgow, who takes 2-3 days to learn to slow down and tone down his accent so I can stop saying "say what?"
I was once picked to a random check at the airport security gate in a non-English speaking country. At one point I didn't quite catch what the security officer asked me to do. I asked 'Sorry?' and he replied: 'It's OK, you haven't done anything wrong yet'. I bet if I had asked 'Pardon?' instead, he would have replied that 'You're not in prison yet'. English is such a confusing language at times.
In Greece instead of saying 'It's all Greek to me' we say something like 'you're talking Chinese'. I know the translation is awful but I hope you get the meaning.
In Spain we use the same expression "you're talking in Chinese" intead of "It's all Greek to me". Also, to say someone is very good in many thing and clever we say "He/she knows Latin", but any expression with greek hahaha
never thought of that, LOL. In Chinese, i guess the counterpart for Greek is “天书 (tian1, for sky, shu1, for books)", which means " a book from the providence"
Ahahahah my British auntie taught me “pardon” when I was a young girl...and I’ve always used “Pardon?”... English native speakers systematically laughed at me! 😂 yeah, it’s definitely too posh...I’ll try to sound more colloquial with “sorry?”
I want to learn more english and my way to learn is to talk to an english person and its so amazing, you can easily addopt even their accent. You might even Surprise Yourself later you've spoken english already. 😊
Agree on that. At my work I have colleagues from another part in the UK and by speaking to them regularly I can pick up their accent. They are from Birmingham, Manchester, Scotland and Wales but majority of my colleagues are Scottish 'coz we are a Scottish company. I didn't pick up the scottish accent but my accent is more on receive pronounciation.
You can also learn by watching movies. That’s my way of learning English because I was always shy to talk to people I just met. I didn’t really meant to learn when I watch movies but then I realized it has improved my English.
I think this is fairly New England-y, but we use “Sorry, that went in one ear out the other”. Meaning the person said something and you just completely didn’t hear it or listen. You can also say “Back up a bit”, meaning you want them to go back to something they just said.
@@jupiteralmond1892 I know New Englanders more than others. You know, they do know the value of perversions. (Hope you recognize the reference to an old joke. 😊)
