INTERMEDIATE 2

Four Strategies for Kind, Polite English Skills

Strategy 1: Use Modals

Modals are those words you learned in your English classes such as: would, could, might, may.

It seems so simple, but using a modal can change a direct, aggressive question into a polite request. They soften your requests, questions, and commands, which means you won’t sound rude or too direct.

Examples:

• Order me a coffee, please. → Would you get me a coffee, please?

• Please leave. I have to take this phone call. → Could you step out of the room for a moment? I have to take this phone call.

• Send me those documents before the end of the day. → Could you send me those documents by the end of the day?

• I need to borrow your pen for a moment. → May I borrow your pen for a moment?

• Strategy 2: Change Your Grammar

This strategy is CRAZY but it’s true. Sometimes we change our grammar tense to be more polite.

In English, the Present Simple Tense can sound direct, maybe too direct so…

If you’re at work talking at an important business meeting, of course, you want to be polite! You want to sound smooth, confident, and kind. If you sound too aggressive or direct, it might cause a problem in the discussion.

Here’s how you can do this: Change the present tense to the past tense or a progressive (-ing) tense. Your meaning is still in the present, but you change the verb to add softness, to be less direct.

TIP: We do this with verbs such as hope, feel, think, want, wonder. For example:

• Do you have time to meet tomorrow to discuss this?

  • → I wondered if you had time to meet tomorrow.

  • → I was wondering if you had time to meet tomorrow.

  • → I’m wondering if you have time to meet tomorrow.

• What is your name? → What did you say your name was?

• I’d like to finish this meeting by 4:00 p.m. → I was hoping to finish this meeting by 4:00 p.m.

• Can I ask a question about the agenda? –> I wanted to ask a question about the agenda.

• I think you need help with the deadline. → I thought you might like some help with the deadline.

Strategy 3: Use Vague Language

Vague language means not too specific or too direct. We often use expressions such as: a bit, around, kind of, -ish, a few, quite, slightly, a little

We use these expressions – or qualifiers – to provide less direct information, for example with times or quantities.

• I’d like you to spend around 4 hours to get this project completed. If you can’t complete it by then, let’s talk so we can make necessary changes.

• Why don’t you come to my office at 2:00-ish ( = around 2:00) for a quick meeting.

• That’s not quite what I had in mind. What if we made a few changes?

• That estimate is a bit high, don’t you think?

Strategy 4: Negative Questions are Polite

For formal conversations, or when you want to be diplomatic, use negative questions to give your advice, make a recommendation, provide a suggestion, express your opinion, or ask a question. Using negative questions softens the language and changes strong language into indirect language.

Here are a few examples:

• We need to review these documents one more time. → Don’t you think that we should review these figures one last time?

• Yes, we’ve met before. I met you at the conference last year. → Haven’t we met before? I think it was at the conference last year.

• You must consider how the client might respond. → Shouldn’t we consider how the client might respond?