How often do you feel like the things
that should be simple in English are never really that simple. For example, going to a coffee shop to order a
coffee or going to a restaurant. I know when I first moved abroad, it was those everyday interactions
that should be easy that caused the most anxiety. When I
would sit at a cafe to order lunch, my face would flush or turn
red and my hands got sweaty. Does that ever happen to you?
If you don't already know, I'm Annemarie with
Speak Confident English, everything I do here is designed to
help you get the confidence you want for your life and work in English, like going to a restaurant so that
you no longer have to stress or feel anxious about those simple
everyday things. Instead, you can just enjoy them. And that is exactly the goal for
today's Confident English lesson on 41 common phrases and collocations to
use at a restaurant in English. Now, if you're new to my Speak Confident
English channel, first of all, welcome. I love that you're here. And secondly, that word collocations may be new to you. So let's talk about it for a moment. A collocation is a group of words
that English speakers use together naturally. Let me give you an example. What do you say when you meet someone
for the very first time in English? You say, nice to meet you. You don't say joy to meet you. Why not? Joy to meet you has the same
meaning as nice to meet you, but it just doesn't sound
right. It's not what we say. Those words don't go together. And that's exactly what a collocation
is. By the end of this lesson today, you'll have a variety of common
phrases and collocations that English speakers naturally use at restaurants
so that you can do the same with confidence. [Inaudible]. All right. I hope that you have some
paper and a pencil or pen ready for today because we have a lot of phrases and
collocations to learn in this lesson. You'll learn what you need to
successfully make a reservation, greet others at a restaurant,
inquire about the menu order, what you want, express
frustration, or make a complaint. If you need to respond to the
question, how is everything, which you will hear a lot
at a restaurant in English. And finally what to say when you're
ready to finish your meal and make the payment. So let's get started right away with
that first step of asking for a table or making a reservation. Of
course, most of the time, these days we do it online, which
takes away that pressure and anxiety, but there are still some restaurants
that prefer or even require reservations to be made by phone.
So when that is your situation, here are a few ways to make
your reservation. First, when you make that phone call,
you can simply state your wish. I'd like to book a table for three, or I'd like to book a
table for three people. A common alternative is I would
like to reserve a table for three when making a reservation. If you want
to make it just a bit more polite, you could turn it into a polite
request with may I book a table for three, or could I make a reservation for
three in those last two examples, did you notice that I used
modals? I used may and could. Modals are those words such
as may, could, would, should, and might when we use modals, we automatically increase the level
of formality and politeness in our speech. After the
reservation has been made, and you first arrive at the restaurant, you may wonder what exactly you
should say after arriving and how to ask about your reservation.
And it's very simple. First, we always start with a greeting
because that is a form of politeness. And then you can ask about the
reservation. Here's how to do that. Hello? I have a reservation under
Annemarie Fowler, or hi, I have a table booked
under Annemarie Fowler. Pay attention to the collocations I'm
using here and the preposition under to have a reservation under
the name of Annemarie Fowler, or to have a table booked
under someone's name. Now, if you arrive at a restaurant and you've
not made a reservation in advance, you can follow a similar
structure, start with a greeting, and then simply ask if there's a
table available, for example. Hi, do you have any tables free
at the moment or hello, are there any tables
available for three right now? Once you're at your table
and start to review the menu, you may have some questions
you'd like to ask about the menu, or you may even want to ask about
some recommendations in this section. We're also going to highlight
some examples of contractions. We use contractions are used in
everyday conversation in English. They make our speech sound more natural. So I want you to pay attention to how I
ask some of these questions and listen carefully. For those examples
of contractions. First, let's look at three different ways. We can ask for a recommendation or
maybe find out what's popular at the restaurant or whether they
have any specials. Number one, what are today's specials?
What are today's specials? Listen carefully to how I'm
saying, what are today's specials? What are, what are today's specials? Do you notice that those two
words, what are, are blended. They're contracted. What
are today's specials? What are today's specials? A second question you can
ask is what do you recommend? This is a perfect question to ask if
the chef is particularly well known, or if you want to discover something
that this restaurant is well-known for. And a third question you can ask to find
out what's popular or recommended is, do you have any house specials again? How special is something that the chef
or restaurant is particularly well known for? In addition to asking
for recommendations, it's also very common to ask what is
included with an item when you're ready to order, for example, does this burger come with a side of
fries or does this salmon come with a side of vegetables? Does this come
with a salad on the side? Anything that comes with the main
item on the menu is considered a side or a side dish. And of course,
just like asking about a side dish, you might also want to know how
a particular dishes made or what ingredients are in it. And you
can ask in two simple ways, first you could ask what's
in, what's in the pasta salad, what's in the salmon dish
or option number two, what's the lemon mousse
made with. And notice again, here that I'm using a contraction. I'm not saying what is the
lemon mousse made with? I'm using what's what's
the lemon mousse made with? Once you've had all your questions
answered, it's time to order, and we have multiple ways to order
from a restaurant in English in this section. Again, I want you to pay
attention to what you hear me say, because again, I'll be
using some contractions or
examples of blended speech. Here are four ways. English speakers, often order at a restaurant first
may have, uh, may I have a burger, please listen carefully
to how I say have, uh, may have, uh, may have, uh,
may have a burger. I'd like, uh, I like, uh, I'd like
a salad. I'll have, uh, I'll have a salad. And could I
get the, could I get the salmon? If you're at a more casual restaurant
you can also use, can I get, uh, can I get a burger listen carefully
to the pronunciation? Can I get, uh, can I get a burger or I'll get, I'll get the salmon when you're ordering. You might also want
something extra on the side. We're going to go back to
the same language we used. When asking about what comes
with an item, for example, you might say I'd like the
salmon with a salad on the side, or I'd like a salad with
the dressing on the side. I'd like a burger with a side of fries. And when you would like to order
one thing in place of another, or to substitute another, you can simply, can I substitute a salad for the fries? What you're asking is can I have
a side salad instead of the fries? Here's another example. Can I substitute
a side of vegetables for the fries? Here's another way to say it. Can I substitute the fries with
a side of vegetables? Again, your preference is to have
a side of vegetables. Okay. So we've covered making a reservation,
arriving at the restaurant, inquiring about the menu and ordering. There are just a few things left to cover. We want to talk about expressing
frustration or making a complaint. If it's necessary, how to
respond to the common question, how is everything? And then finally what to say when you're
ready to finish the meal and make your payment. So let's talk about
what to say when things go wrong, maybe your food arrives late, or it's
not prepared the way you expected. How do you express that frustration? We're going to focus on two common
scenarios. First, what to say, when something isn't prepared,
the way you expected, and maybe you'd like to get it
remade or order something else. And the second scenario is what
to say when you've been waiting an extra long time for your food. So first what to say and how to
ask for something to be remade, you can start with a simple and
polite, excuse me. Excuse me. This dish isn't prepared the way I
expected it to be. Could I have it remade? Or could I order something
different when you use that request? It's very likely that someone
will ask you what exactly doesn't meet your expectations. So you want to be prepared to talk about
the fact that maybe there's a spice in the dish that you weren't prepared for, or maybe the meal wasn't
cooked the way you anticipated. And it's just not what you want. So you'd like to have it remade
or order something different. Here's another example, excuse me. I asked for no cilantro in this
dish, but there's a lot in my food. Could I have it remade. And
now scenario number two, if you've been waiting a
particularly long time for your food, here's a very simple way to express
that frustration and ask when you can expect it to arrive, excuse me,
we ordered our food sometime ago, or we ordered our drinks sometime ago. Will the food be much longer
or will it be much longer? Although it doesn't happen
often from time to time, you may wait so long for your food
that you no longer have time to stay at the restaurant and enjoy it. Maybe you're just on a quick lunch
break and you have a meeting to get to, or maybe you're going to a movie after
dinner. So you're pressed for time. In that situation, you can ask
for your food to go. For example, excuse me. I'm running late.
Have to get to a meeting. Could I get my food to go instead? Or could I get everything
packaged to go instead? And now let's move on to how to
respond to the most common question. You're going to hear at a restaurant
and you will hear it multiple times at a restaurant, particularly in the United
States, you will hear how is everything, how is everything you will hear at
least two or three times throughout your meal? And when you do,
here's what you can say. Everything's delicious. Thank
you. Everything's great. Thanks. We're enjoying our meal. Thank
you. It's great. Thanks. Now, in addition to hearing, how is everything you might also
hear how's everything tasting or are you happy with your meal? You might also wonder why you'll hear
this question so many times. And for us, it's simply a form of
politeness at a restaurant. They want to make sure that you're
satisfied and they will ask you multiple times to make sure that you are,
when you hear those questions. There are also opportune moments
to request something else. Maybe you'd like a substitute
or something on the side. Maybe you'd like another drink. Those are
perfect opportunities to ask for that. And finally, to finish our lesson on 41 common
phrases and collocations to use at a restaurant in English. Let's talk about what to say when you've
finished your meal and you're ready to pay first. If you're in the United States, it's very likely that you
will not be able to finish all of your dinner or your lunch. The
portions here are particularly large. So you might want to
ask for something to go. If you can't eat everything, you'll have some
leftovers and you can ask, could I box up the leftovers
or could I get the rest to go? And when you're ready to pay, you
can ask, may I get the check please? Or may I get the bill, please?
Could we get the check? Please notice I'm going back
to using those modals may and could to make a polite request. If you're having lunch or
dinner with multiple people, and everyone wants to pay separately.
When you're asking for the check, you could also ask for it to
be made separate. For example, we'd like separate bills please. Or could we get separate checks
and a more casual way to ask this is, could we split the check?
Could we split the bill? And lastly, once you've paid the bill,
if you do it by credit or debit card, you can easily include
the tip on the receipt, sign your name and you're finished.
However, if you pay with cash, you can leave money on the table and
to let the staff know that it's a tip, you can simply say, keep
the change. And with that, you have everything you need to know
to successfully go to a restaurant and order in English without
any anxiety or fear. I absolutely recommend that you
select a few key phrases that are most useful to you and practice
saying them multiple times. If you've been following
me for awhile, you know, that the key to remembering
vocabulary and feeling comfortable with it is
repetitive practice. So let's talk a little bit about some
of the key phrases that you want to remember. I have a couple of challenge
questions for you. Number one, is there a new phrase or collocation
that you've learned today in this lesson that you've never heard before?
Or maybe you have heard it, but you were never really sure what
it meant or how it was used. If so, I would love to hear about it and I'd
like you to use it in an example sentence, you can share your sentence with me
in the comments below. Number two, are there other phrases or
collocations you've heard before for ordering at a restaurant or going to a
coffee shop that you're curious about? If you'd like to ask me a question, you can always do that in
the comment section below. If this lesson today was helpful
to you, I would love to know. And you can tell me in
one very simple way, simply give it a thumbs up here on
YouTube. And while you're at it, make sure that you subscribe to the
Speak Confident English channel. So you never miss one of my
Confident English lessons. Thank you so much for joining me. And
I look forward to seeing you next time.
