Saying thank you is a common
way to express gratitude or show appreciation when someone does
something nice for you. But gratitude, the practice of gratitude, is so much more than saying thank you. I'm sure that you've read blog posts or
listened to podcasts on the importance of creating a gratitude practice
or maybe even having a gratitude journal. In fact, inside my
Confident Women Community , this has become a hot
topic of conversation with regular discussions and exchanges on
how to best implement a practice of gratitude. So as you begin
to reflect on the past year, how can you best express
your gratitude in English? How can you go beyond a simple,
thank 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.
In this Confident English lesson, you're going to learn six different
ways to express gratitude in English. As a result, you'll have richer word choices
you can use to express the depth of your gratitude. Before we dive into this and let's
explore what gratitude really means. A simple dictionary definition states
that gratitude is the quality of being thankful. However, as
you've likely discovered, a practice of gratitude
is far more profound. Gratitude is a selfless, deep appreciation for
the things we receive, whether tangible or intangible. And a practice of gratitude can
help you feel more positive, build stronger relationships
and experience catharsis or the release of strong emotions. On top of all of that regularly
expressing gratitude allows you to communicate reminisce
about and relish your past experiences while English speakers
do often say thank you to express their appreciation or
gratitude to someone. We tend to go beyond a simple
thank you to express our gratitude for a past event or experience. And here are six ways to
do that phrase. Number one, I'm grateful or thankful... Rather than
say that you're glad something happened, you can go a step further and start
your sentence with one of these collocations that begins
with I'm grateful. I'm grateful for I'm grateful to. I'm grateful that, and I'm grateful to someone. Let me give you a couple
of clear examples. If you appreciate someone's
past actions toward you, you could say I'm grateful
to my mentor for teaching me effective strategies for success. Or if you want to express
appreciation for a recent experience, you could say I'm
grateful to have had this opportunity. And now phrase number two, I appreciate just like with
I'm grateful we have multiple collocations using. I
appreciate... For example, I appreciate that. Or I appreciate the fact
that I appreciate followed by an indirect object, for example,
an individual. And I appreciate how, let me give you a couple of examples. When you want to show that you appreciate
a past experience, you could say, I appreciate how my years of training
got me through the toughest moments of my career. Not only does the word
appreciate express gratitude, but it also indicates recognition. You're recognizing the influence of
a past experience or recognizing an individual. And now phrase
number three, I feel blessed. This is an ideal sentence starter when
you want to express a deep sense of gratitude. When we start a
sentence with, I feel blessed, we can follow it with that,
to, for, and with. For example, in your life, I'm sure there is one person
situation or circumstance that you feel truly deeply grateful for. And you can express that
gratefulness by saying, I felt blessed for having another
opportunity to rebuild my business phrase. Number four on our list
today is I count my blessings. This is a popular idiom used to
recognize all the positive things that have happened in someone's
life. For instance, you might say, I count my blessings when I think
about how lucky I was to get hired before the recession. In addition to
that expression, you might have heard, I count my blessings twice, and of course this communicates an
even stronger sense of gratitude. For example, I count my blessings twice that my
daughter was able to graduate despite the ups and downs she's experienced
over the last few years. Phrase number five for expressing
gratitude is I'm fortunate. Every now and then when
we reflect on the past, we may also have a sense
of feeling lucky as well as thankful. And when we have that sense, using the words I'm fortunate is an
ideal way to express that combination of feelings. For example, in my situation, I would say with absolute certainty, I feel fortunate for
having an amazing team. And now phrase number six, our last way to express gratefulness
in today's Confident English lesson is I'm indebted. When you think back on the people in your
life who have helped you move forward, they may have done so with
great kindness, empathy, and generosity. When you want to express your
gratitude for that individual in a way that also indicates that
you want to share that same kindness, empathy, or generosity
with them in the future, you can use I'm indebted. To do that,
we use the structure I'm indebted to... And then the individual, for example, I'm indebted to my sister for guiding
me through some of the most difficult moments in my life. Now that you have six new phrases
to fully express your gratitude, let's finish with three creative ways
to put all of this into practice. Tip number one is to
use intensifiers words, such as forever eternally, extremely intensify, the overall sense of gratitude that
you want to express. For example, I'm forever grateful for the kindness
and support of my neighbor when our house was robbed. Tip number two for putting your
gratitude into practice is to create a gratitude journal. In all the hustle
and bustle of our daily lives, it's easy to lose sight of the
things that we're grateful for, and instead be overwhelmed by
the negatives that surround us. Starting a gratitude journal not only
allows you to use this new language, but also counterbalance
those negative impacts. One common recommendation for implementing
a gratitude journal is to set aside three to five minutes a day, and simply write down a few things
that you feel that sense of gratitude for. And you can use all of these
sentence starters to help you. In fact, you could have them
listed at the top of a page, so they're easy to reference and they
help you think about what you're grateful for in that moment that
you sit down to reflect. And finally tip number three for how to
put gratitude into practice is to write a note or a letter. Never underestimate the
power of a handwritten note. The next time you want to show
gratitude towards someone, consider writing them a handwritten
note, or if necessary an email. You'd be surprised how rare
this practice is and how uplifting it can be for the receiver.
When you sit down to write that note, you can use some of these sentence
starters to help you express what you're grateful for. And now to
finish this lesson today, I
have two questions for you. So you can immediately practice some of
the phrases that you've learned today. Question one, which phrases from today's lesson
are you most excited to begin using in your English practice? Give me an example of one of them
and include what you're grateful for. And question number two, take a
moment to reflect on the past year, what is a past experience or an individual
that you're feeling grateful for and how would you express that? Choose one of the six
phrases you've learned today. And if you'd like share your example
with me in the comments below as always, if you found today's lesson
useful to you, I would love to know. And you can tell me in
one extremely simple way, give this a us a thumbs up here on
YouTube, and while you're at it, subscribe to this 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.
