DO NOT SAY 'I understand'! | Learn MUCH better ways alternatives

[Music] hi there this is teacher harry and welcome back to my english lessons where i help you to get a much better understanding of the english language i help you with your grammar i help you with your phrasal verbs expressions idiomatic expressions most importantly conversation to improve that fluency to help you to talk in a better way with your colleagues your friends when you're traveling or indeed to help you through those important questions at interview stages whatever you need in english you're at the right place okay so what am i going to talk about today in this lesson well in this lesson we're going to look at some expressions i'm going to look at better ways to say i understand in english better ways to say i understand understand is a really interesting word because we use it to tell people that we accept and acknowledge what they're trying to tell us yes i understand you yeah i i understand what you mean i understand what you're trying to say i understand the position i understand the problem so it's a really important way but there are many other ways in which we can say the same thing so what i'm going to do is i'm going to go through them one by one okay and then i'm going to give you some examples and hopefully then you'll be able to practice those you'll understand them better and of course as always if you don't understand some of them but just come back to me and i'll give you some more explanations later on okay so let's go through them first i get the idea or i get your point i get it gotcha very american that gotcha fair enough i hear you that makes sense i'm with you i know what you mean i see where you're coming from i catch your drift to comprehend or i fail or you fail or someone fails to comprehend now some of these are quite formal other than others of them are more informal and i'll point those out to you as we go through them okay so all of them are used in different ways as i mentioned them there i put different stresses on them as to where you can put the the stress to get the the meaning across and that's intonation is really really important when we are speaking english when we're using it okay let me go through them one by one so i get the idea or i get your point so when somebody explains something to you and they might go into it in a lot of detail or they may be very very succinct meaning in a very short space of time you say yeah okay i understand i get the idea i get your point i understand what you're trying to tell me yeah okay so somebody's trying to explain to you where a marketing campaign went wrong so they're trying to tell you that what we should have done is we should have used social media in a much better way yeah i get the idea it would have been a better plan if we'd gone social media because everything is moving online i get the idea i get your point meaning i accept it and we'll move on from there second one just as very short i get it yeah so when we say i get it it means yeah i understand so somebody says yeah do you get it and so you respond yeah i get it i understand so it could be some it's quite informal it could be the kids yeah so you're trying to explain to the kids why it's important for them to obey your house rules why it's important for them to clean the dishes away after the meal that it's not just up to mom and dad to cook the food but it's up to them to put away the dirty dishes in the dishwasher to put everything away in the fridge to sweep the floor whatever it might be so you sit down with them say okay look this is the way it is yeah do you understand yeah i get it i get it so that's the sort of response that you're likely to get from the kids so if you hear that from somebody speaking english or some of the kids i get it it means yeah i understand now this word gotcha it's not really a real english word gotcha means i get you yeah okay gotcha and it's very very american gotcha yeah okay so you can almost hear the americans sitting back and sharing gotcha yeah so gotcha means i understand yeah do you get me yeah gotcha fair enough okay that's quite an irish expression fair enough fair enough means yeah that's okay that's it it works for me yeah so somebody explains to you what we're going to do they want you to do this work and if you do this work they'll do this for you if you play ball with them they'll play ball with you if you want to promotion this is what is expected if you want a salary increase this is what is expected so they say yeah do you understand yeah fair enough and fair enough means ah yeah that's okay it's a fair rule it works for both of us works for me it works for you so it could be the negotiation in a at the end of a job interview so you've gone through two or three stages of that job interview and the boss is trying to the new boss is going to tell you what's expected of you so do you understand yeah yeah that's fair enough yeah fair enough means yeah that's acceptable to me if it's acceptable to you fair enough i hear you yeah i hear you so when you really want to let somebody know yeah yeah i i understand the point you're trying to make yes i understand your concerns yeah i hear you and i hear you as can be a little bit condescending but you know i hear you doesn't necessarily mean you're going to do anything about it but i hear you i hear your concerns yes so some politician for example when the local people in the community are complaining about perhaps some anti-social behavior or they're complaining about the taxes or the poor lighting in the streets whatever it might be they're complaining about and the politician as politicians do sit sit there and they nod the heads yeah yeah i hear you i hear you now whether they will act on that who knows but it's a phrase they use an expression to use to say yeah i understand i understand the concerns of the people in the neighborhood i hear you that makes sense now this is quite formal quite simple yeah that makes sense so when something makes sense what else is there left to say so somebody sets out the practicalities of how this is going to work so this is the way the whole operation of using face masks is going to work in the school the kids are going to come to the school on their own with the parents the parents are not allowed to go beyond the school gates the kids have to wear the face mask going through the school gates and until they get in the classroom and once in the classroom they can remove the masks this is the rule that we have come up with these are the rules that we have set out and we expect all of the children to obey these rules and we would like the parents to agree and their parents say oh yeah well that makes sense it makes sense to me you know how can we operate this unless we have some rules and some conditions and if something changes well we may have to change the rules but at the moment yep that makes sense i understand that makes sense i'm with you man i'm with you when when you're with somebody it means you're not against them so if you're not against them you must be in agreement with what they have said and therefore you understand yeah i'm with you i'm with you on that yep so we're all behind the chairman we're all behind the boss we're all behind the leader of the team i'm with you yeah so when we've got difficulties we've got situations problems with business issues about selling certain products whatever it might be we want everybody pulling in the same direction so what we want to hear is that positivity we want to see that yeah you understand the seriousness of the situation so we can respond yeah i'm with you meaning i support you i'm with you 100 i'm with you another one slightly informal i know what you mean now that could literally mean anything yeah you could understand somebody or you could disagree with them or you could be very against them but when you say i know what you mean yeah i get it yeah i know what you mean so somebody's explaining the situation about anti-social behavior in their area yeah and so this is terrible you know you're trying to get to bed at 11 11 30 and the guys are outside revving motorbikes they're shouting they're screaming playing loud music you really there's nobody doing anything about it yeah i know what you mean i understand i understand the point exactly we should come together as neighbors we should write our complaints we should go to the police if they they will listen to us and present our problems as a group yeah yeah i know what you mean yeah i know what you mean and another way to say it is i see where you're coming from so it's quite strange on the face of it i see where you're coming from it's not nothing to do with direction okay coming from here coming from there i see where you come from i see the point you're trying to make i understand what you're trying to say so this is a particular problem for you i might not have understood it previously but now that you've explained it to me yeah i can see where you're coming from and yeah i agree with you yeah so you know somebody perhaps a little bit older in the community they like to get their their rest and you know for them going to bed at half 10 11 o'clock is important for somebody younger going to bed at midnight or after midnight may be more important or more relevant but for the older person in the community they like to get their rest so the younger people have to appreciate that and if they appreciate it then they can say yeah i can see where you're coming from i can understand your point of view i catch your drift well this is very very informal i catch your reflection to catch something your drift is means just what's in the air what's your what you're saying i catch your drift yeah i understand the point i didn't understand it before but i i certainly understand it now i catch adrift so when somebody is on their soapbox as we say and they're having a little bit of a rant where they're really annoyed about this or really annoyed about that then you know to give them some support some verbal support we say yeah i catch a drift yeah now you could be complaining about the services about the delivery from amazon or you could be complaining about the local services collecting the rubbish from the rubbish bins and they they leave a lot of mess on the street and they don't uh clean it up and it blows into people's gardens or into their their doorway so you're having a little bit of a rant about that and your neighbors say yeah yeah i catch adrift it's annoying it's frustrating and we should we should all do something about it yeah i catch a drift i understand exactly what you mean and they understand what you're trying to get to okay so the last one is to comprehend or to fail to comprehend and comprehend is another word for understand i comprehend mean i understand what you're saying or if you fail to comprehend means you don't understand so quite formal yes and you know do you comprehend yeah so it's very seldom that we use that word because most often people say do you understand me yeah do you understand it or do you not understand comprehend or comprehension which is the the noun yeah so it's a little bit more formal not used so often but you will see it in in legal documents so you will see it in more formal documents and if you comprehend sign here yeah so do you understand do you uh follow what we are trying to say okay so these are all other ways or better ways to say i understand so let them let me repeat them to you one more time i get the idea i get your point i get it gotcha fair enough i hear you yeah that makes sense i'm with you i know what you mean i see where you're coming from i catch your drift i don't comprehend i fail to comprehend what that's got to do with me yeah so if you really want to be very formal about something and a little bit standoffish i fail to comprehend what you really mean i don't understand you okay so all better ways to say that i understand well i really appreciate you joining me and listening to this if you don't understand or don't comprehend any of this well feel free to write back contact me you can get my contact details www.englishlessonviaskype.com always really happy to get your feedback if there's any comments you have anything you would like me to include anything you're having problems with well why don't you write to me and i'll make a video out of it and of course what you can do then you can listen to me on my podcast you can look at the videos on youtube and if you want to go to my webpage you'll find lots and lots of interesting courses that you can buy that will help you to improve your english okay well as always i appreciate you watching i appreciate you listening i appreciate your company and i look forward to joining you again soon

Channel: Learn English with Harry

Views: 649,126

Keywords: ways to say I understand you, study English advanced level, speak better English with Harry, learn English with Harry

Id: s3Ve7_TTwuY

Length: 14min 19sec (859 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 19 2022