How to disagree in English politely. Is that even possible? If you've ever felt hesitant about
sharing a differing opinion because you didn't want to spoil a
conversation or relationship, you're definitely not alone. For
native and non-native speakers alike. It can be a struggle to know how
to voice a differing opinion or a disagreement with others
without sounding too
aggressive or confrontational, and here's what makes it more challenging. There are cultural implications
as well. For example, in some English-speaking cultures, disagreements can be opportunities
for dialogue and innovation rather than conflicts
to be avoided. However, this is not a universal
perspective for many others. In English-speaking culture, a direct disagreement can be viewed
as disrespectful and disruptive. So while English speakers often express
their agreement with enthusiasm, you might be surprised to discover that
the strategies and common phrases used for disagreements are,
shall we say, muddy, less clear, less obvious, almost hidden. In fact, the language of disagreement in English
might require you to read between the lines. To read between the lines
means to understand the
intended meaning of something that was not expressed directly. Understanding these nuances is crucial
not only for how you express yourself in the language, but also for how you navigate the
cultural landscape of those who use that language. That's why today
we're going to discuss the strategies, the common phrases and the
cultural do's and don'ts of disagreements in English. So whether you're having a discussion
in a boardroom or just chatting with friends over coffee, mastering this
skill will enhance your communication, empower your relationships, and help
you feel comfortable speaking up, sharing your ideas
confidently and respectfully. Now, before we go any further, if
this is your first time here, welcome. I'm Annemarie, an English
fluency and confidence coach. Everything I do is designed to help you
get the confidence you want for your life and work in English. If you'd love to discover years
of free lessons from me and downloadable resources, you can get all of that and more at
my Speak Confident English website. For the remainder of this lesson, we're
going to do three important things. First, I wanna highlight some of the key
strategies to use to effectively disagree and to do it politely. Then we'll
take a look at common phrases, English speakers use to employ
those strategies, and finally, I'll finish with some real-life examples
so that you can use them as a template and practice them so that you're
ready for any conversation, especially when you want to
share your point of view. If it's different from others, there's no question that the
art of disagreement varies from one culture to another,
from one person to another, or even one situation to another. In
other words, it's all quite fluid. However, there are some
strategies we can use to always be polite in our disagreement. In a moment, I'm going to share with
you several strategies, but I want to start with one thing
that's particularly important for English conversations where there's
strong disagreement. If you're in a conversation and you
want to end with a positive outcome, one important aspect of
disagreements is to always stay calm. One way we can do that is to
maintain very neutral language and neutral tone when communicating.
The goal of any conversation, even those that include disagreements, is to ensure that everyone has
the opportunity to be heard, not to walk away feeling frustrated. Now, if you're not sure what
I mean by a neutral tone, I want you to think about people in
your life that you know really well, and then imagine that you call
one of them on the telephone. You hear something in
their voice instantly, and you know whether they're
feeling sad, excited, or angry because they carry
that emotion in their voice. When we are in conversations
with disagreement, we aim to remove that
emotion from our voice, maintaining again that calm, neutral tone, taking away those potential negative
feelings that can build up tension. With that in mind, let's take a look at several strategies
we can use for effective, meaningful, and polite disagreements. Number one, aim to learn and understand
it's infuriating for both sides or all sides. If someone feels that they need to
prove themselves right and perhaps prove someone else wrong in the process, a better approach is to focus on learning
from others and understanding their perspectives even if you
don't agree with them. The second strategy is
to avoid assumptions. An assumption is something that is
believed without any documentation, evidence or proof. And
as you might imagine, if an assumption is made about someone, it can lead to misconceptions
and miscommunication. Third, be clear. What this means is don't
just disagree with someone. It's important to also
state why you disagree, so that you give others the opportunity
to understand your perspective. Four, keep it impersonal. This goes back to the idea of maintaining
that calm body language and neutral tone. On top of that, it's important to avoid language
that implies a personal attack. We can do that by keeping our language
focused on the topic of disagreement and avoiding language that
includes the word you, for example, you always or you don't understand, and our final strategy here is
to connect rather than contrast. I shared a similar approach and a
lesson I have on how to express opposing ideas. I'll share a link to that in
the notes below the video. In short, what this means is when
disagreeing with others, particularly on issues that may
be sensitive or cause friction, it's best to avoid contrast language, so this would include
words such as, but however, instead or on the other hand,
rather than use those words, you can simply listen and
then say what you think. With those strategies in mind, let's highlight some of the common
phrases English speakers use to utilize these strategies effectively. In the examples I'm going to share with
you, you'll notice they do a few things. First, they may aim to acknowledge what
someone else has said and indicate that you also understand what they said. It doesn't mean that you agree
but you understand it. Second, you may notice that many of these
phrases include an apology before the disagreement. In some circumstances, this can help to soften that
potential friction or tension. And finally, some of these phrases
also express neutrality or even uncertainty. This doesn't mean that
you are uncertain about your ideas. You can be very clear about
what you think. However, by introducing some of
that uncertainty, again, it lowers the potential friction
or tension in the conversation. So depending on what you aim to do
or what you're most comfortable with, here are a few examples that do
all of that first sentence starters that acknowledge and show understanding. I see what you're saying and I think
I appreciate and respect your point of view. My thoughts are that's
a valid point and I think that true fair point, I have to say I disagree. I understand where you're coming
from and my perspective is now, there are many more common phrases
English speakers use rather than share all of them here, I have them listed in this lesson at
my Speak Confident English website, so if you'd love to review
more common phrases, use the link in the
notes below this video, visit this lesson and
you'll get a full list. And now here are common phrases
that include an apology before the disagreement. I'm sorry, I
have to disagree on, I'm sorry. I don't agree. Sorry,
I'm afraid I disagree. My apologies. I respectfully
disagree. And finally, common phrases that express
neutrality or uncertainty. I am not sure I agree with
you on, I could be wrong, but my understanding is I don't
think you and I have the same opinion on this issue. I don't think
we're seeing eye to eye on this issue. I'm not sure I see it that way, and I have a completely
different opinion on that. Again, if you'd love to get my full list
of common phrases to use to express that disagreement, you can find all of that in this lesson
at my Speak Confident English website. What I'd love to do now is highlight
real-life scenarios where this language is used so that you can start
to practice and use it in your daily English life. In scenario number one, we're going to focus on having
a disagreement with a client, something that is not easy to
do. Let's say in this example, you're updating a client on the
status of a current project and then at the end of the phone call this client
shares that they have many changes that they want to make to
the initial project. However, they still want to keep the same deadline
and they don't want to change the budget. At that moment, you might say, these are great suggestions. Right now I feel we don't have enough
resources to implement significant changes. At this stage, the proposed changes will require an
additional three to four weeks and will significantly impact the
original plan and budget. Because this is a client, of course, you want to be as gentle as possible
initially in that disagreement, so this takes a very polite approach. It acknowledges what the client is
seeking and shares a disagreement with the reasons why. Now, if we stop here, there's the potential for the
client to feel frustrated and unsatisfied, so in addition to expressing this
polite disagreement with reasons for the disagreement, we can also be solutions
oriented and add on a few alternatives. When you want to do that, when you want to add on other solutions
after disagreeing with someone, here are a few phrases you
can use to do that instead. I think we should or I think we could. My suggestion would be to an
alternative solution might be I would recommend that
we, or how about we? So if we add it on to that initial
disagreement, here's what you might say. However, in the interest of delivering
this project on time and within budget, I'd like to propose a few options for
you to consider and then you would go on to list your options.
In scenario number two, we're going to look at a disagreement
with an acquaintance. Now, very quickly, an acquaintance is someone that you know
and have a friendly relationship with, but you're not friends. This isn't
someone that you spend a lot of time with. In this particular scenario, we'll imagine that you're on the condo
board where you live and there's been some discussion of hiking up the prices
for some maintenance in the building. You might disagree with another resident, someone that you have good rapport
with but don't know very well. To politely express that
disagreement, you could say, sorry, I have to disagree with the proposal
to renovate the coworking space. The residents hardly
use the coworking space, and I've observed the area
at various hours of the day. Most residents prefer to work within
the privacy of their units. Instead, I think we should renovate
the most used area, the gym. This would serve all residents and it
would be easier to justify than raise the maintenance fees. In this example, we've chosen a phrase that starts with
an apology and then has a very direct disagreement with supporting
reasons for that disagreement and alternative solutions. You might
also notice that in this example, we've avoided using the word
you rather than disagree with an individual, with a person. The
disagreement is with the idea. And now scenario number three,
disagreement with a close friend. Imagine you and a close friend are
having a discussion on the government's recent increase in carbon taxes. You both have strong opinions and your
friend is particularly passionate about climate change. In this scenario, it may be important to tread
lightly or to disagree very softly in order to protect the
friendship. To do that, you could say, to be fair, I'm unsure whether the carbon tax is
truly necessary for the fight against climate change. Yes, it could
reduce our consumption temporarily, but it isn't a long-term
solution. Moreover, it increases our cost of
living significantly and
makes it more expensive to opt for eco-friendly options. What
do you think this example does? Two important things. First, it introduces the disagreement with
uncertainty and provides reasons for the disagreement. The second thing that it does is it
ends with an open invitation asking someone else to share their thoughts, and it indicates that you're interested
in hearing what they have to say. Not only is this a
respectful way to disagree, it also keeps the dialogue
open. And finally, scenario number four, disagreeing
with a loved one. As you know, we sometimes have to disagree
with the people we love the most, and in some circumstances we might
employ one of these strategies that is very delicate, very
polite in its disagreement, and on other occasions we may have
the luxury of being more direct in our disagreement when we're communicating
with close friends and family and we feel comfortable to disagree directly, we use some very informal
phrases. However, I want to be clear that these are
used with close friends and family. They're not really appropriate for
the workplace, for example. No way. Or you must be joking,
you can't be serious. I totally disagree. I don't
think so. Absolutely not. Not a chance, and I agreed until you said you
may notice that these examples break all the rules we've
talked about so far. They are extremely direct
and they use the word you, so we want to be careful when using them. Let's take a look at an example for
when we might use this kind of language. Let's say for example, you and your family are planning an
itinerary for your next vacation and your spouse proposes that
you do something new, that you do something more
adventurous, and as you're listening, you're thinking, yeah,
okay, that sounds great. And then they introduce
the idea of cage diving and you say, no way I agreed with you until
you suggested cage diving. I would much rather go whale watching
or scuba diving in a shark free zone. And now to finish this up, let's talk about the what if. What if you're in a disagreement
with someone and you talk, you talk and you talk some more,
and you never come to an agreement, you can't find the conclusion
together. For this, we have the perfect statement.
Let's agree to disagree. This allows you to bring the conversation
to a close, at least for now, and accept the disagreement
without any frustration. You can walk away from the conversation
and perhaps revisit it on a future date. Now that we
have these strategies, phrases and example scenarios in place, I have a couple of
challenge questions for you. I want you to think through what you've
learned in practice using this language. First, I want you to think
about a disagreement you've
had with a family member, a friend or a coworker. Is there a strategy or a phrase you
learned today and you realize, oh, great, I used that in the disagreement
and it was quite effective. If so, I want you to tell me about it down below, or perhaps there's a strategy I didn't
mention here that allowed you to politely disagree and state
your position. And number two, I want you to imagine that you and
your colleagues are discussing a team building weekend. Your boss has proposed a specific date
and yet that date doesn't work for most of the team. So you're strategizing on how to
approach your boss and express some disagreement over the initial
plans of the team building weekend. How might you do that? What phrases
would you use to politely disagree? As always, you can share your examples with me
down in the comment section below. With that, thank you so much for
joining me. If you found this helpful, I would love to know and you can
tell me in a few ways. Number one, give this lesson a thumbs up here on
YouTube and share a comment down below. Number two, you can subscribe to
my Speak Confident English Channel, so you are always notified when I
share a new Confident English lesson. And finally, hop on over to my Speak Confident English
website where you'll find years of lessons and free resources you
can download from me. Again, thank you so much and I look
forward to seeing you next time.
