Please don't say PLEASE from LetThemTalkTV. The wrong way Mildred, Mildred please stop talking let's discuss the
plans for the conference. Please meet me at the hotel at 9:00 a.m. You're always
late please be on time we have a lot to do tomorrow.
Oh! can I borrow your car in the afternoon please mine is in the garage I
have to pick up Bingley from the station. Everything clear? Please let me know if
you need anything. Oh! one more thing will you have dinner with me
on Saturday night please Mildred? There's a great Mexican restaurant in town.
Please. Hello, hello Today on LetThemTalkTV we're going to look at why the
word PLEASE might not be quite as polite as you think. Of course sometimes we use
PLEASE in English to make general requests "Can I have a pint of lager please?"
"please tell me how did you do that magic trick" and maybe to ask for an apology
"Please don't be angry with me, I'm sorry" That's fine but in certain situations
native speakers will often not use please they'll use another way to
express politeness and this is to make big or difficult requests to make offers
and to criticize in a polite way but be careful because sometimes
PLEASE, if you use it wrongly, it can sound needy and even rude. To find out
more then stay tuned. Hello and welcome to LetThemTalk and
today we're going to look at some alternatives to please. As I said in my
introduction PLEASE is sometimes ok but sometimes it isn't sometimes can be
rude for example "please don't be late again" "Please stop talking."
Rude, of course it's not as rude as shut the **** up
So we need alternatives more powerful polite and more persuasive alternatives
in order to be polite we need to speak indirectly and the general rule is that
the more indirectly we speak the more polite it is. Now let's look at how we do
that with a few examples. So the first phrase I want to look at
today is "it would be great if " So you're like for example
you could say "please be on time in the future"
there's no sounds a bit rude so how about this "it would be great if you
could get here on time" just saying It sounds better doesn't it? So the structure is "it would
be great if" followed by COULD or WOULD or a verb in the past yes that's right a verb
in the past. "I know you're busy but it would be great if you could finish this
by Thursday." "Please have a look at my proposal" ok but how about this? "You've
got a lot of work but it would be great if you had time to look at my proposal"
better isn't it? There are other phrases though that fulfill the same function
such as "I would be grateful if" which is more formal. "We'd be grateful if you
would switch off the music by 11 p.m". "I would be grateful if you called the
manager I would like to speak to her" Next you can use a negative sentence with a question tag. This is
extremely polite and is often used for asking for things we wouldn't normally
ask. So for example "please can I stay at your place this weekend" ok
you want to stay at my place this weekend? really I'm not sure but say this way and
the response will be different "Hey I'm visiting London next week
I couldn't stay at your place could I?" negative statement + a question tag sounds extremely polite doesn't it? The
structure is quite easy let's have a look. Take this sentence "please can you
help me" remove PLEASE switch the YOU and the CAN so that it becomes a statement
not a question, put it in the negative "You can't help me" now
the statement is in the negative so the question tag is in the affirmative the
modal verb is CAN so we use that one whenever you have a negative statement
you have an affirmative question tag CAN YOU "You can't help me can you" You can
make it even more polite using COULD. "You couldn't help me, could you?" Finally and
this is important, to remember the rising tone on the question tag CAN YOU?, COULD YOU? we have a rising tone on the questions have because this is a real
question ,"You couldn't help me, could you?" Let's try it again "Please could you take
out the rubbish?" Remove COULD YOU becomes YOU COULD put it in the negative. "You couldn't take out the rubbish"
affirmative question tag COULD YOU. "You couldn't take out the rubbish, could you?"
Remember to finish with the rising tone COULD YOU? let's look at a few more
examples "You don't have five minutes to you? I need your help with something."
"You're not free tomorrow, are you? We could have that meeting at around 10 a.m" You
can also use this methods to make an invitation to
somebody "You don't fancy going for a drink tonight, do you?" Now it's your turn.
Turn these sentences into a negative with a question tag. "Can you lend me £5 please." "You can't lend me £5, can you? "Would you like to see
BTS with me I've got a free ticket?" "You wouldn't like to see BTS with me,would you?" I've got a free ticket Next, you can use the
future continuous in the question form to be extremely polite in certain
situations the form is WILL YOU BE + verb + ING so if you work in a hotel
in a shop you'll need this form but in other situations too. So let's imagine
you work in a hotel and you want to know if the guest wants to have breakfast the
next morning you could say. "Will you be having breakfast tomorrow morning ?" "Please
can you tell me if you want to have breakfast tomorrow morning?" that's fine.
"Would you like breakfast tomorrow morning?" that's fine.
but the future continuous is even more polite, it's very indirect you're putting it
in the future making a distance between you and the listener and the meaning of
the future continuous is I'm asking a question but I'm not trying to influence
your decision, whatever you decide it's ok by me.
so let's look at some more examples "Will you be needing your car this
evening?" this is a more polite alternative than please can I borrow
your car. "Will you be joining us for dinner?" can you say "please come to dinner
with us"? Yes , you can "Do you want to come to dinner?" Yes but if you ask "Will you be
joining us for dinner? It means, no pressure on you, I'm just
asking, that's an option for you. Let me just try and explain this in a different
way. You want to invite a friend to dinner yes you would say "hey would you like to come to dinner with me?" That's the way you would say it but imagine one of your
friends in your group is looking really tired then you could say "You look tired
will you be joining us for dinner?" so the subtext is I'm just asking I'm
not putting any pressure on you. "Will you be wanting
anything else?" Can you say "Do you want something else"? Yes of course but
saying it this way gives the impression that you're not selling anything,
you're not touting anything you're just politely inquiring. So if you're working
a shop or a call centre you might do it this way. The emphatic do can be used instead of PLEASE for extra politeness especially
when we are making an offer so instead of saying "please sit down"
that's okay but you could say "do sit down," yeah instead of saying "please let
me know" you could say "do let me know," "do let me know if you have any questions."
"please come in." "Do come in" very polite, super polite so start a sentence with
the imperative DO follow by your sentence.
remember the emphatic DO is not always polite it depends on the context it just
makes the phrase more emphatic. If it's polite it'll be more polite. If it's
rude, it will be ruder so you could say "Do shut up" which is most definitely not
polite. If you want to know more about the emphatic do structure and how to use
it then check out the video we made on it up here somewhere. Next you can use WOULD YOU MIND or DO YOU MIND. I'm sure you know this already but we're going to look at some
of the structures and the differences. So for polite requests you can use it to
ask someone else to do something. "Would you mind opening the window?"
the verb after MIND is always in the ING form. "Would you mind going to the shops
we've run out of milk?" now this is more polite then "please go to the shops" but
less polite than "you couldn't go to the shops, could you? we've run out of milk"
So you have to decide the level of politeness according to the situation.
"Would you mind if I didn't come to the party tomorrow night?" "Would you mind ifwe stayed at home and played Scrabble instead?" DO YOU MIND can also be used
this way but WOULD YOU MIND is perhaps a little bit more polite DO YOU MIND is used in another way to
replace PLEASE especially when you are disturbed by someone you can say "do you mind?" Let's have a look at some examples of that.
so instead of saying "please be quiet" it still sounds a bit rude you could say "Do you mind I'm trying to concentrate
here?" its forceful but more gentle. "Why are you taking my cup? Do you mind? I haven't finished yet." "Please don't take my cup I haven't finished yet" DO YOU MIND is more polite but be careful because, of course, it depends on how you say it. If I said "do your mind I'm trying to work here" or "do you mind not taking
my cup I haven't finished yet" of course that's going to sound rude. But if you
say it in the right way, in a gentle way, in a friendly way it is polite. It might be
criticizing but it's polite. Mildred Mildred if you don't mind, let's
discuss the plans for the conference can you meet me at the hotel at 9:00 a.m? It
would be great if you could get there on time we've got a lot to do tomorrow. Oh
will you be needing your car in the afternoon? Would you mind if I borrowed
it? I've got to pick up Bingley from the station. Everything clear? Do let me know
if there's anything you need. Oh by the way, one more thing. You wouldn't like to
have dinner with me on Saturday night would you? There's a great Mexican
restaurant in town. you would, excellent
see you tomorrow.
