20 Ways to Wish Good Luck Congratulations 29 Alternative English Phrases

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hello everyone and welcome back to

english with lucy today we are going to

look at the phrases

good luck and congratulations

and i’m going to show you lots of better

more interesting alternatives

to further help you with your studies

and understanding

i have created a free pdf worksheet that

goes with this lesson

if you would like to download that just

click on the link in the description box

enter your first name and your email

address

you sign up to my mailing list and i

will send the pdf

directly to your inbox very exciting

it also includes a quiz i know

you will love quizzes first let’s take a

look

at good luck this is a very good phrase

but

it’s boring if we repeat it over and

over again

the first alternative is all the best

or i wish you all the best and this is

not a direct

translation of good luck we usually use

this phrase when we are saying goodbye

to somebody

or we are parting ways especially

at the end of a letter or email all the

best

or i wish you all the best means i hope

you succeed

good luck

number two is break a leg

break a leg i wonder if you’ve heard of

this one before

it’s very popular because it sounds

so strange and almost a little rude

where does that come from

it is supposed that it was said to

actors

before they went on stage because it was

considered

unlucky to wish them luck so

if you wish somebody bad luck like

breaking a leg

supposedly the opposite will occur

they’ll have

good luck and their legs will remain

intact

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number three is a phrase that i use a

lot

in a different context i’ll explain it

to you it is

blow them away blow them away

now if somebody is blown away it means

they are

shocked normally in a positive way

i was blown away by all of your lovely

messages for example

so if your friend is going to an

interview or an audition

and you want to wish them luck you can

say blow them away and that means

shock and surprise them in a positive

way

like most things it all depends on tone

of voice so if i say i was

blown away by the amount of litter in

the park

obviously i’m shocked in a negative way

i’m not impressed

number four we have knock him dead and

you have to do the fist movement it is

obligatory

knock him dead um in this case

is them knock them dead

knock him dead the meaning is very

similar

to that of blow them away to knock

somebody dead is to really impress them

again it depends on the context if you

hit someone with a car

and you knock them dead well

that’s not very good at all

number five is a very common phrase that

i think also exists in many other

languages

it is fingers crossed fingers crossed

i’ve crossed my fingers for you i’m

hoping for the best

so when we cross our fingers it means we

are wishing luck for either

ourselves or other people is that the

same in your language or is it something

different please let me know in the

comments i love

knowing about the little quirks of all

your languages

number six just a very slight variation

on good luck we have

best of luck best of luck and this is a

shortened version of i wish you the best

of luck

but in casual speech we just go straight

in for

best of luck

another very similar one is number seven

which is

wishing you the best or i wish you the

best

number eight another similar one all the

best to you

all the best to you i wish you the best

number nine is possibly my favorite

go get em tiger the uh the rare

hands are optional but recommended

this is very informal very slang and it

just means

go and do it i know you can go and

impress them

and the last one number 10 you got this

now it should be

you’ve got this but sometimes we remove

the

at the end of you and just say you got

this

you got this obviously if you’re writing

it

down put you’ve got this

so there we have it 10 very nice

alternatives for

good luck let’s move on to alternatives

better alternatives for congratulations

there are a few more of this one there

are many alternatives i have

19 for you and i’m going to check your

understanding

in the quiz in the pdf so make sure you

pay attention

number one is my respects and if you

offer somebody your respects

in a positive way it means that they

have impressed you

now if you say my respects to you in a

solemn

or serious voice it could mean

that something bad has happened to that

person and you are offering them

your condolences but in a positive tone

of voice

my respect is wow you’ve impressed me

number two is hats off hats off to you

this comes from taking your hat off to

somebody and if you take your hat off to

somebody

it means that you are impressed with

them and you respect them

so if somebody has achieved something

amazing you can say hats off to you

that’s fantastic

number three is a word just one word

but i absolutely love it it is

sensational

amazing sensational we have a very very

posh friend

and he got completely addicted to the

word

sensational you know when you have a

word a new word in your head and you

find yourself using it

at every opportunity or his word was

sensational sensational sensational

today was sensational but used in the

right context

sensational can mean congratulations

number four is one that my mother uses

quite a lot

it is get in there

often shortened down to get in

you have to do the fist okay yes you can

use it to congratulate other people or

also yourself

if you hear that you’ve won a prize you

can say

get in there get in yes

very very informal

number five is more of an american

phrase we don’t use it

as much in british english and i will

show you why

it is you rock and that means

you are awesome and in american english

it sounds so cool

i grew up watching american tv shows all

the time

they always used to say you rock but in

british english in my accent

it doesn’t sound cool at all you rock

there are so many phrases that i i just

think they sound ridiculous when i say

them

go get em tiger

the next one however is very british

very british and it’s it’s rising again

people are starting to use it more and

with good reason i love it

it is good show or

jolly good show it’s quite posh jolly

the word jolly

means kind of very or extremely jolly on

its own means happy or cheerful but we

can use it instead of

very or really jolly good show

means really well done well done you

congratulations

number seven feels slightly more

american to me it’s nice going

nice going it translates to you’ve done

well

very well

number eight is good for you or

good on you be careful with your tone of

voice

here because if you say oh good for you

that can sound extremely sarcastic so if

somebody has something

that you want and you say oh good for

you it’s kind of saying

you get everything i want that but if

you say it with real

meaning and heart good for you well done

it means i’m really really happy for you

number nine is very similar it is well

done you

well done you you’ve probably heard well

done

on its own but for extra emphasis well

done you that’s really really great

number 10 beautifully casual nice one

nice one well done nice one that

translates to

good job yeah nice one

number 11 is so simple but i love it it

is you did it

you did it congratulations i think

that’s what my mother said to me when

she found out that i had got

a high score for my university degree

she said you did it

it’s a really nice way of saying

congratulations

number 12 is lovely if somebody does

something

really clever really intelligent you can

say

you’re a genius you are a genius

number 13 is way to go way to go

now this is another one that sounds

slightly more american to me

i’m not sure about australia and canada

and places like that

if you’re watching please let me know we

don’t say as much

in the uk but it’s still a really nice

one

way to go very well done

number 14 is great for

self-congratulation

as well as congratulating others it is

pat on the back it’s quite popular

nowadays if you yourself do something

well

then you can say oh well done me

pat on the back if you pat someone on

the back it means

well done

15 is a really nice one quite casual oh

you made that look easy

if somebody’s done a performance or has

been in an interview and has performed

really well

you can say well you made that look easy

that was amazing congratulations

number 16 is one that i use all the time

especially with my students if i see

that they’ve been performing really

really well

then i say keep up the good work it

means you’ve done

so well until now continue to do well

because you’re on track for success

number 17 is nothing can stop you now

you are on a roll to be on a roll means

to have a continued period of success

or good luck

number 18 is a relatively new one it is

you’re

on fire you are on fire if i speak to a

fellow youtuber

and i say your channel is on fire at the

moment it means it’s doing so well

congratulations or

you’re on fire you’re doing so well

again

context and tone of voice is everything

if i tell someone

you’re on fire it means that they should

seek water

asap as soon as possible

i’ve saved the best one till last it is

number 19

and it is congratu expletive

latiance so we insert a swear word

or an expletive between congratu

and lations for example congratulations

that’s amazing

god that’s so fun to say congratulations

now i don’t teach swear words on my

channel so you’re going to have to

search those up for yourself google is

your friend

right that is it for today’s lesson i

hope you enjoyed it and i hope you

learned something

do not forget to complete the quiz i’ve

got the pdf worksheet with

everything we’ve discussed today and

this quiz

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download it is click on the link in the

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i will see you soon for another lesson

my respect to you i find that really

hard to say one second

my respects my respects to you

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