How to Express Humility Learn English Grammar

want to speak real english from your

first lesson

sign up for your free lifetime account

at englishclass101.com

hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson i’m going to

talk about how to express humility

in english let’s get started okay first

i want to define what is humility

humility humility is a noun

humility is a state of

not thinking you are better than

other people so humility

is it’s considered a good state so we

don’t think

like i’m better than that person or

that person is below me or something

like that

humility is considered a positive state

to be in

so there are a couple of different

situations where it’s common

to express humility first i’m going to

talk about some expressions you can use

if you receive a special award of some

kind

or if you receive kind of like an

honorable recognition

these two are some cases uh at work

or maybe in your studies where it’s

important

to express humility so first let’s take

a look at these expressions

we would use these when we receive

awards

so the first expression is i am

honored to accept this award

so a key word here is honored so honor

is the root so that means it’s like

respectable

so it’s something that’s very special

and i

feel appreciative i want to say thank

you

and show that i respect this situation

i am honored to accept

so to accept means like it’s okay i will

take it i’m honored to accept

this award so this is how maybe lots of

award

speeches begin if you have watched um

english speaking

awards shows you might hear something

similar to this and this similarly

it’s a great honor to receive

this award so these two they really mean

the same thing

just slightly different ways of saying

it here we’re using honor as a noun

so it’s a great honor or i am honored

they really mean the same thing

here i’m using the verb to receive

instead of to

accept um in this case they do mean the

same thing they mean like

to take except in some cases

can have the idea or have the feeling of

something being like

okay where receive just means like

i’m going to take this like paperwork

i’ve received your paperwork i’m putting

it over here

whereas like to accept something means

like to confirm

something so for example like you accept

a student

to a university so receiving is like

just taking them but accepting a student

to a university is like saying okay

great like you’re part of the university

now

to accept an award is similar like we

had to approve

the acceptance of the award so there’s a

very very small difference there

in general in this case these two really

mean the same thing they’re just

different ways to say

a similar expression let’s take a look

though at the third one here

i greatly appreciate your consideration

i greatly appreciate

your consideration this would be okay to

use

if you receive an award maybe this could

be sentenced to

like i’m honored to accept this award i

greatly appreciate your consideration

here your you could change this if you

like

your means the group of people

who decided to give you the award or the

group of people who

gave you like special recognition or

gave you an honor

i greatly appreciate your consideration

if this is like a board of directors at

a company

you could replace your with the board’s

consideration i greatly appreciate the

board’s consideration

so this is a good very general

expression it doesn’t have to be for an

award

just for special recognition is okay

like you get a special bonus for example

wow i greatly appreciate your

consideration

all right so let’s continue to two more

samples

these are for more like an honorable

recognition

or like you have received an honorable

invitation to something like

to join a very respected project

or project like an organization or

you’re going to participate

in something an exciting project that is

very respected

so first sentence is i am

grateful to have been able to

participate

in this project so this is actually

a sentence we would use if uh the

speaker in this case me

if i have finished my role

in the project i am grateful to have

been

able so this means i had the life

experience

of participating in this project i had

this experience

i was able to so that sounds

again it’s like you’re lowering yourself

you’re making yourself

sound a little bit lower that’s that

humility point here

i’m grateful to have been able to

participate

this sounds much more polite this

expresses humility

much more than i’m happy i could join

like

i’m happy i could join doesn’t express

the same level of appreciation

so grateful shows your respect uh for

this situation

and this i’m grateful to have been able

to so that means it sounds like

um maybe in another situation this would

not have been possible

so i’m grateful to have been able to

participate in this project

really shows your respect for that

project

similarly here i am thrilled to have the

opportunity to participate

so thrilled thrilled this means like

excited very excited

but it it sounds a little more formal in

this case so it’s a stronger word that

means excited

i am thrilled to have the opportunity

to participate so this is probably for

an upcoming project

here i used to have been

able to suggesting that the project has

concluded it’s finished here i’m

thrilled to

have the opportunity to participate a

sentence like this is something used

when we’re going to start something new

again here i’m using some words that

show

my respect for the situation i am

thrilled to

have the opportunity so opportunity

means

chance but opportunity sounds more

formal than

chance so i’m thrilled that like

there’s this great chance and i want to

express it more

formally to show that i respect the

situation

so these are two good ones you can use

for like an

honorable a project you can join or you

receive like recognition

for participating in a project so again

this is for something that’s probably

finished

or is going to finish very soon and this

is probably for something

that’s coming up in the future okay

before i get to this point i want to go

to the second

group the second group of expressions

here

is expressing gratitude so that means

ways to say

thank you expressing gratitude for your

teammates for your community for your

family and so on

for the people around you so a key to

expressing humility

is that you don’t focus on yourself only

it’s not just

me me me i did all this stuff on my own

but who are the people i worked with so

how do i express my appreciation for

those people

on my team or in my community so some

expressions you can use

this one is very general thank you so

much

for your support thank you so much for

your support

so a company can use this with their

customers like in an email to their

customers who have helped them

in some way we could use this on youtube

for example like if i want to say

say to the viewers who like the video or

leave comments i could say thank you so

much for your support

so this is a polite expression that

shows

your appreciation for a group of people

or for

just one person even and it also sounds

a little bit

friendly so thank you so much for your

support you can remove this

this so much and make the sentence thank

you for your support

i like to say thank you so much for your

support so i think it shows a little bit

more strongly the appreciation another

one we can use

is this i or we couldn’t

do it without you i couldn’t do it

without you

we couldn’t do it without you a

variation on this

is i couldn’t have done it

without you i couldn’t have done it

without you is what it sounds like at

native speed couldn’t have done it

without you

so couldn’t have done it without you

means again

something like this grateful to have

been we use that

couldn’t have done it without you means

that

something happened in the past and

without

that person or without that group the

project

or the action would not have been

possible

so we say in the present i could not

pass i could not have done it without

you

so we’re using perfect tense to describe

that relationship there

so here i’m not using that i’m just

using simple

uh we couldn’t do it without you i

couldn’t do it without you

so for example like our channel

so we couldn’t do it without you

where you is our viewers so in this case

it in this sentence refers to the

activities of the speaker

so in our case we couldn’t do it without

you means we could not make

the channel without our viewers like the

viewers are important

for us so that we can get your feedback

and so that we can try to make uh

informative and from informative videos

that help people so in this case that’s

our

it it so you means the people around

the person speaking so it just refers to

the activities there

so other companies might say like we

couldn’t do it without you like we

couldn’t make our

products without our customers that’s a

very common one

or maybe an athlete could say it i

couldn’t do it without the fans

maybe an entertainer or an athlete would

say something like that

so it’s to express their appreciation

and to say like my job would not be

possible

without you that’s what this really

means

that’s a breakdown of the sentence okay

let’s move on to the next expression

which is thank you to everyone on our

team

thank you to everyone on our team this

is very general

um some other variations are like thank

you to our wonderful team members

um thank you to our amazing team and so

on

so this can be used for your

work you can use this in sports you can

use this

at school if you’re working in a group

project you could change

team to group thank you to everyone in

our group

though we change the preposition on our

team

or in our group we do not use on a group

we use

in a group so this is really great

for talking about your colleagues and

your

so for example if i want to use this

expression

to talk about our team here i could say

thank you to everyone on our team for

their hard

work something like that is a good way

to express appreciation for your

teammates

okay onward to the next set of

expressions this one

i made this one about family this i

thought was a nice

follow-up to the award-related

expressions we talked about earlier

so you receive an award for example i am

honored to accept this reward

i greatly appreciate your consideration

uh thank you to everyone on our team for

their hard work

i would also like to thank my family for

their support

so this is something you might hear at

an awards speech

i have here i would like this is one

situation

where it’s natural not to reduce to i’d

i’d like to thank i would like to thank

my family

this sounds more formal and in this

situation

accepting an award it sounds more

natural to be more formal so it’s okay

here

i would like to thank my family for

their support of course you can change

this i would like to thank my wife i

would like to thank my husband

i would like to thank my partner for his

or her or their

support so you can change this as well

too

but generally support is a nice word to

use that’s kind of

open okay onward this one is good for

like a community related event like a

volunteer event or something organized

in your town or

city thank you to all the community

members

who volunteered their time and effort

their time and effort this is i think a

good expression to include here

you could say thank you to all the

community members who volunteered

that’s great but showing that you

recognize

the other people gave you their time

and their effort so effort means like

their energy they took action to do

something

so they participated and they gave time

and effort for something that you put

together

is a really important thing to notice i

think it’s an important thing to

recognize

so this is a good one for a community

event

of course you could use just people

thank you to all the people who

volunteered their time and effort too

but if this is like a city or a town

event it might be good

to consider your local community by

using

a word such as this okay so

i want to finish this lesson with just a

couple

very small points we commonly use as

few expressions when responding to

complements

so a reminder a compliment is when

someone gives you

a nice feedback gives you a nice comment

about something

and you want to express humility like oh

it’s not so great or no

no no that feeling so these are a few

very common ways we do that

let’s imagine we get a compliment

someone says i like your shirt

you can respond by saying ah you’re too

kind

you’re too kind you could also say ah

it’s

nothing we’ll often say something like

that’s nothing like this is

old or this was so cheap so we kind of

put ourselves down sometimes in this way

sometimes

it depends a little bit on the person uh

you could say oh

that’s so nice of you to say that’s so

nice of you to say

or you could just say oh thanks as well

too

ah so awww here means ah ah

thanks um so it depends on the person

if you compliment someone and they say

like ah it’s nothing

that’s a fairly natural response some

people

when you compliment will just say thank

you i bought it at such and such store

that’s also very natural but if you

would like to express

humility you can use one of these

expressions

i tend to say i tend to use something

like this

i uh not it’s nothing but i will use a

specific

adjective in the moment like if someone

compliments my shirt

i’ll say oh this this is so old like it

was so cheap

i usually choose a specific adjective

related to the compliment

or if someone says like i like your new

haircut i would say oh me too

but you know i can’t style it perfectly

like i tend

to choose like a specific point that i

can

kind of make myself sound a little bit

lower

in that moment so that’s kind of up to

you you can kind of listen to the

compliment

and choose how you want to respond if

you’re not sure

you don’t know how to use this you can

just say thank you i appreciate it

so these are just a couple ways that we

respond

to compliments everyday small points

in daily life so i hope that this lesson

was helpful

i hope you learned some good ways to

express humility and i hope that you

have many reasons

to use these expressions it’s very

positive i think

so if you have any questions or comments

please feel free to let us know in the

comments section of this video

also you can feel free to practice

making a speech if you want like an

award acceptance speech that might be

interesting

uh if you liked the video please don’t

forget to give it a thumbs up

subscribe to our channel if you have not

already and check us out at

englishclass101.com for some other

things that can help you with your

english studies

thanks very much for watching this

lesson and i will see you again soon

bye want to speed up your language

learning

take your very first lesson with us

you’ll start speaking in minutes

and master real conversations sign up

for your free lifetime account

just click the link in the description