45 Advanced Phrases For Confident English Conversation
Hey there I’m Emma from mmmEnglish.
This video is perfect for high-level English learners
who want to improve their conversation skills.
I’m going to be sharing the exact phrases and expressions
that you need to help you when you get a little stuck
in English conversations like when you feel a little nervous
and those times when the conversation is a bit difficult to follow,
when someone misunderstands you or when someone
asks you a question or is talking about a topic that you want
to avoid.
So get your pen and your notebook ready. There are plenty
of useful phrases for you to write down,
to help you speak confidently in English conversations.
Plus I’ve also made you a free workbook that goes
with this lesson, you can download it. The link is right down
there in the description.
Go grab it now and then let’s get into the lesson!
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Let’s all agree that speaking in front of people or meeting a group
of people for the first time
can make you feel a little nervous, can’t it?
Sometimes it’s hard enough to think of just the words to say,
let alone the expressions that you need to get yourself
out of trouble. Have you ever been in a situation like this?
Where you’ve just felt frozen?
Well memorising
some of the expressions from this lesson today
will definitely help and my first piece of advice is to just be honest.
Say:
I’m a little nervous.
You can say it with a little grin to make a joke out of it
or you can say it sincerely just to let the people know
who you’re talking to that
maybe you need a little bit of extra support.
There is nothing wrong with that at all, it happens
much more often than you think. It’s not just you, it’s all of us.
Bear with me.
If you’re speaking in front of a group of people and maybe you’re
feeling a little anxious about it,
you can definitely use this phrase to ask people to be patient
with you just to buy yourself a little bit more time.
And another similar expression is:
Give me a moment.
Let me try that again.
It’s a really great one if you need to stop and to think about
your sentence for a minute and maybe rephrase it,
maybe your sentence came out a little wrong or
you just realised you’re speaking so fast
you need to take a breath,
say this phrase, smile and try it again.
I’m not sure about that actually
but I can find out.
It can be really nerve-wracking when someone asks you a question
that you don’t know the answer to especially if it’s in a
professional context. You might just
freeze and have no idea what to say
but there is an easy solution and that’s this phrase right here.
It’s on the tip of my tongue.
This is a great phrase for when you actually do know something
but you just can’t remember it right in that moment.
I had something I wanted to say but I’ve lost it,
Hopefully it’ll come back.
Have you ever been in a meeting or a conversation
where you’re listening to other people and then when it’s
your turn to speak, your mind goes completely blank?
You’ve forgotten what you were going to contribute.
It happens to me more than I care to admit
and it can be really frustrating.
It can feel embarrassing if you’re being harsh to yourself
but you can play it cool with this phrase right here.
Do you mind if I jump in?
Maybe the idea of interrupting someone when you’ve got
something to say also makes you feel a little nervous or a little
awkward so a very cool casual way of doing this
and very often used in professional context as well
is to use the verb jump in.
What if you’re asking a question and you’re not sure
if it’s appropriate or acceptable to ask that question?
This can sometimes happen when you’re talking to someone
from a different culture.
Is it okay to talk about marriage? Is it okay to ask their age?
Sometimes it can be a little tricky to know.
In English you can preface this question with a phrase that helps
to soften it.
I hope you don’t mind me asking but…
then insert the question.
I hope you don’t mind me asking but how old are you?
Oh gosh what about when you forget something that you know
you shouldn’t have forgotten?
My apologies, I’ve completely forgotten your name.
I’m so sorry I’ve completely forgotten what we were talking about.
All right so this is a different type of nervous energy.
I hate this feeling, it’s that feeling of seeing someone walk
towards you and realising that you can’t remember their name.
You’ve met them so many times before.
What is it?
It’s much better although a little awkward, it’s much better
to ask them sooner rather than later
and just get it out of the way particularly so you can say it,
repeat it a few times and try to remember it.
Makes it easier to remember next time.
Apparently it’s
three times, when you find out what their name is,
three times you need to say their name
in order to remember it next time.
Hi John, nice to see you again! Lovely to have you.
John! Tell me about your kids.
Well John it was really lovely to see you. All right, bye now!
So what about when the conversation is just kind of hard
for some reason. Maybe it’s hard to keep up or
hard to follow what’s happening.
Or if you’re in a conversation with
a bunch of native English speakers or advanced English users
then they might be speaking really quickly and those words that
you can’t fully hear or words you don’t recognise
and you just feel like
you’re in over your head.
So in these situations, you can politely and confidently say
that you don’t understand what they’ve said.
I have to admit this is a little beyond me.
With this expression, you’re really putting an end to the discussion.
You’re not asking for them to clarify,
you’re saying it’s too much, this conversation, for me.
I can’t follow along. Let’s end it, okay?
Which sounds kind of serious so that’s the extreme.
Let’s end the conversation. But come back from there
and we can say:
Sorry, I’m afraid, I don’t follow you.
With “I don’t follow you” you’re suggesting that you need them
to re-explain or to explain it in a different way.
Could you please say that a little slower?
I’m not entirely sure what you mean,
could you explain it again?
Sorry! That went straight over my head.
Could you explain it in a different way?
If someone asks for your opinion about a topic
and you don’t actually feel able to talk about it in English
then you could say
It’s interesting listening to you talk, but to be honest
I don’t know much about this topic.
Wow I’ve never really thought about this much before but
I’m enjoying listening to you talk about it.
I’m not well-versed on this topic so I’d rather hold off on saying
anything until I know a bit more.
I don’t know enough about this topic to fully contribute
to this discussion.
It’s pretty hard to express my ideas about this topic in English but
I’ll try my best.
I love this one, make sure you write it down.
You’re being really honest but you’re also taking a deep breath
and going for it, you’re taking the opportunity to participate
even though you’re doubting yourself.
Let’s have a look at some phrases for when there’s been
a misunderstanding
and these are really useful to help provide clarity,
those times when you need to re-explain something
or say it in a different way to clear up confusion.
Oh I think you may have misunderstood what I said.
Easy.
I didn’t mean to say that. What I meant was…
and then explain it in a different way.
I’m sorry for the confusion. What I actually meant was…
I’m so sorry, my message must have got lost in translation.
Let me explain again.
I think we’ve got our wires crossed.
There were a couple of really great idioms there.
Did you catch them?
Really good ones for helping to clear up misunderstandings.
Now misunderstandings are generally pretty harmless
but what if you’ve unintentionally upset someone?
Don’t worry, this happens more often than you think
but apologising as soon as you realise and then clarifying
what you actually meant will usually help.
And on the plus side, I’ve got some really useful phrases
that you can use when you want to apologise
and explain a misunderstanding.
You seem upset. Did I say something wrong?
That definitely didn’t come out right. I’m so sorry.
I can completely understand why you’re hurt and I’m
deeply sorry for what I said.
I’m sorry for hurting your feelings.
I didn’t intend it to come across that way.
I’m sorry, that was insensitive.
I appreciate you calling me out on what I said.
All right let’s talk about some phrases for
sensitive issues or sensitive topics because people and
different cultures have different social rules or beliefs about
what is considered okay to talk about and what isn’t.
Maybe you have a colleague who
says things that are really inappropriate
or maybe you just feel uncomfortable talking about a particular topic.
Whether someone realises they’re being inappropriate or not
doesn’t really matter. You absolutely have the right to let them
know about it if you think they’re being inappropriate
but having the right language,
the exact phrases to help you do this is essential
and that’s what we’re going to talk about now.
I’d rather not talk about this if that’s okay.
This is straight to the point but it’s still polite and it’s a really good
phrase to have up your sleeve when someone asks you a question
that you don’t really want to answer
and it’s got that really nice English politeness to it too.
Is it okay with you? If it’s okay with you.
Can you stop being an idiot, please?
You’ll notice that these polite little starts or endings to a sentence
or a question are used quite a lot throughout this section.
It can sound a little rude or confronting to be really direct here
so we use them just to help soften the request
and make sure everyone feels comfortable in the conversation.
To be honest, I don’t feel like talking about this right now.
This topic hits close to home, it’s tough for me to talk about.
So the next few phrases are more direct, they’re quite blunt
so I’d only recommend using them if the person that you’re talking
to is being really persistent in their behaviour.
I haven’t had to use these phrases much and I hope that you don’t
have to either but there are times when I’ve wished that I’ve had
these really strong words come to mind in that moment
and that I’d had the courage to use them.
So I’m hoping that by sharing them with you today,
they’ll come easier to you when you’re in need of them.
A recent example of this for me is I had a conversation with a
potential investor in my business and
he was asking me if I was planning to have children because
that would impact his interest in investing in my company.
I was so shocked in that moment, I just answered him but
I wish that I had have said:
I don’t mean to sound rude but that isn’t any of your business.
That’s a really personal question.
I’m not comfortable answering that.
I think you’re overstepping boundaries with that question.
I’d rather not answer that.
If you want to end the conversation completely, you’re just not
interested in talking about this then you could say:
I didn’t come here today to argue about our different beliefs.
If you’re not willing to change the topic, I’ll leave.
Now I wanted to include a little section for the ladies out there
because let’s be honest it’s mostly women who find themselves
in a situation where they’re being spoken to inappropriately
in a sexual way.
Let’s just get completely comfortable telling someone
that it’s not okay.
So for example, if you have a boss or a colleague
and they place their hand on your leg during a meeting,
you look them straight in the eye
and you say:
Please take your hand off my leg.
If you don’t feel comfortable in that moment,
then find them afterwards and say:
I’m only going to tell you this once; keep your hands to yourself.
Nobody touches my body without my permission.
I don’t appreciate being taken advantage of or made to feel
uncomfortable in front of my colleagues.
Please don’t do that again.
Practise using the facial expression that I was just sharing
there because honestly,
it needs that direct and serious eye contact.
I have had way too many female students of mine go through
situations like this and honestly if you have a situation
that you don’t understand because of cultural or language barriers
please reach out to me and ask. Don’t feel awkward
or uncomfortable in a professional context, in a dating context,
just because you don’t understand or because
you’re not sure what to say.
Reach out to me and talk about it.
Lastly we’ve got politics, religion, sexuality, vaccinations,
family planning, these are all controversial topics
because people can have such vastly different
polarising opinions and some people feel the need to push their
own opinions and beliefs onto you.
Come on, we all have a friend or a family member
who’s like this right?
If you don’t want to share your opinion about a topic, that’s okay.
And I’ve got some phrases for you that you can use to politely
and confidently explain this.
I’d rather not express my opinion on this issue.
To be honest, this conversation is making me
really uncomfortable.
You can make it super clear that you want to move on
in the conversation too.
This isn’t the time or the place to get into this discussion.
Let’s talk about something else please.
We need to agree to disagree and move on.
I understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion
which is why I prefer to steer clear of these topics.
I fundamentally disagree with you about this.
If you’re feeling up to it you can try to understand more about
their opinion by saying:
It’s clear we fundamentally disagree about this,
but I’m curious to learn more about your views.
Why are you so passionate about this?
Things got a little heated there towards the end right?
Anyone feeling a little hot under the collar?
And just like that, you’ve learned a heck of a lot of phrases
that you can use in different tricky situations and don’t forget
that I’ve created that really handy little workbook with all of the
phrases from this lesson including some pronunciation tips.
You can download it in the description box below.
The link is just down under the video
and make sure you’re following along mmmEnglish on our
social channels as well if you want to reach out and say “Hi”
Do that in the comments, come and say hi on Instagram
or Facebook. I’d love to see you answer your questions.
If you’ve got any lesson requests, let me know
and for now, I’m gonna share this video with you right here
because I think you’re gonna love it.
See you in there!