Learn the Top 25 MustKnow English Phrases
Hi everybody, my name is Alisha and today
we are going to be talking about the top 25
English phrases. So let’s get started!
The first phrase is ‘‘hello’’.
Hello of course is used as a greeting. You
can greet your friends, you can greet your
co-workers, your family with this phrase just
by saying hello. Hey. Hi. What’s up? Hello.
‘Sup? Yo. Pretty much any time of the
day you can use hello. Hello?
The next phrase is ‘‘good morning’’.
Good morning is used as a greeting in the
morning. You can kind of feel when morning
ends for you. Good morning is nice and polite
or even just morning with your close friends
and close co-workers.
The next phrase is ‘‘goodnight’’.
Goodnight is fine. We don’t use this to greet
other people. We use it when we are saying
goodbye to other people at night or family
members particularly mothers and fathers to
say goodnight to their children before they
put them to bed. You can say it to your friend
in a text message or in an email if you’ve
been talking for a while, goodnight.
So the next word to talk about is ‘‘goodbye’’.
Use it when you say goodbye to your friends,
when you leave your friends, goodbye, bye
of course, take care, have a nice day. Peace
out, that’s another way to say goodbye.
Okay the next phrase is, ‘‘I’m (plus your
name)'’.
Of course, this is a way to introduce yourself.
You can use I’m - in my case Alisha. I’m
Alisha to introduce yourself in any situation.
New friend, I’m Alisha.
Okay the next phrase is ‘‘what’s your name?’’
And what’s your name is used to ask someone
else what their name is. So" what is your name"
sounds a bit - try to use what’s your name.
If you forget someone’s name, you can say
sorry what’s your name or sorry what’s your
name again.
Next phrase is ‘‘nice to meet you’’.
Nice to meet you. Anytime you meet someone
new, nice to meet you is fine, good to meet
you is a little more casual, great to meet
you sounds very excited, pleasure to meet
you sounds like maybe a formal situation or
a business context.
Okay the next phrase is ‘‘how are you?’’
How are you is just a friendly way to check
in with the other person. You can use it with
friends, your family, your coworkers, maybe
even your boss to a certain degree.
How are ya? How you doin’?
The next phrase is ‘‘I am fine, thanks.
And you?’’
If you saw English in Three Minutes, we talked
a lot about this phrase. Instead of ‘‘I am
fine, thank you. And you?’’ say ‘‘I am good,
thanks, how are you?’’ Just shorten it and
make it a little bit more natural. How are
you? Good. How are you? Great. How are you?
Not so good. How are you, okay and so on.
So when someone says how are you, offer I
usually say I am good. This week I blah, blah,
blah give some information about what you’ve
been up to, maybe a hobby, something that
you did recently, an event, something interesting
you saw, whatever. People want to make that
connection with you and it’s a good chance
for you to continue speaking.
The next word is ‘‘please’’.
Please is a polite phrase used when you want
something from someone else. You can use this
as a response when someone offers you something
like at a restaurant for example, would you
like more water? Would you like something
to drink? Oh, please.
The next phrase is ‘‘thank you’’.
Thank you is used to express your appreciation.
You can use thank you with everybody.
The next phrase is ‘‘you’re welcome’’.
You’re welcome. When someone says thank you,
you can say you’re welcome, no biggie. I
use no biggie as in no biggie is short for
no big problem.
The next word is ‘‘yes’’.
Yes, of course. Yes means it is any of this
positive expression. Someone asks you a question
and the answer is a positive answer. You say
Yes. Yep. Uh-huh. Yeah. Oui.
No, next term I’m guessing I know it, yep.
The next word is ‘‘no’’.
No is a negative response to something when
you have to give a negative answer. So as
you can probably guess, the long form of no
is negative. I like to use nope, it’s very,
very casual. Not going to happen. My parents
would use that with me. To soften that a little
bit, if you want to show a negative response
to something. Like let’s go for dinner tonight,
what do you want to do like do you want to
go out, not really. No I don’t think so to
soften it.
The next word is ‘‘okay’’.
Okay. This word comes from copyeditors okay
when they had to check a manuscript. They
had to label the manuscript, all clear ac
but because they were copyeditors and they
have very, very sick sense of humor, they
thought they would mark it okay for all clear
to make a joke because o and k do not start
all and clear but it caught on among everybody
in the world. Anyway okay is used to agree
with somebody else. Well it can be used actually
to express a positive or kind of a slight
negative I feel. Transitioning in your conversation
you can say okay, now we are going to talk
about blah, blah, blah.
Okay the next phrase is ‘‘excuse me’’.
Excuse me, it’s used to get someone’s attention
in English when you don’t know the other person.
For example, in a store or a supermarket,
maybe a stranger on the street you need to
ask directions, you can use excuse me. You
can use excuse me in the supermarket. Excuse
me can you tell me where the hot sauce is.
If you have done something rude in public,
you can use excuse me. I personally do not
do rude things in public ever.
‘‘I am sorry’’ is the next word we are
going to talk about.
I am sorry is used to apologize when you have
made a mistake or someone you know has made
a mistake and you are connected to it or you
just feel bad, you can use I am sorry. You
made a mistake at work, I am sorry, you forgot
to feed your cat, I am sorry. Sorry about
that, you bumped someone next to you, sorry.
‘‘What time is it?’’ is the next phrase.
When you need to check what time it is: What
time is it? When you ask someone else what
time it is. Maybe you say this to yourself
too. Check your watch, check your phone, check
a clock, pretty straightforward phrase. There
aren’t really any short versions. So that’s
an easy one.
‘‘Where is the (plus a location)?’’
So you can use this for a building or a store.
We are not going to use this where is the
for a place, a city name or a state name or
a country name. To do that, you would need
to remove the but where is the bank, where
is the post office. You can use this to ask
directions, to ask for help in your house
or at work. Where is the copy machine, where
is the file I need, where is the blah, blah,
blah and where is the bathroom is perhaps
a very important question to know.
The next one is ‘‘may I use the restroom?’’
May I use the restroom is a polite and soft
expression that you can use if you need to
use the toilet, you need to use the washroom
and when you are at someone’s house for the
very first time, when you are in a place that
is new to you, you can ask may I use the restroom
and more casually, can I go to the bathroom.
To be very polite, you can say may I go to
the bathroom.
The next phrase is ‘‘I would like (to
order something)'’.
You can use this at a restaurant probably
or in any situation where you need to place
an order I’d like a pizza, I would like a
beer.
‘‘Can I get the check please?’’
This will be used at a restaurant when you
finished your meal and it’s time to go, can
I get the check please. In a very, very casual
situation, you can just say check please,
that’s fine.
The next phrase is ‘‘see you soon’’.
See you soon is used with friends and family
members perhaps when you expect to see them
again soon after saying goodbye to them. This
is used at the end of the conversation. You
are going in separate directions, you say,
see you soon. See ya is also good or just
see you. To make it a little more formal,
you can say I will see you again soon and
make a full sentence out of it that way.
The next phrase is ‘‘see you later’’
See you later is very similar to see you soon
but the point with see you later is that you
are probably going to meet that person again
later on in that same day.
The last phrase is ‘‘really’’.
Really is a very useful word because you can
use it to show you are interested in a conversation
with upward intonation, really, really tell
me more or to show that you are not so interested
in the conversation with download intonation,
really. So there are many other words that
you can use similar to really in this way
like seriously or oh, oh and so on. So it’s
a really good practice for your intonation.
So those are 25 very common words and phrases
in English. If you like this video, if you
like this topic, please subscribe. I am sure
there will be a button here somewhere or button
here, wherever but please be sure to subscribe
to our channel because we are going to be
doing more videos like this and we already
have more videos like this. So please be sure
to check them out. Thanks very much for watching
and let’s see you again soon. Bye….Really?
oh interesting, uh-huh, okay I see, great, fantastic,
unbelievable hmm… gratitude, subjects. What
do we have for dinner today? Pizza, affirmative.