How to disagree in English politely.
Is that even possible?
If you've ever felt hesitant about sharing a differing opinion because
you didn't want to spoil a conversation or relationship,
you're definitely not alone. For native and non-native speakers alike.
It can be a struggle to know how to voice a differing opinion or
a disagreement with others without sounding too aggressive or confrontational,
and here's what makes it more challenging.
There are cultural implications as well. For example,
in some English-speaking cultures,
disagreements can be opportunities for dialogue and innovation
rather than conflicts to be avoided. However,
this is not a universal perspective for many others.
In English-speaking culture,
a direct disagreement can be viewed as disrespectful and disruptive.
So while English speakers often express their agreement with enthusiasm,
you might be surprised to discover that the strategies and common phrases used
for disagreements are, shall we say, muddy,
less clear, less obvious, almost hidden.
In fact,
the language of disagreement in English might require you to read between the
lines.
To read between the lines means to understand the intended meaning of something
that was not expressed directly.
Understanding these nuances is crucial not only for how you express yourself
in the language,
but also for how you navigate the cultural landscape of those who
use that language. That's why today we're going to discuss the strategies,
the common phrases and the cultural do's and don'ts of
disagreements in English.
So whether you're having a discussion in a boardroom or just chatting with
friends over coffee, mastering this skill will enhance your communication,
empower your relationships, and help you feel comfortable speaking up,
sharing your ideas confidently and respectfully.
Now, before we go any further, if this is your first time here, welcome.
I'm Annemarie, an English fluency and confidence coach.
Everything I do is designed to help you get the confidence you want for your
life and work in English.
If you'd love to discover years of free lessons from me and
downloadable resources,
you can get all of that and more at my Speak Confident English website.
For the remainder of this lesson, we're going to do three important things.
First,
I wanna highlight some of the key strategies to use to effectively disagree
and to do it politely. Then we'll take a look at common phrases,
English speakers use to employ those strategies, and finally,
I'll finish with some real-life examples so that you can use them as a template
and practice them so that you're ready for any conversation,
especially when you want to share your point of view.
If it's different from others,
there's no question that the art of disagreement varies from
one culture to another, from one person to another,
or even one situation to another. In other words, it's all quite fluid.
However, there are some strategies we can use to always be
polite in our disagreement. In a moment,
I'm going to share with you several strategies,
but I want to start with one thing that's particularly important for English
conversations where there's strong disagreement.
If you're in a conversation and you want to end with a positive outcome,
one important aspect of disagreements is to always stay calm.
One way we can do that is to maintain very neutral language and
neutral tone when communicating. The goal of any conversation,
even those that include disagreements,
is to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to be heard,
not to walk away feeling frustrated. Now,
if you're not sure what I mean by a neutral tone,
I want you to think about people in your life that you know really well,
and then imagine that you call one of them on the telephone.
You hear something in their voice instantly,
and you know whether they're feeling sad, excited,
or angry because they carry that emotion in their voice.
When we are in conversations with disagreement,
we aim to remove that emotion from our voice,
maintaining again that calm, neutral tone,
taking away those potential negative feelings that can build up tension.
With that in mind,
let's take a look at several strategies we can use for effective, meaningful,
and polite disagreements. Number one,
aim to learn and understand it's infuriating for both
sides or all sides.
If someone feels that they need to prove themselves right and perhaps
prove someone else wrong in the process,
a better approach is to focus on learning from others and understanding their
perspectives even if you don't agree with them.
The second strategy is to avoid assumptions.
An assumption is something that is believed without any documentation,
evidence or proof. And as you might imagine,
if an assumption is made about someone,
it can lead to misconceptions and miscommunication.
Third, be clear.
What this means is don't just disagree with someone.
It's important to also state why you disagree,
so that you give others the opportunity to understand your perspective.
Four, keep it impersonal.
This goes back to the idea of maintaining that calm body language and neutral
tone. On top of that,
it's important to avoid language that implies a personal attack.
We can do that by keeping our language focused on the topic of disagreement
and avoiding language that includes the word you, for example,
you always or you don't understand,
and our final strategy here is to connect rather than contrast.
I shared a similar approach and a lesson I have on how to express opposing
ideas. I'll share a link to that in the notes below the video. In short,
what this means is when disagreeing with others,
particularly on issues that may be sensitive or cause friction,
it's best to avoid contrast language,
so this would include words such as, but however,
instead or on the other hand, rather than use those words,
you can simply listen and then say what you think.
With those strategies in mind,
let's highlight some of the common phrases English speakers use to
utilize these strategies effectively.
In the examples I'm going to share with you, you'll notice they do a few things.
First,
they may aim to acknowledge what someone else has said and indicate
that you also understand what they said.
It doesn't mean that you agree but you understand it. Second,
you may notice that many of these phrases include an apology before the
disagreement. In some circumstances,
this can help to soften that potential friction or tension.
And finally, some of these phrases also express neutrality or even
uncertainty. This doesn't mean that you are uncertain about your ideas.
You can be very clear about what you think. However,
by introducing some of that uncertainty, again,
it lowers the potential friction or tension in the conversation.
So depending on what you aim to do or what you're most comfortable with,
here are a few examples that do all of that first sentence starters
that acknowledge and show understanding.
I see what you're saying and I think I appreciate and respect your point of
view. My thoughts are that's a valid point and I think that
true fair point, I have to say I disagree.
I understand where you're coming from and my perspective is now,
there are many more common phrases English speakers use rather than share all
of them here,
I have them listed in this lesson at my Speak Confident English website,
so if you'd love to review more common phrases,
use the link in the notes below this video,
visit this lesson and you'll get a full list.
And now here are common phrases that include an apology before the
disagreement. I'm sorry, I have to disagree on, I'm sorry.
I don't agree. Sorry, I'm afraid I disagree.
My apologies. I respectfully disagree. And finally,
common phrases that express neutrality or uncertainty.
I am not sure I agree with you on, I could be wrong,
but my understanding is I don't think you and I have the same
opinion on this issue. I don't think we're seeing eye to eye on this issue.
I'm not sure I see it that way,
and I have a completely different opinion on that. Again,
if you'd love to get my full list of common phrases to use to express
that disagreement,
you can find all of that in this lesson at my Speak Confident English website.
What I'd love to do now is highlight real-life scenarios where this
language is used so that you can start to practice and use it in your daily
English life. In scenario number one,
we're going to focus on having a disagreement with a client,
something that is not easy to do. Let's say in this example,
you're updating a client on the status of a current project and then
at the end of the phone call this client shares that they have many changes
that they want to make to the initial project. However,
they still want to keep the same deadline and they don't want to change the
budget. At that moment, you might say,
these are great suggestions.
Right now I feel we don't have enough resources to implement significant
changes. At this stage,
the proposed changes will require an additional three to four weeks and will
significantly impact the original plan and budget.
Because this is a client, of course,
you want to be as gentle as possible initially in that disagreement,
so this takes a very polite approach.
It acknowledges what the client is seeking and shares a disagreement with the
reasons why. Now, if we stop here,
there's the potential for the client to feel frustrated and
unsatisfied,
so in addition to expressing this polite disagreement with reasons for the
disagreement,
we can also be solutions oriented and add on a few
alternatives. When you want to do that,
when you want to add on other solutions after disagreeing with someone,
here are a few phrases you can use to do that instead.
I think we should or I think we could.
My suggestion would be to an alternative solution might be
I would recommend that we, or how about we?
So if we add it on to that initial disagreement, here's what you might say.
However, in the interest of delivering this project on time and within budget,
I'd like to propose a few options for you to consider and then you would go on
to list your options. In scenario number two,
we're going to look at a disagreement with an acquaintance. Now, very quickly,
an acquaintance is someone that you know and have a friendly relationship with,
but you're not friends. This isn't someone that you spend a lot of time with.
In this particular scenario,
we'll imagine that you're on the condo board where you live and there's been
some discussion of hiking up the prices for some maintenance in the building.
You might disagree with another resident,
someone that you have good rapport with but don't know very well.
To politely express that disagreement, you could say, sorry,
I have to disagree with the proposal to renovate the coworking space.
The residents hardly use the coworking space,
and I've observed the area at various hours of the day.
Most residents prefer to work within the privacy of their units. Instead,
I think we should renovate the most used area, the gym.
This would serve all residents and it would be easier to justify than raise the
maintenance fees. In this example,
we've chosen a phrase that starts with an apology and then has a very direct
disagreement with supporting reasons for that disagreement
and alternative solutions. You might also notice that in this example,
we've avoided using the word you rather than disagree with an
individual, with a person. The disagreement is with the idea.
And now scenario number three, disagreement with a close friend.
Imagine you and a close friend are having a discussion on the government's
recent increase in carbon taxes.
You both have strong opinions and your friend is particularly passionate about
climate change. In this scenario,
it may be important to tread lightly or to disagree very
softly in order to protect the friendship. To do that, you could say,
to be fair,
I'm unsure whether the carbon tax is truly necessary for the fight against
climate change. Yes, it could reduce our consumption temporarily,
but it isn't a long-term solution. Moreover,
it increases our cost of living significantly and makes it more expensive to opt
for eco-friendly options. What do you think this example does?
Two important things. First,
it introduces the disagreement with uncertainty and provides reasons for the
disagreement.
The second thing that it does is it ends with an open invitation asking
someone else to share their thoughts,
and it indicates that you're interested in hearing what they have to say.
Not only is this a respectful way to disagree,
it also keeps the dialogue open. And finally,
scenario number four, disagreeing with a loved one. As you know,
we sometimes have to disagree with the people we love the most,
and in some circumstances we might employ one of these strategies
that is very delicate, very polite in its disagreement,
and on other occasions we may have the luxury of being more direct in our
disagreement when we're communicating with close friends and family and we
feel comfortable to disagree directly,
we use some very informal phrases. However,
I want to be clear that these are used with close friends and family.
They're not really appropriate for the workplace, for example. No way.
Or you must be joking, you can't be serious.
I totally disagree. I don't think so. Absolutely not.
Not a chance,
and I agreed until you said you may notice that these examples
break all the rules we've talked about so far.
They are extremely direct and they use the word you,
so we want to be careful when using them.
Let's take a look at an example for when we might use this kind of language.
Let's say for example,
you and your family are planning an itinerary for your next vacation and
your spouse proposes that you do something new,
that you do something more adventurous, and as you're listening,
you're thinking, yeah, okay, that sounds great.
And then they introduce the idea of cage diving and
you say,
no way I agreed with you until you suggested cage diving.
I would much rather go whale watching or scuba diving in a shark free
zone. And now to finish this up,
let's talk about the what if.
What if you're in a disagreement with someone and you talk,
you talk and you talk some more, and you never come to an agreement,
you can't find the conclusion together. For this,
we have the perfect statement. Let's agree to disagree.
This allows you to bring the conversation to a close, at least for now,
and accept the disagreement without any frustration.
You can walk away from the conversation and perhaps revisit it on a
future date. Now that we have these strategies,
phrases and example scenarios in place,
I have a couple of challenge questions for you.
I want you to think through what you've learned in practice using this language.
First, I want you to think about a disagreement you've had with a family member,
a friend or a coworker.
Is there a strategy or a phrase you learned today and you realize, oh, great,
I used that in the disagreement and it was quite effective. If so,
I want you to tell me about it down below,
or perhaps there's a strategy I didn't mention here that allowed you to
politely disagree and state your position. And number two,
I want you to imagine that you and your colleagues are discussing a team
building weekend.
Your boss has proposed a specific date and yet that date doesn't work for
most of the team.
So you're strategizing on how to approach your boss and express some
disagreement over the initial plans of the team building weekend.
How might you do that? What phrases would you use to politely disagree?
As always,
you can share your examples with me down in the comment section below.
With that, thank you so much for joining me. If you found this helpful,
I would love to know and you can tell me in a few ways. Number one,
give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube and share a comment down below.
Number two, you can subscribe to my Speak Confident English Channel,
so you are always notified when I share a new Confident English lesson.
And finally,
hop on over to my Speak Confident English website where you'll find years of
lessons and free resources you can download from me. Again,
thank you so much and I look forward to seeing you next time.