hi, there this is Harry and welcome back to my english lessons where I try to help you to get a
better understanding of the english language how to use expressions and phrases improve
your vocabulary help you with business english conversation english whatever problems you might
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course, give them my contact details and as always you can get me on www.englishlessonviaskype.com
and i'm always happy as i said to hear from you so what are we going to talk about today well
we're going to look at certain ways to tell somebody to wait w-a-i-t okay just
to get the right spelling of that weight if we're talking about how heavy we are that's
w-e-i-g-h-t oh he's put on a bit of weight it's w-e-i-g-h-t but if you're asking somebody to wait
wait while i finish w-a-i-t so as always i'm going to go through the options with you and i'll come
back and explain them to you one by one so we can use hold on hang on just wait until or till
wait a second or wait a minute just a moment or just a second let me think bear with me
something will have to wait or someone will have to wait all in good time not so fast okay and a
lot of the time when you're using these you have to use a certain intonation in your voice and i'll
try and explain that to you in the examples that i give you so let's take them one by one and try
and explain them so hold on let's take the first two hold on and hang on together because often
they are used uh synonymously when we're talking about telephone calls if you want to call somebody
and they say oh look can you just hold on for a minute so they're
asking you to wait because they either finishing another call or they're sending a message or
they want to give some instruction to somebody say look can you hold on for just
a minute yeah or uh hang on for a minute i'll be with you straight away don't hang up just hang on
so they don't want you to put the phone down they just want you to wait so hold on or hang on yeah
now we don't use them all the time when we're talking about telephone conversations because
if you call into somebody's office unexpectedly and they're in the middle of some something they
might put their hand on say just hold on for a moment i just finished this email or can you
just hang on for a few seconds and i i'll be with you don't don't go yeah because i want to talk to
you so they gesticulate or they gesture to you to take a seat somewhere and hold on or hang on and
then they will come back to you so hold on hang on are they using it in terms of the telephone
call when somebody's speaking say well just hold on until i finish this or if you can hang on for
a minute i'll i'll i'll get back to you very very quickly okay or when somebody comes into
the office or comes into the room it's just well just hold on for a minute hang on i'll be with you
soon okay hold on and hang on just wait until so wait until or wait till until or till you can use
either of them ever exactly there the same meaning okay so yeah you want to talk to your children
about something and they are saying oh look dad i need to know now and i have to sign this form and
just wait until i get home yeah just wait until i have a chance to talk to your mom just wait
till i have a chance to read the document so you don't understand why they're in a rush and
of course our children are always in the rush they want something done like that okay but you're just
asking them please just wait until i get a chance to read it wait until i get a chance to discuss it
with you wait until i get a chance to finish what i'm doing now because i'm very busy and i look
at it when i have time i'll sit down i read the phone carefully and of course yes we can discuss
it and decide whether you can go or whether you cannot go okay so just asking somebody to
wait until you have time wait until you have looked at the document wait
until you discuss it with somebody else okay and then we have wait a second or wait a minute
a very very common way of asking somebody to wait uh you can say it with a little bit of um
extra emphasis by saying oh just wait a second yeah wait a second so you're really getting a
little bit frustrated with somebody because they they're going on an honor at something
you say no no no wait a second we haven't agreed that yet so let's not jump the gun let's not get
ahead of ourselves so wait a minute yeah that's that's not what i said no that's not what i say
so if you're a little bit annoyed with somebody that either they've taken what you've said out of
context so they are paraphrasing he said no no wait wait wait wait a minute that's not what i
said what i actually said was blah blah blah blah blah so you can ask somebody to hold on until you
get a chance to explain them exactly what you said exactly what you meant so they are not taking it
out of context and they're not going to misquote you later on okay or you take the steam out of it
it's just wait a second yeah i'll be with you now yeah okay so somebody's ringing on your
doorbell and maybe you're just finishing getting dressed or something so you you shout is just
wait wait a second wait a minute i'll be i'll be with you okay so you don't want the person to
go because perhaps you're expecting that delivery from amazon or whoever it might be so you you rush
to the door and you you you you take the package okay so you're asking somebody wait a minute
wait a second it doesn't matter whether it's the second or minute we're not really counting
the seconds and we're not counting the minutes but it's a it's a form of words we use asking somebody
to wait okay let me think okay so when we use the expression let me think we want to give ourselves
that time to think so we're sitting there saying hmm yeah well let me think about that yeah so you
want the person to wait you don't want to rush into a response because it might be the wrong one
you don't want to give a very quick answer because you want time to consider it so let me think yeah
and so you sit there and yeah okay well and then you give the response to the person or indeed you
if you want them to wait a little longer you might say well let me think about that for a day let me
think about that for a while and i'll get back to you so in that context you're going to ask them
to wait not just a few seconds or a few minutes it might be a few hours it might be a day yeah let me
think indeed just let let me sleep on it so let me go home let me rest overnight and i'll think
about it while i'm at home and i'll give you a reply tomorrow so let me think can be delay
something for a little bit delay something for a little bit longer i also said before just a moment
or just a second so when we were talking about wait a second or wait a minute we can also say
wait a moment and again moment second minute they're they're interchangeable they're not
really a period of time it could often it could be five minutes and you say to somebody okay just
uh wait a minute or wait a second and five minutes later you're still waiting so you know
often it has no reference to the particular time we just use it as an expression to get
somebody to wait wait a minute wait a second uh just a moment just a second exactly the
the same meaning bear with me so bear with me a little bit more formal so if you're trying
to explain something and somebody's trying to interject or somebody's trying to interrupt
to say something say no no just bear with me for a moment i want to finish what i'm saying
and then perhaps it'll become a little bit clearer and then of course if you have any questions or
you have anything to add then i'd be very happy for you to add something in so bear with me means
please just wait give me an opportunity to explain it i might not be as good as you as at explaining
things or might not be as quick as you are in explaining things so if you could just bear with
me or this is a little bit complicated so it does need a little bit more explanation so please bear
with me whilst i take you through this particular example so you go through it bing bing bing bing
bing if you're doing a powerpoint presentation and you explain exactly what you want to explain
and hopefully that will take care of some of the questions that your audience might have so just
bear with me for a moment bear with me for five minutes bear with me while i finish this email
whatever it might be you're just asking the person to to wait for a little while so you're being
quite polite bear with me something or somebody will have to wait so you're up to your eyes as we
all are from from time to time and somebody's pressing you for a delivery date somebody's
pressing you for a submission date somebody's pressing you for responsibility look somebody else
will have to wait i can't answer all of these at the same time so who is the most important
so we have to put a little bit of priority in them somebody will have to wait or the report
is just going to have to wait yeah you'll have to tell the boss that i'm not going to be able
to complete it by today because i don't have the information yet it's the end of the month okay
next expression is all in good time well it's a really nice way to ask somebody to wait people
are ringing you saying oh look when are we going to get this you promised we'd have it a couple of
days ago when do you think we can have a reply all in good time now again you're not being
very committed in terms of when in fact you're being very non-committal all in good time could
be anything could be a day a week whatever they're all in good time but what you really mean is
you're doing your best you'll get it completed when you can and when you know you'll come back
to them and you'll give them a deadline okay we're like just going to take me another day
or another hour whatever it's going to be but all in good time and then finally not so fast
okay so if we want somebody to slow down if we want somebody to to wait and somebody's come on
come on they're pushing and pushing and pushing say okay not so fast let's just take our time
let's go through one by one and let's see what happens so your son has had a bit of a problem an
argument at school an argument with a friend and he's sitting there and he's a bit excited so he's
running through the reasons why this happened you say okay look hold on hold on not so fast just
take it one piece at a time let me um absorb what you're saying and let's try and sort this problem
out i'm sure it can be sorted out so not so fast take your time and it'll be a lot clearer to me
and it'll be a lot clearer to you so not so fast meaning slow down wait take your time
okay so they're all expressions and ways in which you can ask someone to wait so let me give them
to you again to hold on or hang on as i said you can use those in relation to telephone calls just
wait until or wait till no difference between until until wait a second or wait a minute or
just a moment or just a second exactly the same it's all about split timing okay uh let me think
bear with me a little bit more formal bear with me something or somebody will have to wait
all in good time and not so fast okay so I said all expressions where you want to ask somebody
to wait well hopefully you have not to wait too long to get the answer that you want and
if you've enjoyed that and you think somebody else will enjoy it as I said at the beginning
just pass the details on them I'm always happy to hear from you
always happy to help you and always happy to be there if there's something you want me to
include in the next podcast okay thanks for listening and join me again soon