Hi and welcome back to Love English I'm Leila and today I want to help you sound
more confident. You might already feel confident you've probably seen a plenty
of YouTube tutorials, TED talks that talk about improving your posture maybe your
body language and of course your voice to sound more confident well in today's
lesson I'm going to share five phrases that you should avoid in fact don't say
them and I'm going to give you the alternative that helps you sound more
confident more self-assured more assertive and of course when it comes to
sounding confident business meetings presentations at university perhaps and
giving a presentation again or even in a seminars sounding confident and
self-assured assertive but not aggressive is going to help you in all
kinds of situations it's going to help you sound more professional to gain the
respect of your peers and even your superiors and of course it's going to
help you feel better feel more confident and more sure of
yourself in situations where perhaps sharing your
opinion or even accepting when you've done something wrong you can be a little
bit scary so this lesson is really going to be quite short and sweet but it
should have a big impact so here we go the five things I don't want you to say
to help you sound more confident and the alternatives let's get started
right so these five phrases are commonly used and in fact some of them might
leave you scratching your head thinking well why doesn't she want me to use
these expressions language is subtle there are differences in meaning and
connotations that come with some of these phrases in fact if you're a
non-native speaker you probably wouldn't have even realized some of the
differences I'm going to explain so if you would like help understanding these
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interactive and helpful it can be in helping you understand these subtle
differences in the English language but for now I'm going to help you with
phrases and give you the alternative to help you sound more confident
self-assured and assertive in any kind of situation right number one and you
might disagree with me here but just wait sorry sorry now this doesn't mean I
want you to never say sorry to not apologize to people if you do something
wrong however sorry kind of sounds like a child apologizing to their mum so if
you are in a professional environment or indeed at university and you have done
something wrong perhaps you've turned up late to work you've forgotten a meeting
you have I don't know not done all the research for a project that you should
have done and if you haven't done that that's very very bad especially talking
to my students but if you have done something wrong rather than say sorry
try using I apologize I apologize now the difference in I apologize and I'm
sorry really sounds that you are taking
ownership of your mistake it sounds more sophisticated and controlled it's
acknowledging that you've made a mistake and that you want to rectify it there is
a slight difference in using sorry and apologize it really does sound more
deliberate that you want to apologize but sorry is often used in a way that
perhaps you're being forced or you feel like it's an obligation to apologize oh
yeah I'm sorry the bus was late rather say I apologize but I missed my bus I
just can't believe I did it I apologize more deliberate more
responsible more sophisticated number two and I think this is really
self-explanatory why you should not use this phrase whether it's true or simply
that you're not happy about a particular situation at work or at university to
use the phrase it's not fair it's not fair again gives a connotation this
sense that you're being childish and immature and
course in a professional environment at university you really don't want to give
this impression however this does not mean I want you to keep your mouth shut
and not say when you are unhappy or indeed when something isn't fair but of
course in English we have many alternatives to this phrase so if you're
not five years old and complaining that your brother has got more chocolate than
you then you might prefer these phrases okay let's think of a situation perhaps
you're in a meeting with your boss and colleagues and your boss speaks to you
in a way that you don't think is particularly fair maybe he blames you
for a late report delivery or for not doing some research correctly rather
than say that's not fair don't speak to me in front of everybody like that you
could use the phrase and this will make you sound very self-assured confident
and assertive that's not warranted or that's
unwarranted using the prefix fair that's unwarranted I think your comments in the
meeting were unwarranted today I think you'll find that the deadline was
actually next week or even if it is true and you do make a mistake you could say
I think those comments were unwarranted you could have emailed me and we could
have had a face-to-face discussion rather than in front of everybody else
so I think that was unwarranted or I don't think that was warranted there we
go basically it means unfair that's not fair okay number three it's not my fault
it's not my fault and again whether you are speaking with a teacher a lecturer a
boss your colleagues your peers at university to say that it's not my fault
to suggest that you did nothing wrong when perhaps you actually did or even if
you did nothing wrong it's still better to take ownership of something and
explain the situation taking ownership of something suggests that you are a
confident person that even when mistakes are made you are able to own up to them
to admit and to take control of the situation so
not only will avoiding using this phrase help you feel more confident but it will
definitely help people perceive you as being more confident now what can you
say when it really wasn't your fault or perhaps you feel that it wasn't your
fault and you want to explain what has happened well let's have a look at three
alternatives number one I wasn't aware that I wasn't aware and that if this is
true and you really weren't aware of the situation and therefore a mistake was
made then I guess it wasn't your fault but if you say I wasn't aware then how
can it be your fault you didn't know so you couldn't make the right decision or
do the right thing when you act with a limited information in any kind of
situation and of course you're not always able to make the right decision I
wasn't aware that I wasn't aware that we had a meeting at 2:00 o'clock today
no one emailed me so I'm sorry it wasn't my fault
nobody emailed me rather say I wasn't aware that there was a meeting today at
2 o'clock no one emailed me number 2 justification
if you have done something that people perceive to be wrong or incorrect and
just simply explain why justify your actions I did it that way because I did
it that way because or I took the decision because simply you think
because is going to help you sound more confident and of course show that you
are in control of a situation so when there is a good logical justification
for a decision that's been made then you really shouldn't need to use at the
phrase it's not my fault just to find yourself through a logical thought
process and explanation means you don't have to use it's not my fault and number
three making sure that there is a flow of conversation that there's a dialogue
between you and the person or people that are perhaps blaming you for
something that indeed wasn't your fault you could say I think there seems to be
some confusion here perhaps we can discuss this further in a
team meeting or in the office it could be any situation that you might discuss
what has happened or what the problem might be but simply explaining that
there's some confusion perhaps they don't quite understand what has happened
and that you'd like to discuss it further will of course resolve the
situation and again using this phrase is going to help you sound confident
assertive and people are going to listen to say it's not my fault will
automatically make people react in a negative way it's almost that you're
putting a barrier up and rejecting their thoughts their opinion on a particular
situation so don't put a barrier up rather create a situation where there's
open dialogue and you're able to explain yourself and justify your actions number
four a word in the English language well actually two contracted but often has a
negative impact and really in a work environment you don't want to be using
this I can't I can't really there is no such word as can't which is true it's
too contracted so to use I can't suggest that really one you're not motivated to
find a solution to your rather negative and three you're basically disobeying
whoever has asked you to do something let's have a look at some alternatives
to can't unable unable now if any of you have studied English well you will know
that I am able is a more formal equivalent to I can in the same way I
can't I am unable to remember the preposition so I'm unable to get that
report to you by Monday because again I think explaining giving justifications
to your answer is really important here or using I can't but I can ending with a
positive if there is something that you really are unable to do more formal less
negative in connotation I'm unable to or I can't but I can
and often giving people an alternative will sound more like a team player more
motivated and generally just having a better attitude so I can't get the
report to you by Monday but I can get it to you by Tuesday morning how does that
sound and again you might just want to justify why but certainly being able to
speak in this way it shows that you are confident assertive and you can find
solutions to a problem perfect if someone asks you to do something and
you're not sure how you could simply say I'll look into that for you I'll look
into that for you so you might not have the information present right at that
moment but you can certainly do some research or find someone who can help
you and again instead of just immediately putting the walls up saying
I can't do that you're saying you're going to try and by doing this it shows
a certain amount of confidence in your own ability right now I might not be
able to do it but I'm sure I can find the resources or the information to
achieve what you are asking of me you can see how a lot of these phrases are
going to be really helpful in the workplace in an office environment in a
professional situation and again if you really are not able to do something you
can say I can't because explain yourself don't be scared to justify your reasons
if there is a good one and again you could also say I'm unable to because and
finally number five a word that's although only four letters usually quite
insignificant in sentences can actually soften your language but in the wrong
situation it can sound well weak it can weaken your language and make you sound
less confident less assertive so if you are a boss or a team leader on a
university project you might not want to use just just by using just you are
devaluing the word that comes in front of it could I just ask you a question no
could I ask you a question sounds much more assertive not rude you can add
please to the end but when you say could I just
it's almost that you're scared to ask that you're lacking the confidence to
check something to ask the question can I just ask you to do some research on
that subject we discussed again using just minimizes the importance of your
request if you're a team leader even if you're not if you're just part of a
group and you've asked someone to do something
using just is minimizing and devaluing what you are asking of them
interestingly there has been research done to suggest that women use this word
and other language in the workplace where their language is essentially
softened which basically means they are devaluing themselves and how people
perceive them they're not being perceived as confident and assertive
whereas men would be less likely to use the word adjust so ladies if you are
professionals whether a boss or simply working in a professional environment
try to avoid using this word so that others see you as confident self-assured
and assertive so like I said a very simple lesson but hopefully it gives you
an understanding of how some very simple basic words in English can affect how
people perceive you and potentially how you feel about yourself the subtleties
of language are essential to understand particularly as you advance in your
English language learning journey and don't forget if you'd like to learn more
about phrases like these and how to sound more confident in English check
out that Camberley app and use our code Laila that Sabra for your free 15
minutes thanks for watching bye