Vanessa: Huh? What? Don't say this in the
workplace. It is rude, offensive, and just simply not professional. If you need to speak English for
your job or in a professional setting, today's lesson is for you. You are going to learn 10
informal English expressions that you should not use in the workplace, but more importantly, you
are going to learn what you can replace them with, a formal or business style English expression,
which will help you to be professional, polite, and just easily understood in the workplace.
Hi, I'm Vanessa from Speak English with vanessa.com, and like always, I have created
a free PDF worksheet for you with all of these informal expressions changed to formal business
expressions so that you can be professional and polite in the workplace. I've also included a
couple little tips and tricks for using these expressions in the workplace, the right tone
of voice, the right situation, so that you can have as much success in English as possible.
You can click on the link in the description to download this free PDF worksheet today. All right,
let's get started with expression number one that you should not use in the workplace,
it is too informal and what you should use instead. Expression number one that you
should avoid in the workplace is, what's up? Yes, you will hear people use this in daily
conversation all the time, but most workplaces are too formal to use, what's up? Instead,
it's a little bit better to use just the simple expression, how are you doing? How are you? This
is a really formal, polite way to greet someone. So personally, I recommend when you're greeting
someone in the workplace, you can say, how are you doing? How are you? Instead of, what's up?
For expression number two that you should not use in the workplace, imagine that you're at your desk
working and someone comes up to you to ask you a question. You should not say to them, what
do you want? What do you need? This is a little bit rude, a little bit too direct. It's kind of
annoyed like, what do you want? What do you need? Instead, a much more polite expression is,
how can I help you? How can I help you? And you're kind of assuming that they need help
because they're coming to your desk and that you are willing to help. So this is a great
substitution. You can just say, how can I help? The third rude expression that you
should not say in the workplace or really anywhere else, is hush, shush, shut up.
If someone is talking too loudly, too much, you don't want to hear what they have to say,
those are just simply rude. I know that sometimes people use these in the movies or in TV shows,
but in real life there's just a rude edge to that. So instead, here are two great expressions
that you can use to be much more polite. Please be quiet. Can you lower your voice?
These are great to use. If you work in an office with a lot of people and someone is talking really
loudly, you can say, please lower your voice. I'm trying to work. Or Can you please lower your
voice? Wonderful. This is so much more polite. Informal expression number four that you should
not use in the workplace is, I have to pee. When we're talking about bodily functions of
any kind in the workplace, you need to be more indirect. So instead of saying, I have to pee,
which is something that's okay to say around your friends or family, children often say this, it's
much better to say, I have to use the restroom. I'll be right back. I have to use the restroom.
In the US we use both bathroom and restroom, but restroom has a little bit more of a formal edge.
It's even more indirect. You're not even saying the word bath, you're saying rest, restroom. So
if you want to take it up a notch, you can say, I have to use the restroom. It's okay to say I
have to use the bathroom. I'll be right back. But it's probably more common in the workplace
to say, I have to use the restroom if you want to be extra vague and indirect and possibly
more professional. Informal expression number five that you shouldn't use in the workplace is
one for when you make a mistake. If you make a mistake and send an email to the wrong person,
you send it to the wrong clients and you give them the wrong offer for your product,
it's a pretty big mistake, right? You've sent it to the wrong person.
Maybe it was the wrong pricing. You want to make sure that they still trust your company,
but you made a mistake. What should you say? You should not say, sorry about that. This is okay to
say if you accidentally bump into someone, oh, sorry about that. It's for casual, not serious
situations, but if you make a mistake, that's kind of a big deal in the workplace, you need to
be a little bit more serious about your apology. So we are going to use the word that I just use,
apologize. I apologize for that. I should have, and then you can say what you should
have done instead. I should have sent it to this person, and I really made a mistake. I
apologize for that. So, you see how we're using this long formal word, apologize. I apologize
for that instead of just, sorry about that. It shows you don't really take your job seriously.
So use that great expression, I apologize for that. It won't happen again. Expression
number six that you should avoid is one for when you're giving a presentation or you're explaining
something. After you're done some people say, does that make sense? And you know what? This is not
terrible, but it's not the best question to ask to judge if the other person actually understands.
This is true for teachers too. When you're explaining something and you ask your students,
does that make sense, they're probably just going to say, yeah, even if they didn't really
understand. So instead, a better question to ask is this, what are your thoughts? Or,
I'd like your opinion on this. And here it's inviting them to give more information than just,
yes, it makes sense. You want to see if they've actually taken in the information.
So you're asking a good what question, what are your thoughts on this? And it makes it
very clear to you if they understood what you were talking about when they give their response. So I
recommend this instead of, does that make sense? Not the greatest question. Expression number seven
that you should not say is one that I used at the beginning of this lesson, and that is, huh, what?
When you don't understand something, and this will happen, whether it's because
it's in English or because it's something technical that you just don't understand,
you're going to need to ask for clarification, for repetition, something like this, but do not say,
huh, what? This is pretty rude. Instead, it's better to use these phrases. Can you repeat that
or what do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? And here you're asking for clarification.
I don't understand what that means, so I'm asking, what do you mean by that? And they'll
probably reword it and tell you it in a different way. This is really polite. You might have kind
of understood by this point that those short daily life expressions, what, huh, that we use
in conversation are pretty rude in the workplace. So instead, we're going to employ longer phrases,
full sentences instead of those short ones. Let's see how the next one works for that too,
because our next phrase is very similar. Expression number eight that you should not
use is when you're trying to get someone's attention and they're across the office or
they're in another area, hey, don't say that. Hey, hey. This is too direct, too abrupt. And instead,
it's much better to say, excuse me, excuse me, and you can get their attention in this way.
This is also great in the classroom. A student should not say, hey, teacher. Instead,
they should say, excuse me, teacher, can I ask a question? This is great in all of those
formal situations. Expression number nine is a fun one. You can say this with your friends,
but don't say this in the workplace. When something good happens, let's say that your
client just signed the deal and your company is going to be working with their dream clients.
How do you respond? Do you say, sweet? No, this is great to say in your personal life. Totally
fine to say, sweet, I can't believe that we got the vacation deal and we're going to be
going to the beach and have a great discount at the same time. Sweet. That's great to say.
But in the workplace, sweet is too informal. Instead, when you want to show some positive
emotion, you can use these expressions instead. That's great. That sounds good. Fantastic. These
are much more formal and they still show your positive joy at the outcome. The final
10th expression that you should never use in the workplace are three words that we use to address
other people, and they are dude, man, and chick. These are not acceptable in the workplace. Maybe
if you work at a surf shop or somewhere extremely informal, but if you're working
in a more formal workplace, which most are, you should not use these expressions. Don't say, hey,
dude, what's up? Nope. Instead, really, you should just use the person's name.
Each workplace is going to have a different standard for what's acceptable for addressing
people. Sometimes workplaces are very formal and they want you to say, excuse me, president Smith,
can I ask you this question? And you're addressing him with his title president and his last name.
But some workplaces, even though they're formal, it's still acceptable to use someone's first name.
So instead, you might say, excuse me, John, can I ask you a question? And you're using his
first name, not his title and last name. So every workplace is going to have a different standard,
but no workplace is going to accept it if you say, hey, man, can I ask you a question? No,
not acceptable. So really the replacement for this is just the person's name,
depending on the workplace's standard. Well, congratulations. You just leveled up
your business, formal English, so that you don't offend people in the workplace, and so that you
can just be professional and polite. And if you want to use the informal versions with
your friends and family, cool. You can do that. Sweet. Well, don't forget to download the free
PDF worksheet for today's lesson with all of these 10 informal expressions that you should not use
and their business equivalents that you can use in the workplace to be more professional and polite.
And at the bottom of that free worksheet is Vanessa's challenge question,
so that you never forget what you've learned. You can answer this question in your own words.
You can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet today.
Well, thank you so much for learning English with me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a new
lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. But wait, do you want more? I recommend watching this video
next where you will learn if the phrase, can I pick your brains is something that you should
use in the workplace or you should not use in the workplace. I'll see you in that video to find out.