Hi.
Are you confused sometimes with people's answers?
Yeah?
No?
Yeah?
Sure.
Okay.
This is a recent trend that started, I don't
know how long ago, 42 minutes ago it started.
Starting now.
And the way that people in North America, Canada, and America, because in Mexico they
speak Spanish, and some other English-speaking
countries, I don't know, England, New Zealand,
Australia, do they do this there, too?
If you're living in one of these English-speaking
countries, watch my lesson and tell me in
the comments if you hear this confusing answer where you are.
So, if someone asks you a question, like, example, "Hey, Ronnie, do you want to hang
out later?"
I could say, "No."
"Yeah."
Huh?
So it's very confusing because we have a positive
and a negative, but if I say, "No, yeah",
that actually means yes, I do want to hang out later.
Your life would be easier if the person said,
"No, yeah, let's hang out", but a lot of the
times when we speak, we shorten our answers.
Then we have, "Yeah, no."
So we think, okay, let's follow the...
Oh, this means no.
So, "Hey, do you want to hang out later?"
"Yeah, no."
Huh.
Well, so that means no, or sometimes we say, "Nope.
Nope."
It's just another way to say no.
"Hey, do you want to hang out later?"
"Nope.
I don't like you."
If they give you another answer or an excuse, we understand more.
"Hey, do you want to hang out on Saturday?"
"Yeah, no, for sure."
What?
Yes or no?
"Yeah, no, for sure" means 100% yes, definitely.
So, why don't we just say yes or no?
What's going on?
Wait for it.
I'll...
I'll explain later.
Another one.
"Hey, do you want to hang out on Sunday?
Are you free on Sunday, Ronnie?"
"Yeah, no, yeah."
That means yes.
"Sunday, let's hang out."
"Oh, hey.
What about Monday, Ronnie?
Do you want to hang out on Monday?"
"Yeah, no, yeah."
"No, no, definitely not.
Not free on Sunday at all."
Although at first I said no, and then I said
yeah, and then I said no, no, yeah, no, not
going to do it on Monday.
I used to do this a lot when I was a kid.
I would go to my friend's house, and I was a
shy kid, I'm still shy, and my friend would
say "Hey, Ronnie.
Do you want a Diet Coke?" and I'd say "Sure."
What I should say is yes or yes, please.
But I have a tendency instead of saying yes or no, instead of saying yes, to say sure.
So if someone asks you a question and the answer is sure, that means yes.
"Hmm.
Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Sure, sure, sure."
So sure has a different meaning.
So, when I was doing this lesson, I was thinking "Oh, why do we do this?
Why can't we just say 'Hey, do you want to hang out later?'"
"Yes."
"Hey, do you want to hang out later?"
"No."
"Why do we do this?"
So we have a technique in English called "softening the answer".
So you don't want to make your friend cry when you say "No, I hate you."
So we do this to soften the answer, say "Hey, do you want to hang out later?"
"Yeah...
No."
It's like you're giving the person the possibility
of it being a yes, and then you're like "No."
So the person's got their hopes up, and they're all excited, and then "No."
"Yeah."
"No."
Maybe that isn't a way of softening things.
Maybe it's making it harder for the person.
"Why doesn't he want to hang out?"
I do this.
This is what I do.
This is why I do this.
So taking time to think of an excuse.
So thinking time.
"Hey, Ronnie.
Do you want to hang out later?"
"Yeah.
Um..."
"No, you know, I can't.
Sorry.
I've got to go walk my dog later."
"Yeah."
"Hey, Ronnie.
Do you want to hang out later?"
"Yeah.
Uh...
Yeah, I've got no plans.
No."
"Yeah, for sure.
Let's do it."
Okay.
And the other reason why we do this is I mentioned at the beginning, it's a trend.
So this language, we didn't...
People didn't speak like this, like, 20, 30 years ago.
It's just something that's come up recently to confuse you.
"Aren't you happy you live in this time?"
Maybe it was during the pandemic, people were
like, "Let's make answers more difficult to
waste more time so we have more social interaction with people."
But if you're curious about all these Canadian
or American weird slang things that we talk
about, I do have private online lessons, englishwithronnie.com.
Check it out.
Check out all of the lessons on www.engvid.com.
Yeah?
No?
Yeah?
You're going to do it.
Yeah, but no, but yeah.
Okay.
Till then, let's hang out later.
Yeah?
No.
Yeah?
No.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah.