Hi guys, let me share a recent experience with you, so I was invited for this party
by another friend of mine but I didn't want to go alone, so I requested my best friend
Rachel to tag along, but she was just not ready and I told her, ‘please will you come
with me to the party, I don't want to go’, and she was like, ‘I'll try’, I said,
‘please come, I don't want to go without you’ and she was like, ‘okay’. So a
small word ‘please’ could help me convince her to join me for the party. And today I
have many such phrases that can help you convince other people for what you want them to do.
So keep watching this lesson to convince people for what you want them to do and my name is
Michelle I'm your tutor for today.
In this lesson today we are going to look at phrases
to convince people. Convincing can also be
replaced by another word and that is, ‘persuading’.
So if you want to convince someone you could also say that you want to persuade them to
do something. So this is the first word that I have for you in this lesson a synonym for
convincing is persuading. Now let's go ahead with persuading people to do what we want
them to do. The first one that we have is, “it might be a good idea”. Yes, this is
a very polite and gentle way to ask someone to do something for you. So this is a polite
way. So let me give you an example of this phrase, ‘it might be a good idea’. So
if you're driving, sorry if you're going somewhere with your husband and you see that he's quite
tired, so you suggest that you should be driving, how would you say that? You could use this
phrase and say that, “it might be a good idea if you let me drive from now on, you
look a bit tired”, and sometimes you can replace this phrase by saying, ‘it might
be a better idea’, so here you are comparing, you could say that it might be a better idea,
so good is also correct and better is also correct, you could use any of these. ‘It
might be a better idea if you let me drive on from here, because you look a bit tired’,
so this is how you use the first phrase to convince someone politely over a very general
matter. Now we look at the next phrase, “why don't you think about…” so this phrase
is a very direct phrase, it's usually used to put your point across very clearly, so
this is a very direct phrase. So I have this friend of mine who was planning a vacation
for two weeks to Thailand and she told me I'm planning a vacation in December to Thailand
for two weeks, and I told her, “why don't you think about a vacation for three weeks,
after all the third week is a holiday week because of Christmas”, so here I'm using,
‘why don't you think about’, to convince her to take a three weeks holiday so that
she can enjoy more, because I think it's a better idea, so this is a direct phrase to
put my point across. Sometimes, you can use another phrase which is, “have you ever
thought about…?” So I have this another friend, who's a really good counsellor, which
means that whenever I'm in a problem, I go up to her, she gives me some really useful
advices, so I told her, “have you ever thought about becoming a counselor, you'll do a great
job”, so here again I'm convincing her in a very direct way maybe to take up another
career, sometimes it can just be a compliment. So this is another way, ‘have you ever thought
about…?’ So using these two phrases you can convince someone very directly or you
can give a suggestion to someone. So these two phrases can be used either for conveying
your message directly or for suggesting something. Okay, now we look at the third phrase and
which is the simplest and the most informal phrase, we use it every day for different
purposes, even to you know, get something done for ourselves. So actually most of you
have already been using this phrase, but just to let you know, this is one of the best and
the most informal way to convince someone. So this is an informal way to convince someone
and you can use, “please” almost anywhere, if you ask someone to get a glass of water
for you then you could be like, “please can you get me a glass of water?” But here
you're making a request, so that's the difference you can use please for various purposes, you
can use it to make requests and you can also use it to convince someone, for example I
used, ‘please’ with my friend to come along or with me for the party, so I told
her, “please can you come with me to the party? I don't want to go without you.”
Here I was using it to convince her. Now we look at the next one, “go on”. So when
we ask someone to ‘go on’, we are asking them to try something again. So you're convincing
someone to try something again, I'll just give you an example, I’ll write it for you
first, to ask someone to try something again. So if you have a friend, who appeared for
IELTS and let's say she got the band score 6.5, but she wanted seven as her band score,
so you can tell her, “go on… try again, you almost did it the last time, you just
need 0.5 band more, so please try again.” So here you can use ‘go on’ to encourage
someone to try something again. So here you're convincing as well as encouraging. We have
another alternative to ‘go on’, which is “go for it”. ‘Go for it’ is not
used to ask someone to try something again, it's usually used to ask someone to try something
at least once. For example, if you get a really nice job opportunity you shouldn't miss it,
so you could say, “hey, you must go for it, you won't get such an opportunity again.”
So here you're asking someone to try something at least once. So these are also very polite
ways to convince someone to do something that you think is right for them. Alright, now
we look at the next one, and from here on we are going to look at some stronger ways
of convincing someone, these were some very polite, ways and now we will look at some
strong ways, so this one is, “we'd really like you to…” So ‘we'd’ is short for
‘we did?’ mm-hmm no, ‘we would.’ So we would really like you to do something.
This is usually used when you want to convince someone strongly, so let's say that you're
going for a vacation and your daughter tells you that, “mom, dad I can't join you because
of etc. etc. reason” maybe because it's my best friend's birthday that month, so I
can't come for a vacation with you. You don't like that reason, it's not valid enough, so
you could say in a very strong manner, you could tell her, “we'd really like you to
come to France with us.” So here you're strongly convincing her to come with you.
So this is, strongly convincing someone. Okay now we look at the next phrase which is, just
one more thing, you could also say, “I'd really like to…” in certain cases, if
you're only considering yourself. Now the next one that we have is, “I think you should…”
Now this is a very direct and strong, definitely strong but a very direct way of asking someone
to do something. So here you're not trying to be very polite, you're not trying to hide
something, you're just telling something very directly. So if someone has had a bad experience
at work and they're telling you how hard it is for them to work in the same company or
in the same office where they are having some really bad experiences, you could say that,
“I think you should forget about what happened, and you should get on your job very seriously.”
So here you're strongly and directly telling someone to do something. So, ‘I think you
should…’ is a very direct way and you're not trying to hide anything. With this we
look at the next one, “I'd prefer if you didn't…” Okay, so this one is used when
you are kind of forcefully telling someone to not do something, so you know, maybe someone
at your house or guest or someone is sitting over the sofa with their feet on the sofa,
and maybe you don't like it, so if you want to be polite, but still strong and forceful
in a way that they actually put their feet down, you could say, “I'd prefer if you
put your feet off the sofa.” So this is a slightly forceful way, as if you're ordering
someone to do something. Now we look at the last one, “I'd appreciate it”. Now this
phrase is used, I'm sorry, this phrase is used, when you are annoyed with the way someone
is behaving, so if you have a guest at home and they are putting all their garbage, taking
it out from their bag and putting it in your bin and you don't like it, you're like, what
are they doing? It’s so messy, and you'd be like, “I'd appreciate it if you would
stop putting your garbage in our bin” or you're rubbish in our bin. So this is how
you use this phrase for a time when you're really annoyed with someone, annoyed means
when you're very angry with somebody for something,
okay? So here we are and we have looked at
quite a few phrases, these are some polite phrases and these are some strong phrases,
there's one more thing that I want you to consider, that is that the first few phrases
that we have read until here, are to ask someone to do something, whereas the last two phrases
are to ask someone to not do something. So this is how we have learned different ways
of persuading people, which means to convince people. So make sure that you use these phrases,
when you try to convince people next time and I hope that you bear good results. Do
share with me if you have any such experiences in the past or you will have any such experiences
in the future in the comments below. Thank you so much for having me with you bye-bye
and take care.