Hi, I'm Rebecca and today we're going to start the first of a series of videos on polite
English.
OK?
These are some simple ways in which you can sound a lot more polite and cultivated and
educated in English as I'm sure you want to be able to do.
Alright?
So, let's see one very simple way in which you can do that.
This is by kind of eliminating the word "want" and transforming it or changing it to "would
like".
Let me give you an example of what I mean.
Alright?
The first example is in a sentence.
So, for example, a child might say "I want some candy", alright?
When you say "I want", it's kind of a demand, it's kind of immediate, so children often
speak that way and sometimes adults who are angry speak that way, but generally if you
want to sound more polite, you want to use a different expression, so instead of saying
"I want some soup", which sounds a little too direct, a little too blunt, you would
be better off saying "I would like some soup", "I would like to go home now".
OK?
Do you see the difference in tone?
I want to go home, which is the abbreviated version of "want to".
Sometimes "want to", when people say it really fast, becomes "I wanna".
I wanna go home.
You could use that.
I'm not saying never to use it, but just to decide in which context it's proper and appropriate
to use the casual informal version with your friends, for example, or to use more proper
English in a business situation or in a formal situation.
You should be able to do both to sound normal, OK, and to sound good.
Alright.
So, that's the first example in a sentence.
Let's look at how we can use these in questions and what happens if you use the wrong kind
of question.
So, for example, you could offer somebody some cookies and you could say "Do you want
some cookies?"
Now, there's nothing wrong with that, it's alright, but it would be a lot nicer and a
lot more polite to say "Would you like some cookies?"
Would you like some cake?
Alright.
That's when you offer something to someone.
Would you like instead of do you want.
Now, I know that some people might be wondering, "But, you know, I can't keep saying would
you like."
Well, you can and it also depends who you are, what kind of person you are, what your
personality is.
Some people are just more informal and so they might prefer to use do you want.
It's not wrong, but it is much nicer to use the second version.
The other way in which we can use would like is when we invite someone.
You could say to someone, "Do you want to dance?" or as a song from long ago, "Do you
want to dance?"
Right?
You could just actually communicate that without even any words.
You could just say, "Dance," you could say, "You dance," you could say, "You want to dance?"
These are all informal or if you want to be a little more polite or informal or formal,
you could say, "Would you like to dance?
Would you like to have lunch?
Would you like to see a movie?"
This expression, would like, would you like, is a very convenient way of asking somebody
something and always being sure that you're saying it in the proper way.
Alright?
Now, another point I wanted to make is if you have a job in a customer service kind
of situation, for example, if you work in an airport, you work in a hotel, you work
in any kind of information counter where you're providing information to someone, it's really
important to use the correct expressions.
So you don't want to say to someone who comes up to you, "What do you want?"
Because that, believe it or not, is not really very polite.
That's actually quite rude.
"What do you want?" is something we say to somebody when we're a little bit annoyed with
them or angry with them.
So if someone is coming to ask you for information, you don't want to come across as being angry
or irritated.
You want to come across as being very happy to help them.
And so the more appropriate expression in that case is, "How can I help you?"
"May I help you?"
Alright?
"What can I do for you?"
Much better than saying, "What do you want?"
So although the word "wants" is a very important word in the English language, please remember
how to say it.
Alright?
And I wish you all the best with that.
If you'd like some more lessons in English, please visit our website, www.engvid.com.
Thanks very much and good luck.
Bye for now.