Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid,
and this special lesson will help you get people to do things for you.
How?
In two different ways.
By teaching you the language that you need to make requests,
and the psychology that you need to make request,
because the language will show you how to make a polite request,
and the psychology will teach you how to make an effective request.
In fact, if you keep listening, in the middle of this lesson, I'm going to share with you
some research that was done by psychologists that show you one secret word, one keyword
and technique that will help people to say "yes" to you when you ask for something. Okay?
So keep watching and listening.
Now, when we start to talk about the language, you should know that there are three factors
that determine what language we use to make a polite request. The first one is:
What is the relationship of the person that you're asking? Okay? Is it a family member,
is it a colleague, or is it a stranger? Okay?
Because obviously, we speak differently to these different people. Right? Okay.
Next: What is the difficulty-okay?-of the request? Are you asking for a lot of the
person's time, or effort, or money, or something else?
How hard is it for that person to do that for you?
And third: What is the size of the request?
Is it a small request, is it a kind of medium-sized request,
or is it a huge request, are you asking a lot of that person?
Why is this important? Because the size of the request will determine also the
language that we use, and that's what we're going to look at next.
Okay, so let's start with a small request.
"Can I go now?"
Medium request:
"Do you think I could leave now?"
Big request:
"I was wondering if it would be possible for me to leave early?"
So, what were some of the characteristics of these three different kind of requests?
Okay? The small one was a little bit more direct, informal, and short.
The medium request was more polite, formal, and the standard size of a question.
And the bigger request was very polite, very formal, and also very long.
So what that means is that when you
want to ask something more serious, you need to say more words, you need to make it longer.
Okay? And I'll show you some of the expressions that you use in order to do that.
Let's take another example. Small request:
"Got $5?"
Medium request:
"Could you please lend me $25?"
Big request:
"I hope you don't mind my asking, but could I please borrow $250?"
Okay? So we went from 5 to 25 to 250; it became a little more serious. And because
it was more serious, here, the sentence, the question was much longer.
What kind of expressions did we use?
"I was wondering if it would be possible",
"I hope you don't mind my asking, but".
You see how we have so many words before we actually get to the main part? But here,
we have very few words before we get to the main part. Right? Because it's more informal,
and this is more formal, and this is somewhere in between, so we had just a few extra words:
"Do you think I could", "Could you please". Right?
So these are the key phrases which you will find in the research,
I'll tell you later where you can download this resource
which has these expressions.
But now I'm going to tell you what I told you I was going to tell you, which is:
What is that key that the psychologists found through their research that will help you
to be more successful when you make a request?
Well, it was this: When you ask somebody for something,
if you tell them why, if you give them the reason or if you use the word "because" to
give them the reason, it will help you to get a more positive reply.
So, let's try that
now and see how you feel when I ask you these questions, this time using a...
Either the word "because", or giving you a reason. Okay?
"Can I go now? Because I have to pick up my kids."
Okay? So it's a little bit different
when I tell you that I need to go because I have to pick up my kids. Right? So that
reason that I gave you might help you... Help you to decide that: Yes, it's okay for me
to go. Okay?
"Got $5? Because I need to buy lunch."
Okay? All right.
"Do you think I could leave now? Because I have another meeting.",
"Could you please lend me $25? Because I have a job interview tomorrow, and I need a haircut."
Okay?
"I was wondering if it would be possible for me to leave early? I have a flight to catch this evening.",
"I hope you don't mind my asking, but could I please borrow $250?
My rent is late, and I'm going to be evicted from my apartment."
Now, do you see the difference? Did you feel the difference? When I gave you a reason for
the request, then probably you are more likely to say "Yes" to the request. So, when you
make a request of someone, remember to try to give the reason, either with the word "because"
or without the word "because", but give a reason, and you will be more successful.
Now, the way to learn all of this, there are three ways.
First go to our website at www.engvid.com.
There, you can do a quiz on all of this, and practice it and get really good at it.
Second, go to the same website to the resource section, and I've written for you there
quite a long resource with all of this vocabulary, all of these expressions, and many other expressions
that you can use for the small requests, the medium requests, and the big requests-okay?
-to help you be more successful.
And last, subscribe to my YouTube channel so your English keeps
getting better and better.
Thanks for watching.
Bye for now.