Today on LetThemTalkTV I've got another bonus video for you yes I like
the bonus videos and in this video I'm going to help you improve your English
with a xylophone to find out more stay tuned.
Now if you are following this channel you'll know that I recently made a video called
"Please don't say please, it's not as polite as you think" If you haven't seen
it yet check it out up here somewhere before watching this video or it won't
make much sense. Have you done that?Good, welcome back. Now in this video I'm going
to expand on some of the topics raised in that video. That video could have
been quite a lot longer but I wanted to keep it relatively short and tight so
I'll do that and I'll also respond to some of the questions you raised about
it and addressing some of the comments. Firstly some people took the title a
little bit too literally I kind of like their catchy titles but no, I wasn't
saying that you should never use please just that there are other ways in
English to be polite and to to ask for things to make requests and to make
offers and sometimes these ways are more appropriate in the situation. Next we
looked at using negative questions and a question tag to be super polite, if you
remember. I'll give you an example "you couldn't help me, could you?" "You couldn't
help me. could you?" "You're not free for dinner are
you?" and I was surprised to see that some of the comments were quite hostile. I got
several comments suggesting that these type of sentences are quote "manipulating
people" by doing this you are "manipulating people" no, no, no, that's
wrong, that's wrong it's just politeness. It's how we speak it's not a Jedi mind
trick. it's not Hypnotism. It doesn't start by saying, "you couldn't
help me, could you?" and end with you running naked down the High Street
clucking like a chicken with only a feather sticking out of your arse. No, no,
no. I want to address why in English we have this strange way of being polite
and one important reason is the following: in English
we only have one YOU in French, if you want to be polite, then you can address
somebody with VOUS rather than TU. Vous êtes très gentille madame.
Donnez moi votre ukulele. in Spanish you have TU and USTED Italian TU and
LEI and many languages have honorific forms for addressing people depending on
age, social class, and status etc and these polite forms have corresponding
verb endings too, But in English we only have one YOU, one conjugation of YOU but
in English just YOU, YOU for your best friend YOU for your professor, YOU for
the Queen YOU for your lover. YOU, YOU, YOU there used to be two forms in
English THOU and YOU if you read Shakespeare you read a lot of THOUS and
THEES but we don't use it anymore you can't say to your friend for example
"canst thou lend me 50 euros until payday? Gadzooks! I thank thee thou art a
top banana" No. Is English the only language to have one form of YOU? let me know in
the comments. Anyway that's why over the centuries we've developed other ways of
being polite. In English speak indirectly. basically, the more indirectly we speak
the politer it is. Put the sentence in the past or in the negative or in the
future for super politeness as we saw this in the last video. Future continuous;
"will you be wanting breakfast," The past tense; "it would be great if you did that
for me." The past continuous; "I was wondering if you could help me finish
this report" or put it in the negative; "You couldn't lend me your avocado slicer,
could you?" Now with a negative sentence and question tags I also got several
comments saying that they don't want to use it because it
"sounds sarcastic" again this is not correct, not correct at all "I say your
cookies look delicious. I couldn't have one, could I?" "You sarcastic manipulative
bastard, take that!" No it's not
sarcastic. another strange comment I got "this is British English not used
anywhere else" again not true these phrases are common throughout the
english-speaking world ok if they are only used in Britain I will tell you
that so imagine I'm in a shoe shop in New York and I call over the busy sales
assistant "excuse me you don't have these in size eleven, do you?"
"well gee I don't
understand what you're saying British person and stop trying to manipulate me
you sarcastic limey bastard." Is it sarcastic well no not if you pronounce
it correctly it sounds normal and very polite as I said however, however the
intonation the melody is so important now let me explain now this bit's
important if you're learning English you almost certainly have an accent from
your native tongue. Let me tell you that it's a beautiful thing
aim for good, clear understandable pronunciation but it's ok to keep your
accent it's ok it's part of your identity and we love it
Russian accent, beautiful. Pakistani accent, beautiful. Chinese accent
beautiful, Bolivian accent wonderful ok you can keep your accent however
the accent is one thing but the intonation the inflection is something
else it is important to get this correct so as to avoid misunderstanding and to
build rapport so forget about trying to mimic native speakers instead
focus on the rhythm and the intonation of English. If you get this right it will
be a major step forwards. The melody is much, much more important than the
pronunciation and negative statements is a good example of this the same sentence
can be understood in several different ways depending on your inflection. For
example you're at home with a broken leg. Your friend says "mate, let me know if
there's anything you need you know you're my best friend." Ok you want to eat
pizza but for some inexplicable reason all the pizza delivery services are on
strike. Your friends so kind but you still want to be extremely polite to him.
So you use the most polite form there is in English a negative statement with a
question tag. "Thanks Hey you couldn't get me a pizza, could you?" listen to the tone
So it's a real question it has a rising tone
Listen to the melody. You couldn't get me a pizza could you? Now it is a real question so it has
a rising tone at the end. Your friend says ok and then he comes back half an
hour later holding a little box it's something by it's definitely not pizza so you
sound disappointed. So you say "You couldn't get pizza could
you?" So this is a sound of disappointment.
It's not a real question so it has a flat matter-of-fact melody
"You couldn't get me a pizza, could you?"
Third scenario: You know that Pizzeria Giuseppe.
Yes let's call him Giuseppe. Any Giuseppes out there? You know that pizzeria
Giuseppe is open but your friend comes back with sushi because he loves sushi.
You're annoyed so you make an angry sarcastic remark this melody has a
falling tone. "you couldn't get me a pizza, could you?
It has a falling tone because it's
not a question and you can hear the sarcasm in the voice. So you see how the
same sentence can mean three completely different things. Let's look at one more
example. You're backstage at the BTS concert you want to convince the
security guard, the bouncer, to let you in so that you can meet the group so you
say to him "you won't let me in, will you? I'll be so grateful
I'll be a friend for life?"
- "Okay as you're so polite you can go in "
Second example the disappointment version: "You won't let me in, will you?"
-"Nah, sorry mate no"
Third scenario the sarcastic version
"You you won't let me in, will you?"
- "Get out of here sarcastic bastard"
Is that clear? right, just one more point I want to clear up about the previous
video and that is to talk about the future continuous for politeness: "will you be
wanting breakfast?" "Will be needing a wake-up call?" So one of the comments I got
from Arena P she asks you're using WANTING, NEEDING
in the progressive form I thought this wasn't possible because they are stative
verbs and yes you are absolutely correct WANT and need are STATIVE verbs but this
is an exception.There are many exceptions in English so you can use it in
the future continuous for questions you can use WANT, NEED and a few other verbs.
in the continuous sense "Will you be needing anything else?"
will you be wanting an ambulance okay they're gone now
I hope that's cleared that up fare thee well. Thou art wonderful