How to make someone feel better

212,105 views ・ 2014-05-24

English Jade


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hi, everyone. I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is saying the right thing when
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you've got a friend who's feeling down, your friend's got a problem. We're specifically
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talking about a friend who has lost a job, but you could use the same advice for a friend
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with a different problem; a friend with a breakup or some other emotional thing that's
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happened in their life. So the formal word for this is: "consoling", "to console" someone,
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but the more relaxed way could be: how to make somebody feel better about themselves
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or their problem.
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So what should you do in this situation? Well, a lot of the time, when people have a problem,
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they just want to talk to someone. Maybe they're not seeking advice. So what can you do? You
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can ask questions. So remember we're talking about somebody who's recently lost a job or
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is losing a job, we can ask them questions. We can say: "What are you going to do now?"
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Maybe your tone of voice wouldn't be really positive like that. It would be more like:
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"Oh, what are you going to do now?" It would be more soft.
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You could say... This is... This is an indirect question. "Have you thought about..?", "Have
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you thought about training again?" This is a way of... This is a suggestion. Or you could
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say: "Are you looking for another job?" So this way, your friend can just start talking
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and maybe that will help them in their difficult situation.
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Because, as a friend, you need to "be supportive", helping your friend out when they need help.
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You could "be a shoulder to cry on", that's an idiom for somebody who just... Who just
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needs someone to share their feelings with. If you're a shoulder to cry on when your friend
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needs you, that means that you're a good friend. And here's another expression: "A friend in
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need is a friend indeed." And it kind of has the opposite meaning to what you'd expect.
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My feeling is this means that you should be the kind of... Real friends are there for
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you when you really need them. If you're there for people when they need you, that means
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that you're a friend indeed. So if you are a friend... If you are a friend indeed, then
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you would ask your friend some questions to help them in their difficult situation.
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When your friend has a difficult situation, watch out that you don't give advice that
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they're not asking for because a lot of the time, people don't really want to hear your
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advice - that's the truth maybe. If you ask someone for advice, it's different. I've had
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a couple of times in my life where someone giving advice is that probably had the opposite
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effect from what they intended; the advice is not felt right or something I haven't liked
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about the advice, and then it can be... Then it can be a problem. So if you say to your
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friend who's just lost their job: "You should get down the job centre." The job centre is
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where you go if you haven't got... If you haven't got a job in England and you need
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some money and support from the government. If you said to your friend: "You should get
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down the job centre", they might not... They might not be... They might not want your advice
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right now.
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Another way you would give your friend advice is if you said: "If I were you", "If I were
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you, I'd go to my boss and say: 'Look, you're not going to fire me. All right? I dare you
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to fire me.'" Well, your friend might be like that, but this might not be something you
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want to do. Giving direct advice.
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What should you do if giving direct advice could be a little bit difficult, a little
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bit tricky? You could try making these indirect suggestions, a bit like this one. "Have you
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considered... Hmm, I'm sorry to hear that you lost your job. You must be feeling awful.
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Have you considered calling your colleagues that you used to work with to tell them that
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you're looking for a job now?" Or: "Have you thought about... Too bad you lost your job.
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Have you thought about becoming a movie star?" You could indirectly advise your friend to
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do that.
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The main... The main reason it would be better to make your suggestion like this is that
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this avoids giving condescending, or patronising, or unsympathetic advice to someone. These
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are long words, but they're not that... They're not that complicated. "Condescending", is
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like imagine you're in this situation: you've just lost your job and somebody says to you:
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"Why don't you start looking for jobs on the internet?" That would be a little bit condescending.
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Right? Because you know... You know how to look for a job. What if they said to you:
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"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll eventually get something. I mean you don't have many qualifications,
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but you'll probably get something eventually"? That might be patronising; your friend is
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seeing themselves as: "It didn't take me long to get a job, but, you know, after a few months,
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you'll probably get something. You can work your way up." That would be patronising. And
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"unsympathetic" would be like: "Oh, you lost your job. Oh, yeah. So, do you want to go
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out now?" Unsympathetic is somebody not listening to you.
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So what else can you do? If you're in this situation, you can share your experience with
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your friend. Share your feelings and the kind of things that you've been through in your
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life. So here's some sentences: "When I was made redundant it was a big shock." What does
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it mean to "be made redundant"? This is when your company decides that some people are
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going to get fired, some people will lose their job, but it's not always because you
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didn't perform well at your job; it's just the company decision: 10 people have to go,
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you're someone who's going and they pay you, generally, when you're made redundant. So
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when you share your experience with someone, that makes them see that maybe there's light
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at the end of the tunnel. There's another idiom that maybe things will be better. They
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don't seem good now, but maybe things will be better after.
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Here's another example: "When Sally lost her job she took the opportunity to retrain."
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If someone's feeling bad, they might just be focusing on the negatives like: "Oh, I'm
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never going to work again. It's awful. I love that job." But then they just might be talking
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too negatively, so you can make... You can make a suggestion. You can share an experience
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that shows that from change can come something good.
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And here's another example: "At first I was anxious"-talking about when I lost my job-"but
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I soon saw that it was a blessing in disguise." And that's the idiom or expression for when
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something seems bad, but in the end, it was the best thing that could possibly happen.
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When we come back, we will just look at a couple other phrases we can use for this situation.
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Let's take a look at what to say to your friend who is down in the dumps, feeling a bit sad
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because they lost their job. What else can we say? So you could offer your support or
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help. So here's some phrases you could say: "Let me know if there's anything I can do."
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That's a very sweet offer for your friend who needs some help right now. Or you could
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say simply: "I'm here for you if you need anything."
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What about reassuring your friend? "Reassurance" means saying like a positive message to them
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so that maybe they feel more hopeful about the future. "Don't worry, everything will
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be ok." What do you think about that one? Yeah, I think like in general, eventually
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everything will be okay. But some people might not really like your reassurance because it
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might... Everything might seem really, really, really bleak and it might also sometimes feel
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like you don't want to talk about their problem if you just say: "Everything will be okay."
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So perhaps... Perhaps a better one to say is: "Something will come up.", "Something
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will come up" just means that, you know, a new opportunity; you won't have to wait too
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long, something else will come up for you. The phrasal verb, "come up" means to happen
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or arise, more formally. So you can turn that sad face into a happy face. But we can't say:
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"Up in the dumps." It doesn't work.
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So, yeah, so sometimes if you... If you've been talking to a friend for a while and they're
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just going on a bit now and, you know, they're all sad and crying or something - what can
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you do then? Well, you might consider making a joke of the situation. I don't know if you
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do that in your culture. But in British culture, sometimes in this situation, someone would
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make a joke. And maybe at first that joke sounds quite mean, but it does something to
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just change the focus of the situation so... We've all been upset, someone makes a joke
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and it's like: "All right, it's time to stop crying now."
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So I thought of some things people might say. They might say something like this, this is
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an expression or idiom. So your friend's just, you know, letting it all out, is upset and
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you could maybe knock them on the arm and say: "Cheer up worse things have happened!"
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in a sort of positive, but jokey voice at the same time. Or you could say, you could
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have a pause and say: "Yeah. Hey... Guess what? Did I tell you? I just got a promotion!"
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Joke. That one's a bit mean, so I maybe wouldn't advise that one. That was a joke of what joke
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probably not what... Probably you shouldn't do. So let's call that one a bad joke.
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What if you already knew that your friend had lost your job and stuff before you met
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up with them? So you're anticipating maybe some kind of emotion situation. When you see
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your friend, you could say: "Hey. Why the long face?" That's another joke because you
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know that your friend is upset because they lost their job. When somebody's got a long
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face, it means they're sad, a bit like down in the dumps. So, yeah, you've got some phrases
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now and hopefully that can help you in the future in that kind of social situation where
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someone needs some help or just some kind words from you.
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So if you want to look at this a little bit more, go to the website and have a look at
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the phrases on the website. We... Yeah, if you do like this lesson or my other lessons,
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I'd really appreciate it if you'd subscribe to my channel and also my personal channel
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because I've got two YouTube channels, so you can watch me on engVid, you can watch
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me on my personal channel as well. And, yes, I'm finished now so I'm going to go. All right?
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Okay, see you. See you. Bye.
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