How NOT to give COMPLIMENTS: British English Speaking Practice

hello everyone welcome to English like a

native my name is Anna and this is Lucy

and I'm from English with Lucy. So those of

you who do know me already

and already know Lucy, yes this is happening!

How exciting is this? I've been waiting

for ages.

We are going to cover today 'compliments'

now it's always lovely to give someone a

compliment but there are some rules that

you should follow some DOs and DONTs

should we say, and Lucy and I just did a

video on what you should say, so if you

want to watch that video we'll put a link

to it in the description box below so

check that out when you finish watching

this video. But here we're going to talk about the DONTs. We

English are very sensitive, we are very sensitive

and even when you mean well sometimes we

can take offense and you don't want to

offend us so what should we not do when

trying to compliment people most

importantly don't be too direct or too

sexual

what do I mean by that. Don't talk about

someone's boobs

yes I said the b-word. I would never feel

flattered by someone talking about my boobs, I would feel

uncomfortable.

Absolutely just avoid it. It's far too

direct, even if they're on show it does

not mean that someone is inviting you to

mention them

you also don't want to talk about

someone's bottom either even if they

have a very nice bottom and you enjoy

looking at it keep that to yourself and

maybe don't look at it so much

yes don't be obvious, and finally

don't mention anything else sexual like

they're bit so you wouldn't want to

compliment a man on his package, i'm

sure you know what i'm talking about

just generally keep its light and

polite, light and polite.

Something else you shouldn't do is

expect or demand a response you shouldn't be

giving a compliment with agenda if you

say someone looks nice

and they don't respond to you don't then

say you're arrogant why aren't you

responding

I mean no one owes you anything it

nice that you made a compliment, yeah

just leave it at that yeah and if if

someone doesn't respond it doesn't mean

they haven't taken the compliments on

board they might just be shy and don't

know how to react to the compliment

not everyone knows exactly how

to take compliments I find it kind of awkward as well so...

sometimes I just don't reply

'cause I don't know what to say. So next we're going

to talk about catcalling. what is

catcalling? So let's imagine you're walking

down the street and you see a lovely

lady walking past and you go swit swoo

sweeheart you look lovely. Why did I do it in that accent?

It's throwing a compliment at someone

that you don't know and usually people

expect some sort of response which is

what Lucy was saying earlier, yeah you shouldn't

do that, it looks bad, so don't catcall

if you really like someone and you

would like the opportunity to give them

a compliment or you'd like to get to know them

it's gonna be very difficult if you're complete

strangers but the best thing to do would

be to approach them and strike up some

sort of normal conversation without an

agenda

no agenda yeah just be genuine and gentle

and read the signs if you don't look

interested, they're not, plenty more fish in the sea

absolutely so genuine and gentle light

and polite. You need a career as a dating coach. So the next rule is

don't do FOODONIFY people. Foodonify?

Yes, it's a new word that I've invented it's like a

personify

if you don't know what personify mean then look

it up in the dictionary

What I mean is: don't treat people like food

there's nothing worse than behaving like you want to

eat somebody, so no salvation

no dribbling no licking your lips and going

you look gorgeous

it makes me back up and it puts my

barriers up and he makes me feel very

self-conscious so don't foodonify

people

I'm gonna stop foodonifying now, good, I've realised the error of my ways,

you're dribbling all down your top Lucy.

ok so our next thing that you shouldn't

do is be over the top. You should not be

over-the-top or exaggerated. I'd much

prefer to receive one thoughtful compliment, than a

hundred generic or over-the-top

compliments thatt actually leave me feeling annoyed

uncomfortable. yeah cause they seem quite desperate don't they

they can, if you give someone too many

compliments it's like "oh this guy's desperate" or

"this girl desperate back away"

don't be too sexual remember no boobs bums

or bits should be mentioned when

complementing someone be light and polite.

Light and polite. And try not to get offended if someone doesn't reply or

respond move on there are plenty more fish in the sea

absolutely. Never ever ever catcall

you all know what catcalling is now so keep

those impulses to yourself

do not be over-the-top and don't

foodonify people. so those are the

DONTs and if you want to see the DOs

then you need to head over to my channel

the link will be in the description

box and you can see the video that we created

together

about how you should compliment people and finally don't

forget to follow all our social media

channels that's mine and Lucy's because you'll

benefit from our pooled knowledge you can

find our Facebook pages twitter pages

and all the other links for all the social

media channels that we are on in the description

box below if you're not already a member

of English like a native

then why not pop over to Englishlikeanative.me

where you can be part of a

social media platform that's all about

learning English and becoming more

fluent and speaking like a native and

you get to chat to me on a regular basis

over there

so thank you for watching and don't

forget to check out Lucy's video, Lucy's

channel and all the other videos on this

channel we'll see you again soon

bye