How to Express Your Opinion in English

Opinions.

We all have opinions.

We have opinions on the weather.

We have opinions on the latest movie that we watched.

And in English, you'll probably want to

know how to express those opinions.

A few weeks ago, one of you asked me to make

a lesson about how to express your opinion in English.

So what I did is I listened.

I listened for about three weeks to everyone around

me having English conversations, and I made a list

of, I think, the ten most common ways that

I heard people expressing their opinions.

So in this lesson, I'll share that list with

you, and hopefully it will help you express your

opinion in English in your next English conversation.

So the first three phrases you can

use to express your opinion are very

common, and you might already know them.

They are, I think, I feel like,

and in my opinion. If you asked me if it was going

to rain today, I might respond and give my opinion by saying,

I think it might rain today, or I feel like it might

rain today, or in my opinion, it might rain today.

So you might know these already.

But the first three, the simplest

three, I think, I feel like,

and in my opinion. You can use all of those

to start a sentence where you express your opinion.

The next phrase I want to teach you that you can use

to express your opinion is the phrase, the way I see it.

If you like sports, you can watch sports on TV, or you

can go watch sports in a stadium and see it live.

The way I see it, watching a sport

live is better than watching it on TV.

You can see I'm expressing my opinion, and I'm introducing

it with the phrase the way I see it.

So the way I see it, live sports are just more fun.

When you go to a stadium, you can buy a hot

dog, you can sit, you can hear the roar of the

crowd, and you experience the game in a different way.

So the way I see it, watching a sport

live is better than watching it on TV.

The next phrase you can use to express

your opinion is, here's what I think.

And I know it has the little phrase I

think in it, and I already taught that one.

But as I kept track of what people

were saying, I heard that a lot.

Here's what I think.

Maybe you're in a meeting and

you're planning a class trip.

Maybe it's a group of teachers, and someone

says, should we walk to the place we're

going or should we take a bus?

I could express my opinion by

saying, here's what I think.

It's going to be really hot tomorrow,

and the bus has air conditioning.

I think we should take a bus.

So another way to express your opinion, using the

phrase I think, but kind of making it a

bit longer, is to say, here's what I think.

So I was talking to my friend the

other day, and we were talking about online

shopping versus going to a store.

And I introduced my opinion by saying,

as far as I'm concerned, online shopping

is better than shopping in a store.

And my friend disagreed with me, but

that's how I introduced my opinion.

I used the phrase, as far as I'm concerned. As far

as I'm concerned, it's just easier to shop on my computer.

I click everything that I want, and then I

click checkout, and then the next day it comes.

When I go to a store, I have to

drive there and I have to use gas, and

it costs money and it takes lots of time.

So as far as I'm concerned,

that's my opinion about shopping.

As far as I'm concerned, online shopping

is better than shopping in a store.

The next phrase that you can use to express your

opinion in English is the phrase, if you ask me,

if you ask me, things are getting too expensive.

If you ask me, food is too expensive.

If you ask me, clothing is getting too expensive.

When I express my opinions about the cost of

things in the world, I can introduce it with

the phrase, if you ask me. It's kind of

an interesting one because no one's actually asked you.

So you're kind of using an if clause

to pretend that someone's asking you and then

express your opinion in the response you give.

I hope that made sense.

So another way you can express your opinion

is to say, if you ask me. If

you ask me, everything is getting really expensive.

I hope things become more affordable in the future.

This next one is another phrase that starts with

if, and it's the phrase, if I were you.

This is when you give your opinion to someone

who is asking for your opinion.

Let's say a friend of yours is

going to go somewhere on vacation.

You might say, if I were you, I

would buy my plane ticket sooner than later.

If I were you, I would see if I could go on

a Tuesday instead of a Saturday because flights would be cheaper.

So someone is asking your opinion, and you phrase it with

the if statement, if I were you. You're pretending that you

are that person and you give them your opinion about the

decision you would make if you were them.

So if I were you, I would watch this video two times.

When you watch the video twice, it really helps you remember

what you've learned. The next way you can talk about your

opinion is to start with the words for me.

For me, it's really easy to exercise in the morning.

For me, it's really difficult to

exercise later in the day.

I'm usually too tired.

So I'm expressing my opinion about exercise, but

I'm not saying it's true for everyone.

I'm starting with the words for me

so you know that this is how I feel about it.

This is my opinion.

For me, having a good night's sleep, getting

up early in the morning, and going for

a walk is the best way to exercise.

For me, that works great.

For someone else, it might not.

So another way you can express your opinion is

to start the sentence with the words for me.

So this next one makes me laugh a little bit when I

hear it, because I don't always know who they refers to

if you express your opinion by starting a sentence with

the words they say. They say the next Marvel movie

is going to be the best Marvel movie ever made.

They say that the next movie that Matt Damon is going

to be in is going to be his best performance ever.

When you start with they say, it kind of means

you've read something about the thing you're talking about, or

you were watching a news story about it.

It doesn't always mean that I think some people

use, they say just to express their own opinion.

But if you've read about a movie and you're in

a conversation about it, you could use those words.

You could say, oh, they say that

next movie is going to be amazing.

Well, let's say you go see a movie and

it's really good, or it's not really good, and

you want to express your opinion about it.

You could introduce your opinion with the phrase to

be honest. You could say, to be honest, I

didn't think the movie was very good.

To be honest, I thought the

special effects would have been better.

To be honest, I don't think the movie was

worth the money I paid for the ticket.

So you're expressing your opinion, and you're introducing

it with the phrase be honest, meaning that

you're going to tell the truth.

You're going to tell someone how

you really feel about it.

So, to be honest, I like it when I go to

a movie, and after the movie, it's so good, I don't

even think about how much I paid for it.

The next phrase you can use to express

your opinion, or to start expressing your opinion

is the phrase, I'm pretty sure.

And this is when you know something.

If you know a certain singer who writes their own songs

and you're in a conversation about that singer, you could say,

I'm pretty sure she writes all her own songs.

It means that you've probably read the Wikipedia

article about that singer or you've done some

reading to kind of back up your claim.

So when you start something by saying,

I'm pretty sure it means that you

know it because you read it somewhere,

and now that's your opinion.

Another way to express your opinion if you don't think

something's going to happen is the phrase, I doubt it.

If you were to ask me if it's going

to rain today, I've actually changed my opinion.

I would probably respond and say, I doubt it.

There isn't a cloud in the sky.

I don't think it's going to rain anymore.

So if someone's asking your opinion and you want to express

in a negative way that you don't think something's going to

happen, you can use the phrase I doubt it.

Well, hey, thanks for watching this little lesson

about how to express your opinion in English.

I hope some of the phrases were familiar, and

I hope some of them were new to you.

And I hope you can use all of them in your

next English conversation where you want to express your opinion.

By the way, if this is your first time

here, don't forget to click that red subscribe button.

Give me a thumbs up.

Leave a comment if you have some time.

And if you want to learn a little bit

more English, there's always more lessons to watch.

And there's one right here and one right there. Bye.