Let's Learn English! Topic: Complaining! 👎😞☔ (Lesson Only)

Well, hello and welcome to

this English lesson about complaining.

Complaining is something we do

when we don't like something.

You might complain to your teacher, you might complain

to your neighbour, you might complain to the mayor

in your town because you don't like something.

Sometimes human beings are happy,

sometimes human beings are annoyed.

And when we're annoyed, we like to complain.

Now, there's a lot of different types of complaining.

So in this English lesson, I will try

to discuss as many as I can.

I think you'll enjoy this lesson.

Even though it's a lesson about kind of a negative

thing we do as humans, I still think it can

be a fun lesson as we learn about complaining.

So welcome to this English lesson about complaining.

To complain.

So this is the main verb.

This is the verb we use when we do not like something.

If you are at a restaurant, your food isn't

cooked well or your food isn't what you ordered,

you will probably complain to the server.

You will tell that person what you are unhappy about.

You might say, hey, I.

This is chicken and I ordered fish.

Or you might say, my food is cold.

And then hopefully the server

can do something about it.

I don't often complain at restaurants unless

they get my order totally wrong.

Um, usually if food comes and it's relatively close

to what I ordered, I will eat it.

But this is probably one of the most common ways that

we complain is when we're at a restaurant and we don't

like our food for some reason, we will complain.

So we will say out loud to someone what we don't like.

Children tend to complain a lot too.

I don't know if you are familiar with that,

but when kids are little, sometimes they complain.

They complain because they don't like

what you made for supper.

They complain because you don't have time

to bring them to a friend's house.

Children are wonderful, but sometimes they complain.

So the noun then is a complaint.

So if to complain, the verb, like I'm

going to complain to my boss, the.

The thing that you put in writing or

the thing you say is called a complaint.

If it's really formal and you write it

down, you'll have your complaint on paper.

So the verb is to complain.

I'm going to complain, or I have a complaint.

Okay, um, and complaint sounds a little more official.

Little tricky to say, isn't it? Complaint.

You do have to hit the T at the end when you say that.

Uh, let's see here.

To wine.

So there are many different verbs depending on

the kind of complaining that is happening.

Often we will say that

children will whine and complain.

We'll use both verbs together.

Or I have a co worker who

just whines and complains all the time.

My brother, he's never happy.

He always seems to be complaining and whining.

So to whine means to be annoyed about something, but

to kind of mention it over and over again.

Um, I worked with someone once

who, they whined all the time.

They would whine about everything at work.

It was not fun to work with

that person because they would whine sometimes.

So again, to whine is simply

another way to say complain.

To protest is a more formal kind of

complaint, a more formal way of complaining.

If you are upset with the government, if you

are upset with your employer, you might protest.

When you protest, it means you get together with other

people who are also upset and you, you stand around

with signs and you protest what is happening.

Um, by the way, this can also be called a protest.

So you can protest, but it

can also be called a protest.

So there's a, a verb and a noun version.

Um, again, I know this is a pretty

complex lesson, but you can do it.

I just want to encourage you so to protest.

Sorry, let me pronounce it the right way.

To protest means be with other people.

If you go to my local town on Saturday mornings,

there's always a group of people there who are protesting.

They are protesting the taxes that we have

in Canada because our taxes are really high.

They are not happy about the taxes.

To gripe.

So this is another kind of

a lighter way of saying complain.

Like, oh, he just likes to gripe all the time.

Might be familiar with someone who is in

your office who complains all the time.

Or there might be a student that you go

to school with that just likes to gripe.

No matter what the teacher does, they complain.

They gripe.

Maybe at work, the person doesn't like the coffee

in the workroom, they don't like it that the

boss asks them to work an extra half hour.

They gripe.

They gripe and complain again.

We often put the words together.

Um, I don't gripe a lot, I don't think.

At least I don't think I do.

Um, I generally try to be positive, but

sometimes at work something just isn't right.

And then I will gripe a little bit.

I will complain to my co workers.

And I should mention that you might complain to your

boss, but you might gripe to your co workers.

So you might.

Um, yeah, if you, you might sit

around in the, in at Break time.

And you might complain about your boss,

you might gripe about your boss.

To lodge a complaint, to file a complaint.

These are very formal ways of complaining.

So let's say your phone.

Let's say your phone wasn't working properly.

You would call the phone company,

you would lodge a complaint.

You would file a complaint.

So this is a very official way of complaining.

You might write a letter to lodge a complaint.

You might write an email to lodge a complaint.

Usually when you lodge a complaint or

file a complaint, it's with a business. Okay.

So you might say, okay, I'm gonna phone my

phone company because my phone isn't working properly.

And then you'd say, okay, this is Bob, the Canadian.

I'd like to file a complaint.

Like, to lodge a complaint.

And the person at the other end at the

business would actually put it into a memo or

an email to someone else at the company.

So this is an official

way of complaining about something.

You lodge a complaint or you file a complaint.

I don't do this very often either.

But occasionally, Sorry, occasionally you do have to

file a complaint or lodge a complaint.

There was a time when my Internet wasn't working

properly, so I filed a complaint with the company.

I said, look, this needs to be fixed because

I need to do a live English lesson.

And we would then call that a formal complaint.

So just like we had complaint as the

noun, when you file a complaint or lodge

a complaint, we call that a formal complaint.

What makes it formal is that

someone is writing down the complaint.

Either you're typing it and sending it, or

you're on the phone and the person at

the other end is recording the complaint.

Um, it's always good to keep a copy for

yourself if you file a formal complaint or if

you lodge a formal complaint to accuse.

So this is little more serious.

It's like a complaint, but it's when someone

has done something they're not supposed to.

So if, let's say you are in a class and

the person beside you looks at your test and copies

your answer, you would go to the teacher and you

would accuse them of copying your work.

Let's say that you are walking along the road and

someone drives by doing 200km an hour, you would call

the police and accuse that person of speeding.

So it's like a complaint, but it's

a complaint that's very, very formal.

And it's usually related to

bad behaviour or illegal behavior.

You might accuse someone of cheating.

In your class, you might accuse someone

of stealing something from your yard.

Maybe your Car was stolen and you think your

neighbour stole your car, would then call the police

and say, my neighbour stole my car.

You would accuse them of stealing

your car to make a fuss.

So this is a phrase we use

to talk about the behavior of complaining.

You might know someone who likes to

make a fuss all the time.

They're always complaining about everything.

They go to a restaurant and if something's even

just a little bit wrong, they make a fuss.

They complain to the waiter.

They complain and say they want a free meal.

They just make a fuss.

Um, I did see someone making a fuss

at the grocery store the other day.

I was in line and the person at the front

of the line was annoyed because they didn't have a

bag and they had to pay for a grocery bag

and they were starting to complain loudly.

They were starting make a fuss.

So anytime you see someone complaining,

they, they are making a fuss.

They are, yeah.

It's kind of funny, uh, fuss is a funny word, isn't it?

To make a fuss, to grumble.

So when I think of someone grumbling, it means

they're complaining maybe to themselves and maybe quietly.

Like if I was like, oh, it's gonna be really

cold out today, I don't know what to wear.

Like when you're just quietly complaining to yourself.

We, we kind of describe that as grumbling.

Um, he likes to grumble.

Um, you might know someone like this who, if you sit by

them on the bus, they kind of just, it's too cold out

today and I don't know why I have to work today.

This is ridiculous.

So it doesn't have to be

someone complaining quietly to themselves.

But that's what I always think of, like,

oh, I have a co worker who's always

grumbling, like in the staff room.

Okay, I'm making that up.

My co workers are amazing.

But you might know someone who complains a

lot who likes to grumble, to object to.

So when you object to something,

it's very similar to, to protest. Okay.

But it's not as like you're

not going out with signs necessarily.

When you object to something, it

means you don't like it.

So you might work somewhere and the boss

might say, everyone needs to work on Saturday.

And you might say, I object to

that because I can't work Saturday.

Uh, I have to go to a wedding.

So it's a very like, formal sounding way of

complaining, but it basically means someone has told you

something and you don't agree with it.

That's a tricky one, isn't it to object to.

Let me try to think of a better example.

Yeah, prices keep going up and people are

starting to object to the price increases.

People often object to the price of gas.

They don't like it.

That gas is so expensive.

It's a dollar fifty a liter in Canada right now.

That's a little bit too expensive.

I object to that.

It's basically means you are opposed

to something to find fault.

So again, some people will look at something you've

done and they will look for your mistakes.

They'll look for the errors.

We often find fault in other people.

If I say too many people speed driving down

my road, I am finding fault in them.

I am identifying a behavior that I don't like.

Teachers will find fault in students work.

It's part of our job.

We look for mistakes and errors.

But we also do this in life where

you will find fault in another person.

He's always late for work.

She borrows my car and doesn't

put gas in it afterwards.

He's always asking to borrow money.

So I am finding fault in people.

I am complaining about those people by saying something about

them that bothers me or that I find annoying.

Criticize.

So this girl's saying, you don't work hard enough.

Excuse me?

When you criticize, it means you

again, there's something someone's doing.

There's a behavior that you don't like. Okay.

So you might have a co worker and you

might just say you don't work hard enough. That's.

That's really rude by the way, to say that.

But you might say to them, you don't work hard enough.

You need to work harder.

You can also criticize someone's appearance.

So it's kind of like a complaint.

But I could say, oh, I don't like your haircut.

Again, that would be quite rude to say that.

But when you criticize, you point

out something you don't like.

Some maybe the behaviour of someone

or what they look like.

And you are very negative about it to bellyache.

So a real belly ache is when your stomach hurts.

But we also use this as

a verb to talk about complaining.

Um, people sometimes bellyache about taxes or

they bellyache about the speed limit in

their town that it's too slow.

They might bellyache about the price of groceries.

So when you bellyache, it simply

means that you are complaining.

Um, you might know someone who

likes to bellyache all the time.

Like there are people in the world

who are very, very happy and positive.

Then there are people who are just quite

negative and like to bellyache all the time.

To make a stink.

This is very similar to to make

a fuss when you make a stink.

You know, a stink is something that doesn't smell good.

So when you make a stink, it

can mean to complain as well.

Um, you could say something like,

oh, we're out of milk.

So my kids are going to make a stink about it

this morning because they won't be able to eat cereal.

So they're going to complain because we

don't have any milk in the house.

That actually happens sometimes.

Uh, my kids will make a stink

because we're going somewhere as a family.

But they wanted to visit their friends, so

they might start to complain about that.

They might start to.

To make a stink.

To have a beef.

When you have a beef with someone,

it means you are annoyed with them.

When you have a beef with someone, it's

an ongoing conflict, like a minor conflict.

You might have a beef with someone at school,

you might have a beef with someone at work.

It means that you don't enjoy talking to that

person and you like to complain about them.

Okay, so he has a beef with his

boss because his boss doesn't pay him enough.

Uh, he has a beef with his teacher

because she keeps giving him really low grades.

So you might have a beef with someone.

It's not good to have a beef with someone.

You should always resolve all of your issues.

Uh, and then we have to go on and on.

When you go on and on, it means you're complaining.

You don't stop complaining.

I'm sure we all know someone like this.

Once they start complaining, they go on and on.

They complain about how their day isn't going well,

their coffee was, wasn't hot enough this morning.

They were late for work, Their boss was mean to them.

They go on and on.

They don't stop complaining.

Um, I know when I worked, I worked in a

restaurant once, and we had one customer who, whenever he

came in, he would, no matter what we did, his

food wasn't the way he wanted it.

And he would go on and on about it.

Like, he would not stop complaining.

Um, so again, to go on and on

means to complain and to keep complaining.

Like complain and complain and complain and

to go on and on to chirp.

This is something that happens in sports.

And this might just be a hockey term, but.

Or a Canadian term, but when you complain

to the referee, when you complain to the

umpire, we sometimes say, you are chirping.

He likes to chirp at the ref.

Like, that would be like, kind of complaining

that the ref made a bad call.

Um, so you might chirp at the ref.

Players sometimes chirp at each other as well.

It means to kind of say, complain a

little bit while you're playing a game, or

it can even mean to insult someone.

A grievance.

So this is a very official complaint.

So you can file a complaint,

you can file a formal complaint.

You can also file a grievance or make a grievance.

This usually happens at work or maybe with the

government, where you have a complaint and you decide

that you want to make a grievance.

So a grievance is usually in writing.

So let's say I was very upset with snow removal.

I might have to file a grievance

in the township office saying the snow

removal was not done correctly this year.

So a grievance is a very,

very formal type of complaint.

To rant.

This is Rick Mercer.

Um, he is someone who had a TV show

and every week he would do a rant.

He would talk for a minute or more.

He would complain the whole time about the government.

And it was usually very, very funny.

So a rant isn't normally funny, but

when he did it, it was.

So a rant, or when you rant, means to

complain for a long time about one thing.

Um, usually when someone is ranting, they

don't let the other person talk.

Like, oh, I went to my boss and I just ranted about

the hours I have to work for, like, 10 minutes straight.

It means you complained, stopping for

a very long period of time.

To be mad, to be angry.

Now, there is apparently a slight difference

between these two verbs, but these verbs

describe someone who is upset about something.

The other day I was mad because my car wouldn't start.

The other day I was angry

because my car wouldn't start.

I use them interchangeably.

Some people will say that

if you're upset, you're angry.

If you're really upset, you're mad.

Some people will say the opposite.

But I will just tell you this in English

conversation, if you say, oh, I was mad because

I forgot to bring my jacket to work.

I was angry because I forgot to bring my

jacket to work, they mean the same thing.

I think we use this one a little bit more.

Um, I was mad because the Internet stopped working

last week during my lesson, or I was angry

because the Internet stopped working during my lesson.

So I use them interchangeably, but they mean to be.

To have a strong negative emotion about something, to

be upset, to be annoyed, to be aggravated.

You are mad or you are angry to have an outburst.

So I feel bad that I use

this picture of this little kid.

This isn't one of my kids.

But you have an outburst, it

means you start crying and yelling.

Usually children will have an outburst, but you

might see an adult have an outburst.

It means that you complain, and then

you start to raise your voice.

Maybe you start to shout when you have an outburst. It.

It's not enjoyable for the people who are seeing it.

I did see a person have an outburst at

a store once and started yelling at the. The cashier.

It was not a pleasant experience.

But I'm sure it's more common to

see a child have an outburst.

So they obviously want to complain about something.

They are upset, but they do

it by speaking very, very loudly.

Uh, and then we have the phrase to lose it.

To have an outburst and to

lose it mean something similar.

If you are complaining to someone at a store, you

start to raise your voice and you start to yell.

We would say that you are starting to lose it,

you're starting to get angry, you're starting to get mad.

When you lose it, you are very angry

and you are very mad at someone.