Stop saying “very good” & “very bad”: 8 expressions to use instead

Hi, I'm Rebecca from www.engvid.com . Do you sometimes feel that you're stuck at a certain

level when you're trying to speak at a meeting or at an interview or with a client?

Well, that can happen for many reasons and one of the reasons is that, lots of times,

people have a lot of nouns in their vocabulary, okay, like success or opportunity, but you

don't necessarily have strong adjectives.

So, in this lesson, I'm going to focus on some strong business collocations, or business

expressions that you can learn and use so that you can sound much more advanced and

professional in a business context, okay?

So, this is one of our continuing lessons in the "Speak like a Manager" series.

So, whether you're already a manager or you aspire to be a manager, you would like to

be a manager, these expressions can help you to sound much more effective, okay?

So, let's see what they are, and they're really quite easy.

They're easy because I've divided them into two categories.

The ones at the top all refer to something which is very good or very big, and the ones

down here all refer to something very bad but also very big, okay?

So, this is something bad and big, and this is something good and big, so all of these

adjectives that you're going to learn refer to those points, okay?

So, let's see what they are.

Now, along with understanding the meaning, I want you to try to say it after me, okay,

so that your pronunciation is also accurate and correct and understandable in a business

context.

Alright, so suppose you want to say that something is a success, okay?

You know the word success, you could say it's a very big success, or it was a very good

success, okay, you wouldn't say that - it was a big success.

But what can you say instead of saying "a big success"?

You can say it was a resounding success.

Repeat after me: it was a resounding success.

Resounding means very big, gigantic, enormous, okay?

But this an expression that is used together.

These two words are often used together.

When two words are used together like that, it's called a collocation in English.

It means that people expect to hear these two words together, okay?

And it makes sense to them when you use that expression.

Right away, they get it, they understand, and they also understand that your English

is pretty good, okay?

Alright.

So, a resounding success means a big success.

Now, let's say you're talking about an opportunity, and again, you want to say it was a very good

opportunity, but instead of just saying "very good" or "very big", you can say it was a

golden opportunity.

Say it after me: a golden opportunity.

So again, golden, you can understand, it means like beautiful, fantastic, amazing, beautiful,

right?

So, it was a golden opportunity, okay?

A great opportunity.

A very good opportunity, alright?

Now, suppose you're talking about a choice that somebody made, okay.

They made a choice, they made a decision, alright, and you can say - you want to say

it was a very good choice or a very good decision.

So, instead of saying "very good", you can say you made a wise choice.

Say it after me: You made a wise choice.

Good.

Alright?

"Wise" meaning very smart, very intelligent, okay?

It's a little bit more than just saying "very good", so you're also communicating better

ideas, higher level ideas, deeper ideas, okay?

Next, so suppose you want to say that somebody gave you really good advice.

So, instead of saying "very good advice" or "really good advice", you can say "My parents

always gave me sound advice.", okay, or my manager gave me sound advice.

Now, that might sound a little strange to you because sound - isn't that about things

we hear, sound?

Yes, that's a very common meaning of the word "sound", but sound can also mean very strong,

very good, very solid, okay?

And therefore, instead of saying "very good advice", you can say they gave me sound advice.

My professor in university gave me sound advice about how to develop my career, okay?

Or the campaign was a resounding success.

Getting this job was a golden opportunity, okay?

He made a wise choice to continue his education.

And, someone gave you sound advice.

Again, all of those are positive words and all of these expressions are positive, meaning

very good or very big.

Now, let's look at some negative expressions, okay?

Because sometimes that happens too in life.

Okay, so again here, all of these refer to something that's either very bad or very big,

okay?

So, instead of just saying it was a really big failure, you could use the higher-level

word: it was an abject failure, okay?

So, repeat it after me: abject failure.

It means very bad.

Very powerful.

Powerfully negative, okay?

Extremely poor, okay?

So, abject failure.

It was a huge failure, alright?

So, that's one expression you can use.

Another one: you want to say there was a very big loss.

The company made a mistake and they experienced a very big loss.

Instead of saying very big or very bad, you can say a huge loss.

Repeat it after me: a huge loss.

And not just - don't just repeat it for the pronunciation, you can also repeat it to learn

intonation, because we express certain ideas in certain ways, right?

And you can learn to do that.

Don't just say "It was a huge loss.".

No, because there's no emotion there, and this is an emotional kind of subject, right?

So, you want to put some emotion and intonation into it.

So, it was huge loss.

Got it?

Good.

Here, now suppose you said that somebody was in big trouble.

So, instead of saying "big trouble", you could say they were in deep trouble, alright?

This is another business collocation, "in deep trouble", alright?

Repeat it after me: deep trouble.

Good.

And another word that we hear very often in the business context is criticism.

Criticism is the opposite of praise.

Criticism is when someone, usually makes negative comments, okay?

You can have positive criticism, but usually criticism is a little more negative, okay?

So, here, in this case, the person received very negative or very bad comments or criticism,

okay?

And therefore, you could use the expression "harsh criticism".

Say it after me: harsh criticism.

That's a little bit tricky, that word.

Harsh.

Harsh.

Okay?

So, there's a "shh" sound at the end, and make sure you're saying the endings of those

words, okay?

If you say "har criticism" and you're trying to say it too fast, people won't understand,

okay?

So, with all of these adjectives, make sure that you're saying the endings correctly and

fully, so that people can appreciate and understand this higher-level vocabulary that you're using.

So now, when we come back, you're going to use these expressions in some actual sentences,

okay?

Be right back.

Alright, so now let's try them out.

Now remember, you can do this in two ways, okay?

So the first is that you could just pause the video, alright, and then I'll stand here,

pause the video, and work these out, write it down on a piece of paper, write down the

answers before I start to go through them, or just stay with me and go through them,

okay?

So, what we're going to do is I'm going to read the sentence and whatever is in blue

is where you have to replace it with one of the expressions that we learned.

For example, number one: They had a very bad loss in sales.

Okay?

So instead of saying "very bad loss" or "very big loss", which one of these words do we

use?

Do you remember the expression?

Okay?

Is it something positive or negative?

I have the positive words written for you at the bottom, and the negative words written

for you down here, but do you remember the expression for very big loss, or very bad

loss?

It is a huge loss, okay?

So, they had a huge loss, okay?

Then you don't have to say "very", because huge already means very big, okay?

They had a huge loss in sales, alright.

Number two: She has a very good opportunity to join a consulting firm.

Alright?

So, what's that?

She has a very good opportunity to join a consulting firm, that's something positive,

right?

So, we can say she has a golden opportunity.

Very good, okay, I hope you got that.

So just sort of say them to yourself: golden opportunity.

Or I should say: a golden opportunity.

A huge loss, okay?

Good.

Number three: My supervisor gave me very good advice.

So, what's that?

Instead of saying "very good advice", what's the expression we can use?

My supervisor gave me sound advice, okay?

It's down here, it's among the positive, okay?

Sound advice means very good, strong advice.

Solid advice, okay?

Alright.

Number four: Their law firm is in very big trouble.

That's something negative, it's going to be one of the words down here, so what do we

say?

What's that business collocation for very big trouble?

It is deep trouble, okay?

Their law firm is in deep trouble.

Very good, okay?

Are you with me?

Good.

Number five: Completing your MBA was a very good choice.

Alright?

So, what can we say instead of "very good choice"?

A better expression is a wise choice.

Good.

Okay?

That's down here, okay, instead of "very good choice", a "wise choice".

Next, number six: The new policy was a very big failure.

So, which strong word can we use to describe something that's extremely poor, extremely

bad?

What's that word?

Abject, okay?

This one.

Not "object", but "abject", okay?

There's an A there, there's a short A sound when we say the word: abject, okay?

Don't be afraid to open your mouth, say abject.

It was an abject failure, okay?

So, that's over here, alright?

Abject.

Number seven: Our sales campaign was a very big success.

This is good news, right?

Your sales campaign was a very big success.

However, you want to express yourself more effectively than that, more powerfully than

that, so you're going to use the expression not "very big success" but which word?

A resounding success, okay?

Now remember, when you're saying this word, even though it's written with an S, that S

as a Z sound.

"rezounding".

Say it after me: resounding success.

Good.

Alright, now you're not only using the right word, but you sound correct, alright?

Good.

Number eight: The General Manager, GM, the General Manager received very bad criticism

for his comments.

Okay?

So, what's "very bad criticism", which expression could we use?

We could say, the one that's left, which is here: harsh.

The General Manager received harsh criticism, okay?

Very good.

I hope you got those and if not, don't worry, you know, take the - backtrack with the video,

stop, pause it, try to work them out by yourself, alright?

You can do it, I know you can, and the reason that I marked these is because I wanted to

tell you something about these three.

So, these words, right, advice, trouble, and criticism, so these are called non-count nouns.

So, you might have noticed that we didn't say "a", or "an advice", or "a trouble", or

"a criticism".

No, we cannot say that because we cannot count these nouns, right?

So, when you cannot count a noun, you don't need to put the article "a" before that, but

with the other ones, like "an opportunity", "a loss", there we can count them, so we did

have to add the article "a" before them, but with these, we didn't.

We just said, "sound advice", "deep trouble", "harsh criticism", okay, and there was no

need for any article before that.

Alright, you've got it!

So, what's another way to make sure that you've got it?

So, first of all, go to our website www.engvid.com , do the quiz over there just to review and

make sure that you really can remember these expressions, know how to write them, know

how to spell them, know how to pronounce them, know how to use them, okay?

That's one way.

Another thing you can do is leave me a comment on engVid, on YouTube.

Leave a comment, choose one of these expressions, and tell me about something in your life that

was a resounding success or - not the negative things - tell me about a time when you received

sound advice, okay?

Let's stay positive, alright?

The negatives are just to describe things you might hear, but we don't want to put that

negativity into our heads, okay?

Alright.

So, don't forget to subscribe to my channel and that way you can continue to get more

lessons from this series, which is on "Speak like a Manager", and also lots of other English

training videos, alright?

Thanks very much for watching, bye for now.