Polite English: Show people you care: "You must be..."

Hi. My name is Rebecca. In today's lesson, you'll learn how to show empathy for someone

else. Empathy is the ability to show that you care about the other person. So, when

somebody says something to you, you want to be able to respond in a way that shows that

you understand how they're feeling, and that's what I'm going to show you. You can use this

in personal situations, social situations, or business situations, and it will work in

all these cases. And the way we're going to do it is by using one simple expression, and

then adding a little bit to them. Let me show you.

So, the expression you're going to learn today is: "You must be", plus something else. So,

you could say either: "You must be happy." Okay? So, for example, you can say: "You must

be", plus an adjective; could be a positive adjective, like "happy"; could be a negative

adjective, like "tired" or something. And you could also say: "You must be", plus a

noun. So, I'm going to show you each of these in actual examples.

So, let's say that someone says to you: "I worked all day." So what could you say to

them to show that you understand how they must be feeling? And how do you think the

person is feeling? Well, if he says: "Mm, I worked all day." So you could say to him:

"Wow. You must be tired." Or: "You must be exhausted." Right?

Let's say someone says to you: "I just got a promotion." So what can you say to them?

"Congratulations. You must be thrilled. You must be very happy." Right? So: "You must

be", plus an adjective is what we're doing.

Next one, someone tells you: "You know, John lost his cellphone." You say: "Oh no. He must

be", all right? So we don't have to say only: "you", you can also say: "he", "they", etcetera,

"she", and so on. So, in this case, John lost his cellphone, so you could say: "He must

be upset. He must be frustrated." Okay? "He must be angry." One of these words, depending

on what you choose.

Now, you could also use a slightly different expression. I'm going to show you here. Someone

says to you: "Our meeting room is too small." So, let's say we respond with: "You must be",

plus an adjective. So then we could say not: "You must be", but in this case, there's another

expression. "That". This is when we're talking about situations. So, we could say: "That

must be problematic." Or, if we want to use the noun, we can say: "That must be a problem."

Okay? So if you're talking about situations versus news, then you can use the expression:

"That must be". All right? So... Because we're talking about a fact, a situation. "That must

be problematic. That must be a problem."

Let's look at another situation. -"We don't speak English very well." -"That must be challenging."

Or: "That must be a challenge." Okay? So you see that we could use this expression: "You

must be", "He must be", "She must be", "They must be", or: "That must be", plus the adjective/plus

a noun. All right?

So, now, to practice, I'm going to give you some sentences and you try to think or say

what you think would be an appropriate empathetic response. Okay? So, let's say I say to you:

"I haven't slept in 48 hours." So, which of these words, which of these adjectives could

you use as your response? -"I haven't slept in 48 hours."

-"You must be exhausted." Right?

"Exhausted" means very tired.

"My daughter hasn't answered her phone all day." What would you say if someone said that

to you? Which of these? Probably:

"You must be really worried." Okay? You can also say:

"You must be worried." Or: "You must be really worried.", "You must be very worried."

Let's say: "John forgot his presentation at the hotel." What could you say?

"Wow. He must be really annoyed."

"Annoyed" means upset, angry, irritated. Okay?

Another example: "We got the contract." Good news? Bad news? Good news. Right?

So, what could you say?

"Congratulations. You must be thrilled."

Next one: -"John hasn't eaten anything all day." -"Oh no." He must be, what? Well, could

be a lot of these, but: "He must be starving." Sometimes we exaggerate-okay?-in English,

like here.

And last one: "My boss missed his flight." So, what could we say there?

Again, there are a few possibilities, but:

"He must be really upset. He must be annoyed." Okay?

So, you see by using the expression: "You must be", "He must be", "She must be", "That

must be", you can express your empathy and your caring about another person, and whatever

they have told you. And this enables a conversation to go forward in a very smooth way.

So, if you'd like to do some practice on this, please go to our website: www.engvid.com.

You can do a quiz there so you can really master this phrase, and you'll also see lots

of other English lessons which will help you to improve your English. So, thanks for watching.

Bye for now.