Talking about Pros & Cons in English [Advanced English Conversation Skills]

Hey, it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English.

This is exactly where you want to be every week to get the confidence you want

for your life and work in English. Over the past several weeks,

I've shared Confident English lessons on how to offer suggestions,

make proposals and show support for someone else's idea.

Those lessons are perfect anytime you're brainstorming,

problem solving or throwing out ideas. But of course,

in any of those conversations, at some point you have to make a decision.

And in the decision making process,

we typically consider the pros and cons to help us make the best choice.

There's a fantastic collocation we can use for this.

When we want to discuss the pros and cons and English,

we say to weigh the pros and cons,

and when a decision is needed,

you'll often hear someone suggest let's weigh the pros and cons.

This kind of discussion is particularly helpful when there isn't a clear winner

or when you feel there are no good options. Similarly,

if you're talking about politics, political issues, candidates, and so on,

again, you may want to consider the pros and cons of an issue.

You may want to weigh an issue in today's Confident English lesson.

I'm going to help you do all of that.

You're going to learn a variety of vocabulary or synonyms we have when we're

talking about pros and cons,

and I'll give you some common sentence starters so that no matter what you're

talking about,

whether you're trying to make a decision or you're sharing your perspective on a

candidate or political issue,

you can have a thoughtful discussion on the pros and cons

To get started.

Let's look at some advanced level vocabulary with synonyms we often use when

we're discussing pros and cons. As you'll see in a moment,

we have a pretty long list.

I don't know if I can answer why we have so many synonyms for

discussing pros and cons in English,

but the upside is (I just use an example of how to

discuss a pro),

the upside is when you know these different

synonyms,

it allows you to be more flexible in the language and to choose the precise word

you want to use when you speak. In our Powerful Public Speaking course,

we talk about the importance of being precise with our language so that we

can absolutely express what we want. So in today's lesson,

you will get a variety of language that will help you be flexible when you're

communicating and choose that precise word.

So let's start off with a list of vocabulary we can use.

When we're talking about the pros of an issue,

we can talk about something being a benefit, an upside.

I just used that word a moment ago. An advantage, a positive,

and a plus.

We also use phrases such as one point in favor

of, or one point in support of,

and I'll give you a clear example of that in a moment,

when we look at some sentence starters. Similarly,

an argument in favor of, to be in favor of,

and finally the last two, one reason to be in favor of,

or in support of,

and one reason I'm in favor of and supportive.

Those last two are very similar, but there is a small difference.

The very last one,

one reason I'm in support of indicates that this is my opinion.

The previous example,

one reason to be in supportive of or one reason in favor of is not

about a personal opinion.

If I make a statement using that language,

I might not actually agree with that position,

but I'm trying to be balanced or fair.

I'm trying to present all possible sides of an issue.

And in a moment when I give you some examples with sentence starters,

you'll see exactly what I mean. But before we do that,

let's look at our vocabulary list for when we're talking about the cons of an

issue. And as you'll see,

we're using the opposite words in a conversation.

I may highlight a drawback, a downside, a disadvantage,

a negative and a minus. And of course,

similar to the phrases we use to highlight support for an issue.

We can also discuss an argument against something or to be against

something. And finally,

we might highlight one reason not to be in favor or not to be in

support of something. Now that we've got all that in a moment,

I want to share some very specific examples with sentence starters so that you

can see exactly how we use this language in conversation. But first,

there are just a few more things I want to highlight. Number one,

there are times in a conversation about the pros and cons,

where you see both sides.

That's a great collocation to know,

to see both sides or to see all sides of an issue.

When you can see both sides,

it allows you to be a bit more objective or balanced in your decision making.

You're carefully thinking about all the positives and negatives earlier in this

lesson. I mentioned that if you want to discuss the pros and cons of an issue,

you might say something like let's weigh the pros and cons.

Another option you have is let's consider all sides of the issue

before we decide. All right, now that we have all of that,

let's look at some specific examples of talking about the advantages and

disadvantages of issues so that you can see how we use this language.

If we want to focus on the benefits or the upside of something,

we could use examples such as I'm in favor of,

or one reason I'm in favor of. And again,

here are the emphasis is on my opinion. For example,

I'm in favor of increasing the spending limits on this ad campaign.

Of course, if I use the alternate option with one reason I'm in favor of,

then I need to have a concrete reason. For example,

one reason I'm in favor of supporting the spending limits on this ad campaign

is that we can see it's already doing well and increasing our spending limit

will allow us to reach a broader audience.

Now let's look at all those nouns that we had in our list of vocabulary.

When we're talking about the pros of an issue,

we could use language such as one upside benefit

plus, or advantage of this is,

or the main benefit upside plus or advantage of this is,

and here's an example.

One upside of delaying our app launch is it will allow us to

eliminate any other bugs in the software. And finally,

one more example for discussing the advantages or the pros is that

phrase one reason in favor of, or one reason in support of,

and again, in this example, it's not my personal opinion. In fact,

I may even disagree with this,

but I'm trying to present all sides.

I'm sure that you or others in your circle of family and friends have had to

make some difficult decisions in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So here's an example of that.

Certainly one reason in favor of delaying the wedding is that you can

have all your friends and family present to celebrate with you. Unfortunately,

we just don't know how long you might need to delay it.

Now that we've got a few example sentences of how we can talk about the

advantages or benefits,

let's focus on the disadvantages or the drawbacks of something

with these examples,

we can follow almost the same patterns that we did with talking about the

benefits. For example, one disadvantage, one negative,

one drawback, one downside, one minus.

One disadvantage or one drawback of this medication is its

potential for strong side effects, including nausea and headaches. Now,

just like we talked about being in favor of something or even someone we

can also use the language of being against. I'm against,

or one reason I'm against.

One reason I'm against candidate B is I don't support her tax policy.

If I want to remove my personal opinion and simply present one potential

disadvantage,

I can use that language of one reason against,

or one argument against for example,

one argument against delaying our product launch is the fact that we have been

marketing our launch date for several months and our entire customer base

expects us to launch this product on November 22nd. And finally,

one last example for today.

And this one is a real conversation happening in my household right now we've

been discussing whether or not to get a dog.

And one argument that was made in this discussion was the primary

downside of getting a dog right now,

is that when we're able to travel again,

it might be more difficult to travel with a dog.

Now that you have all this new vocabulary and example,

sentence starters for how to use this language,

I would love for you to practice.

I'm curious what decisions you're making right now,

or what kinds of discussions are you having,

where you may need to weigh the pros and cons.

If there's a decision that you have to make,

try sharing a pro or a con with me in your own example, sentence,

this is the perfect opportunity to use some of the language in today's lesson

and get it into your active vocabulary so that you can use it easily

and conversations in English with that. Thank you so much for joining me.

If you found this lesson helpful to you, I would love to know.

And as always you can tell me in three simple ways, number one,

give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube. Number two,

share a comment below and number three, be sure to share this with friends,

family members,

or coworkers who might also be working to increase their vocabulary and feel

more comfortable in conversations in English. Thanks again for joining me.

And I'll see you next time for your Confident English lesson.