8 Ways to Complain in English

Hi. I'm Anne Marie with Speak Confident

English and welcome to your Confident

English Wednesday lesson. So let's be

honest, all of us have bad days when

something happens that is out of our

control and we feel so annoyed or

irritated, frustrated, and we need to fix

it. So we need to complain sometimes.

Sometimes we have to complain to someone

else

for example maybe a travel agent who

made a mistake with a travel reservation.

Maybe you need to complain to a company

that made a mistake with an order or

something was delivered late. Maybe

you're at a restaurant and they bring

your food and it's super cold so you

want to make a complaint. And then there

are times when we're just frustrated and

we want to tell our friend, our family

member that we're annoyed and we need a

good way to complain about that. That is

exactly what we're going to focus on in

English today. We're going to look at two

situations: how you can complain politely

in English this is for professional,

business situations, when you are dealing

with another company and you want them

to fix the problem. We have some very

specific ways that we do that in English.

And then we will also have some fun with

some more informal ways to complain even

a vulgar expression that we use in

English that we keep to use with our

friends or family when we are just

beyond annoyed or very irritated with

something. Now before we go any further I

want to make a quick note: if you haven't

noticed, I do have subtitles available on

this video. In fact they are available on

many of my videos. If you see that little

mark below, that CC, which means closed

captioning or it's also used for

subtitles, just click on that little

button down

below at the bottom of this video and

you'll be able to read as you listen. Now

let's go ahead and get into our first

group of ways to complain in English

where we want to be professional, we want

to be business-like and diplomatic, we

want someone to help us resolve the

problem. In the examples that I give you,

you will notice that we often use words

like "I'm sorry" or "excuse me" before we

make the complaint and the language is

very soft. Native English speakers don't

complain too directly or aggressively in

the language. We feel that it can be

offensive or rude, it's too strong and

many times if we are too aggressive when

we complain about something, the other

person doesn't want to help us. So

there's really no point if we complain

but we're too aggressive or too angry. We

want someone to help us resolve the

problem. If you're working with a travel

agent and you're going to an

international conference for work, maybe

they make a mistake with your hotel

reservations, the flight reservation and

you're really frustrated. You need it

fixed. A great way to make a complaint

and try to get some help for that

situation would be: I'm sorry but I think

there's been a mistake with my

reservation. I'm sorry but I think

there's been a mistake

with the reservation. Now there are those

key words that I talked about: I'm sorry.

It isn't my fault. I didn't make the

reservation but I'm trying to make the

language soft, diplomatic and make it

easy for us to work together to resolve

the situation. I could also say: Excuse me,

I think there's a problem with this

reservation. Excuse me, I think there's a

problem with this reservation. Another

useful expression: I'm afraid there's

been a mistake

or I'm afraid

is a problem. We could use this with the

situation that we've already talked

about: a problem with the travel agent. Or

maybe you're working with a new client, a

new company, your company has partnered

with another organization and there's a

problem. Maybe the delivery is late or

the company didn't meet the deadline,

you might start your complaint with: I'm

afraid there's a problem with this

delivery or I'm afraid there's a problem

with this deadline. And then you would

continue to talk about the problem, the

issue, what happened, what was wrong in a

calm relaxed way. Now sometimes there is

a problem in public. Maybe you're at a

restaurant with a really important

business partner and the restaurant

completely makes a mistake with the

order and you're really frustrated

you're angry but you don't want the

entire restaurant to know about the

problem. You might start a conversation

with the manager of the restaurant or

the server by saying: I don't want to

make a scene but this is unacceptable. I

don't want to make a scene but this

mistake or this error is unacceptable.

The next time you have a problem at work

or with someone in public and you don't

want to create a lot of drama but you

want to resolve the situation, use one of

those four ways to help you begin to

express that complaint in a calm,

diplomatic, appropriate way. Now with our

friends and our family members we're not

usually so diplomatic. Sometimes we want

to complain to our family member, maybe

your children leave toys all around the

house all the time and you're tired. You

come home from work, you have to cook

dinner and the house is a disaster.

Sometimes that just is irritating and

you want to complain about it. Or maybe

you're having lunch with your best

friend and you both have had a terrible

day so you're just talking about

everything

went wrong. Some really useful

expressions that we use for that are:

I've had it up to here. I've had it up to

here. We don't really know where here is

but it's our limit. We've reached the

limit. We are so frustrated, annoyed, angry

about something for example: I've had it

up to here with my boss at work. Maybe

there's a problem going on and you are

just stressed and annoyed about it. Maybe

at the end of a long day you come home

from work and, as we discussed there are

toys and laundry all over the house.

You're exhausted and the last thing that

you want to do is to pick up all of the

laundry, pick up the toys, so you might

say: I'm sick and tired of picking up

toys every day after work. I'm sick and

tired. That expression allows us to

express our frustration or anger over

something. now this next expression is

definitely not for polite company. And if

you have children in the room who are

maybe also learning English maybe have

them go out of the room for a minute

because it's probably not the best

expression for them to learn. To be

pissed off about something. Now this is a

phrasal verb - this is a not polite way

of vulgar way of saying to urinate. To be

pissed off is to be extremely angry. For

example you might say: I'm pissed off

that my boss has asked me to work this

Saturday because it's my birthday. I'm

pissed off that my boss has asked me to

work this Saturday because it's my

birthday. As I said that's not polite

language so definitely don't use that

with your boss at work. And finally, again,

if we're talking to our friend or a

family member and we want to express

shock, dismay. We want to say that we

can't believe something has happened.

We could say: can you believe that my

boss asked me to work on my birthday? Or

can you believe that the boss has asked

everyone to work this weekend? And now

you have eight new ways to effectively

complain in English whether it's for a

polite business situation or when you

want to be really honest with your

friends and family about how you feel.

So here's my challenge for you today: go

to the comments section just below this

video and share an example using one of

these expressions. If you're working

with a new company or you recently had

something really frustrating happen at

work, try using one of those more

diplomatic polite expressions. Or if you

want to try using one of those more

honest real ways to express anger and

frustration, talk about something that

really frustrated you, made you feel

angry, something that you want to

complain about and share with me your

example sentence in the comments below.

Thank you for being here. I love having

you here every Wednesday and I'll see

you next week for your Confident English

Wednesday lesson.