Don't say this at your job! [Advanced English Vocabulary Lesson]

Vanessa: Huh? What? Don't say this in the  

workplace. It is rude, offensive, and just simply  not professional. If you need to speak English for  

your job or in a professional setting, today's  lesson is for you. You are going to learn 10  

informal English expressions that you should not  use in the workplace, but more importantly, you  

are going to learn what you can replace them with,  a formal or business style English expression,  

which will help you to be professional, polite,  and just easily understood in the workplace. 

Hi, I'm Vanessa from Speak English with  vanessa.com, and like always, I have created  

a free PDF worksheet for you with all of these  informal expressions changed to formal business  

expressions so that you can be professional and  polite in the workplace. I've also included a  

couple little tips and tricks for using these  expressions in the workplace, the right tone  

of voice, the right situation, so that you can  have as much success in English as possible. 

You can click on the link in the description to  download this free PDF worksheet today. All right,  

let's get started with expression number one  that you should not use in the workplace,  

it is too informal and what you should use  instead. Expression number one that you  

should avoid in the workplace is, what's up? Yes, you will hear people use this in daily  

conversation all the time, but most workplaces  are too formal to use, what's up? Instead,  

it's a little bit better to use just the simple  expression, how are you doing? How are you? This  

is a really formal, polite way to greet someone.  So personally, I recommend when you're greeting  

someone in the workplace, you can say, how are  you doing? How are you? Instead of, what's up? 

For expression number two that you should not use  in the workplace, imagine that you're at your desk  

working and someone comes up to you to ask you  a question. You should not say to them, what  

do you want? What do you need? This is a little  bit rude, a little bit too direct. It's kind of  

annoyed like, what do you want? What do you need? Instead, a much more polite expression is,  

how can I help you? How can I help you? And  you're kind of assuming that they need help  

because they're coming to your desk and that  you are willing to help. So this is a great  

substitution. You can just say, how can I  help? The third rude expression that you  

should not say in the workplace or really  anywhere else, is hush, shush, shut up. 

If someone is talking too loudly, too much,  you don't want to hear what they have to say,  

those are just simply rude. I know that sometimes  people use these in the movies or in TV shows,  

but in real life there's just a rude edge to  that. So instead, here are two great expressions  

that you can use to be much more polite.  Please be quiet. Can you lower your voice? 

These are great to use. If you work in an office  with a lot of people and someone is talking really  

loudly, you can say, please lower your voice.  I'm trying to work. Or Can you please lower your  

voice? Wonderful. This is so much more polite.  Informal expression number four that you should  

not use in the workplace is, I have to pee. When we're talking about bodily functions of  

any kind in the workplace, you need to be more  indirect. So instead of saying, I have to pee,  

which is something that's okay to say around your  friends or family, children often say this, it's  

much better to say, I have to use the restroom.  I'll be right back. I have to use the restroom. 

In the US we use both bathroom and restroom, but  restroom has a little bit more of a formal edge.  

It's even more indirect. You're not even saying  the word bath, you're saying rest, restroom. So  

if you want to take it up a notch, you can say,  I have to use the restroom. It's okay to say I  

have to use the bathroom. I'll be right back. But it's probably more common in the workplace  

to say, I have to use the restroom if you want  to be extra vague and indirect and possibly  

more professional. Informal expression number  five that you shouldn't use in the workplace is  

one for when you make a mistake. If you make a  mistake and send an email to the wrong person,  

you send it to the wrong clients and you  give them the wrong offer for your product,  

it's a pretty big mistake, right? You've sent it to the wrong person.  

Maybe it was the wrong pricing. You want to  make sure that they still trust your company,  

but you made a mistake. What should you say? You  should not say, sorry about that. This is okay to  

say if you accidentally bump into someone, oh,  sorry about that. It's for casual, not serious  

situations, but if you make a mistake, that's  kind of a big deal in the workplace, you need to  

be a little bit more serious about your apology. So we are going to use the word that I just use,  

apologize. I apologize for that. I should  have, and then you can say what you should  

have done instead. I should have sent it to  this person, and I really made a mistake. I  

apologize for that. So, you see how we're using  this long formal word, apologize. I apologize  

for that instead of just, sorry about that. It shows you don't really take your job seriously.  

So use that great expression, I apologize  for that. It won't happen again. Expression  

number six that you should avoid is one for when  you're giving a presentation or you're explaining  

something. After you're done some people say, does  that make sense? And you know what? This is not  

terrible, but it's not the best question to ask  to judge if the other person actually understands. 

This is true for teachers too. When you're  explaining something and you ask your students,  

does that make sense, they're probably just  going to say, yeah, even if they didn't really  

understand. So instead, a better question  to ask is this, what are your thoughts? Or,  

I'd like your opinion on this. And here it's  inviting them to give more information than just,  

yes, it makes sense. You want to see if  they've actually taken in the information. 

So you're asking a good what question, what  are your thoughts on this? And it makes it  

very clear to you if they understood what you were  talking about when they give their response. So I  

recommend this instead of, does that make sense?  Not the greatest question. Expression number seven  

that you should not say is one that I used at the  beginning of this lesson, and that is, huh, what? 

When you don't understand something, and  this will happen, whether it's because  

it's in English or because it's something  technical that you just don't understand,  

you're going to need to ask for clarification, for  repetition, something like this, but do not say,  

huh, what? This is pretty rude. Instead, it's  better to use these phrases. Can you repeat that  

or what do you mean by that? What do you mean by  that? And here you're asking for clarification. 

I don't understand what that means, so I'm  asking, what do you mean by that? And they'll  

probably reword it and tell you it in a different  way. This is really polite. You might have kind  

of understood by this point that those short  daily life expressions, what, huh, that we use  

in conversation are pretty rude in the workplace. So instead, we're going to employ longer phrases,  

full sentences instead of those short ones.  Let's see how the next one works for that too,  

because our next phrase is very similar.  Expression number eight that you should not  

use is when you're trying to get someone's  attention and they're across the office or  

they're in another area, hey, don't say that. Hey,  hey. This is too direct, too abrupt. And instead,  

it's much better to say, excuse me, excuse me,  and you can get their attention in this way. 

This is also great in the classroom. A  student should not say, hey, teacher. Instead,  

they should say, excuse me, teacher, can I  ask a question? This is great in all of those  

formal situations. Expression number nine is  a fun one. You can say this with your friends,  

but don't say this in the workplace. When  something good happens, let's say that your  

client just signed the deal and your company is  going to be working with their dream clients. 

How do you respond? Do you say, sweet? No, this  is great to say in your personal life. Totally  

fine to say, sweet, I can't believe that we  got the vacation deal and we're going to be  

going to the beach and have a great discount  at the same time. Sweet. That's great to say.  

But in the workplace, sweet is too informal. Instead, when you want to show some positive  

emotion, you can use these expressions instead.  That's great. That sounds good. Fantastic. These  

are much more formal and they still show  your positive joy at the outcome. The final  

10th expression that you should never use in the  workplace are three words that we use to address  

other people, and they are dude, man, and chick. These are not acceptable in the workplace. Maybe  

if you work at a surf shop or somewhere  extremely informal, but if you're working  

in a more formal workplace, which most are, you  should not use these expressions. Don't say, hey,  

dude, what's up? Nope. Instead, really,  you should just use the person's name. 

Each workplace is going to have a different  standard for what's acceptable for addressing  

people. Sometimes workplaces are very formal and  they want you to say, excuse me, president Smith,  

can I ask you this question? And you're addressing  him with his title president and his last name.  

But some workplaces, even though they're formal,  it's still acceptable to use someone's first name. 

So instead, you might say, excuse me, John,  can I ask you a question? And you're using his  

first name, not his title and last name. So every  workplace is going to have a different standard,  

but no workplace is going to accept it if you  say, hey, man, can I ask you a question? No,  

not acceptable. So really the replacement  for this is just the person's name,  

depending on the workplace's standard. Well, congratulations. You just leveled up  

your business, formal English, so that you don't  offend people in the workplace, and so that you  

can just be professional and polite. And if  you want to use the informal versions with  

your friends and family, cool. You can do that.  Sweet. Well, don't forget to download the free  

PDF worksheet for today's lesson with all of these  10 informal expressions that you should not use  

and their business equivalents that you can use in  the workplace to be more professional and polite. 

And at the bottom of that free worksheet  is Vanessa's challenge question,  

so that you never forget what you've learned.  You can answer this question in your own words.  

You can click on the link in the description  to download that free PDF worksheet today. 

Well, thank you so much for learning English with  me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a new  

lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. But wait,  do you want more? I recommend watching this video  

next where you will learn if the phrase, can I  pick your brains is something that you should  

use in the workplace or you should not use in the  workplace. I'll see you in that video to find out.