022: Phrases for being Polite in American English
Conversation & Pronunciation: Learn English with The Rachel's English Podcast
Rachel's English
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 6 December 2017
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
When we were in Italy recently, we often struggled with knowing the polite way to phrase a request or ask for something. We could get the point across, but we lacked nuance with the language. Today we discuss phrases you can use to be polite in American English, like, “would you be able to tell me if you have ___”, or “we’re ready for the check, when you get the chance.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Rachel's English podcast. I'm Rachel, and I make this podcast to help non-native speakers |
| 0:11.5 | learn how to speak English and understand Americans and sound more American if that's their wish. |
| 0:18.8 | This week, I'm sitting down with my husband David and we're reflecting on |
| 0:23.1 | a recent trip that we took to Italy where we were struggling to find the phrases to be polite. |
| 0:31.2 | So today we're going to talk about phrases in English that you can use in various settings |
| 0:36.3 | like a restaurant or a store. When you're |
| 0:39.1 | interacting with people who work for the restaurant or store, how to be polite, how to ask for |
| 0:44.3 | things, and how to thank people for things. Let's jump right in. David, one thing I'm thinking about |
| 0:50.8 | is, remember in Rome there was that supley shop on our street? Right. I do remember that, yes. |
| 0:57.8 | It was so popular. There were always any time of day, it was crowded. People were constantly going in and out. Yeah. |
| 1:05.1 | So we decided, okay, obviously we need to eat whatever is in there. Something is going on in there. Yeah. |
| 1:10.7 | So one evening, I went in, it was probably like nine or ten, or no, Stony. |
| 1:16.5 | Well, yeah, maybe it was nine or ten. |
| 1:18.6 | And it was really crowded. |
| 1:20.6 | And I didn't really know how it worked. |
| 1:23.4 | It was just a counter where people could buy all sorts of deep fried things. |
| 1:27.5 | Right. |
| 1:28.2 | And so I told David, okay, I'm going in. |
| 1:31.5 | So David and Stoney were waiting for me outside. |
| 1:33.6 | And after like 10 minutes, I came back out and I said, I can't do it. |
| 1:36.7 | Because how it works is very different. |
| 1:39.1 | There's not a line-based system. |
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