This is an All-Ears English Podcast episode 17-26. Please listen today. Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the All-Ears English Podcast. Downloaded more than 200 million times.

Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection.

With your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York Radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.

And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allyearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

When it comes to your work emails in English, should you use the phrase thanks in advance? Today, find out when it's okay and when to avoid it and learn what you are really saying when you use this English phrase.

Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Awesome, Michelle. I'm feeling good, but what have you been up to these days?

Oh, what have I been up to? Just being cold, being with my son? Yeah, that type of thing. How about you?

Oh my gosh, just hanging out. I spent the holidays with my parents a few months ago. That was nice and a little trip to Germany, so I'll be able to talk about that soon.

Yeah, because we do record a little bit in advance, guys, but so we don't have all the details now, but I'll share my stories when I can.

I can't wait. I know I can't wait to guys. Go over to allyearsenglish.com slash fluency score. Type that in the browser and take a quiz to get your English level. Michelle, what are we talking about today?

Oh, this is an interesting one. This is a listener question. And I mean, Lindsay, do you ever end emails with the expression thanks in advance?

Yeah, I mean, let's see. In an email, I guess so occasionally I will. Not too much, but occasionally I will. I will. When I'm really, I'm doing a big ask, you know.

A big, okay, okay. Interesting. So we have a listener question today from Larry who I believe asked us to question recently. So Larry has a great question. Thank you for this one, Lindsay.

Would you like to read the question for us? Yeah, here it is. Hello, Lindsay. How are you? I have a question that can be good for the podcast. When you send an email and you ask for something, is it correct to say thanks in advance? If I write this, does it sound rude?

I asked this because here in Mexico, we can say that and it's okay. However, I have read in some websites that it could be rude. What do you think about this?

I'm not sure if you've talked about this in the past, but if not, I think it could be a good topic. Thank you very much, Larry. It's a great question. It's so good.

It is good. It is good. Yeah. So I mean, I was thinking about this and I don't know. There's a, I guess I never thought about it this much.

That's what makes a great question. So I did a little bit of light research and I did some reflecting. Yeah, apparently in some of the things that I've read, some people don't like this because they don't feel it's a great way to end an email. So some places

mentioned like tone, you know, if you, if it's truly kind and you know, like somebody won't mind doing something or has already set to be something's already set to be done, I think it's okay. But Lindsay, what do you think about this in general?

Yeah, I agree. So the implication of this could be, so if you kind of drops, okay, let's set up a bad way to use it. Let's say it's Christmas Eve and you know, the person celebrates Christmas.

And all of a sudden, let's say you're the manager and there's a big report that you were supposed to do as the manager by the 26th, okay, it's Christmas Eve.

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