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.

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