5 Ways To Sound More Polite

5 WAYS TO SOUND SOFTER AND MORE POLITE IN ENGLISH

 One of the biggest challenges of learning a new language is knowing how to use it in a way which sounds softer or more polite for certain situations. And of course, there is the cultural aspect that comes into this as well.

Many times we can feel afraid to speak because it may not sound right, or it may be offensive. But how do you know? I always say that you should be brave when learning a language – take a risk and speak anyway. If you make a mistake, then you can learn from this. Ask the person you are speaking to if it’s correct. If you can’t get any feedback from friends or native speakers, then of course it’s good to have your own personal English Fluency Coach who will tell you the mistakes you are making and help you correct them.

Let’s look at a situation when this may be a problem.

Imagine you call a hotel to ask about booking a room and the receptionist says;

“We don’t have anything available”

A little too direct, isn’t it? And not so friendly.

A more polite, diplomatic way of saying this would be;

“Unfortunately, it looks like we don’t have anything available at the moment”.

So you can see, we can use softeners like ‘unfortunately’ and other phrases like ‘it looks like‘ or ‘it seems’ and ‘at the moment’ or ‘at this time’. You can also notice that the second, more polite sentence is longer. So in general, when we want to be more polite, we use more words!

Here are 5 useful ways to sound softer and more polite in English.

1. Softeners

There are several ‘softeners’ you can use to prepare someone for bad news. These often come at the beginning of a sentence such as ‘unfortunately’. They ‘soften’ the tone of what we want to say so we don’t sound too harsh or strong. Other softeners include; To be honest, I’m afraid, so sorry, I have to admit, with all respect.

• To be honest, I’m not really interested in those kinds of films.
• I’m afraid we can’t help you.

There are other softening phrases such as; ‘it looks like’, ‘it seems that’ / ‘there seems to be’ and ‘at the moment’, ‘at this time’, ‘for now’.

• I’m sorry, but it looks like we don’t have any vacancies at the moment.
• There seems to be something wrong with my internet service.

2. Using Modals

We often use modal verbs such as would, could, be able to, may or might to make more polite requests or soften a command.

• I want you to help me with my assignment.
• Could you help me with my assignment?
• Would you be able to help me with my assignment?
• I’m not coming to the meeting.
• I may not be able to come to the meeting.
• I might not get to the meeting.

3. The Second Conditional

It is very common in modern English to use second conditional sentences to soften requests and sound more polite.

USING SECOND CONDITIONALS (these are often the more polite form)

For example, compare;

“Get back to me by tomorrow possible” (very direct)

or

“If you could get back to me by tomorrow, that would be great”

Remember, the second conditional structure is;

IF + SUBJECT + VERB (past) + OBJECT, SUBJ + WOULD + VERB (present) + OBJ

We can reverse this sentence as well;

“It would be great if you could get back to me by tomorrow”

• Sign this form
• We would appreciate it if you could sign this form.
• Give me a discount
• I would be very grateful if you could give me a discount. (If you could give me a discount I would be very grateful)

4. Using The Past Continuous

It is very common in everyday English to use the past continuous to be more polite.

• I plan to finish this project next week.
• I was planning to finish this project next week.

You will notice a lot of people using this tense in polite conversation. It allows us to sound more tentative and diplomatic which in turn helps us to ‘win over’ others (to influence others or gain respect). Here are some other examples;

• I hope we can agree on this contract.
• I was hoping we could agree on this contract.
• I think we should change the schedule.
• I was thinking we should change the schedule.

5. Qualifiers

Qualifiers are words which increase or decrease the intensity of a word. For example;

He’s really rude!

In this case, the qualifier increases the quality of the adjective (And it’s very direct!). But we often use qualifiers to decrease the intensity of the word so we can ‘soften’ the tone of our speaking. Common qualifiers which soften are;

a little, a bit, kind of, slight, slightly, one or two, a little on the ……side, small

If you want to be more diplomatic when giving your opinion, you can try using these qualifiers;

• This coffee is too cold!
• This coffee is a bit cold.
• Her speech was boring.
• Her speech was kind of boring.
• This steak is too overcooked!
• This steak is a little overcooked. 

Now you have some useful structures and vocabulary you can use to sound more diplomatic and polite in English. When you start using these, you’ll begin to sound much more natural and the doors of communication will open!

Written by Nick Dale

WATCH my video lesson on 3 Ways to Be Polite

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