#224: How to Complain Politely in English
In today’s podcast, we’re talking all about how to complain in English. As you’re probably aware we have a culture of not really complaining, so when we do, we do it in an extremely polite way. So, we’ll teach you lots of phrases and tips on how to complain politely whether you’re at work, traveling, in restaurants, or hotels and in many more places.
RealLife English
#224 - How to Complain Politely in English
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Words You’ll Learn:
- Exactly what the doctor ordered
- All guns blazing
- Save yourself some face
- Excuse me vs pardon me
- Backfire
- Shoot yourself in the foot
- Abhor
- The ball is in your court
- Hopeless romantic
- Voucher / Store credit / Credit note
- Gag
Quick Definitions:
- Cutting-edge: highly advanced; innovative or pioneering.
- Dreamy: having a magical or pleasantly unreal quality.
- Upward intonation: ending with a rising intonation as if the sentence is a question.
- Polite: behaving in a way that is socially correct and shows understanding and care of other people’s feelings.
- Complain: to say something is wrong or unsatisfactory.
- Hit the nail on the head: be exactly right about something.
- Confrontational: tending to deal with situations in an aggressive way. (Ethan said he’s non-confrontational).
- Factual: based on facts or relating to facts.
- Get your message across: to manage to make someone understand or believe something.
- Take it out on someone: To punish or mistreat someone or something as a means of expressing or giving vent to a strong, typically negative, emotion, such as anger or aggression. (Ethan says “don’t take your anger out on them”).
- Shoot the messenger: used to describe the act of blaming the bearer of bad news, that is the person who delivers the news.
- Lash out: to suddenly attack someone or something physically or criticize him, her, or it in an angry way.
- To tip: to give someone who has provided you with a service extra money to thank them.
- Love–hate relationship (with something): strong feelings about someone or something that are a mixture of love and hate.
- Retail: the sale of goods in shops to customers.
- Back in the day: used for talking about a time in the past, usually when you are remembering nice things about that time.
- An honest mistake: A mistake made unintentionally or unknowingly and without the intention of causing harm.
- A cheap shot: a critical statement that takes unfair advantage of a known weakness of the target.
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