每日口說挑戰給語言學習者的妙招：如何在英文中展現禮儀（How to be Polite in English - | Top Tips for Language Learners!）

“I want minimum information given with maximum politeness.” - Jackie Kennedy

Hello VoiceTube world! Welcome back to the Pronunciation Challenge! It’s your favorite host, Hugh, at your service. Even if I’m not, just say you are so I can feel better about myself, please. Please! What a great word isn’t it?! This word is exactly why this episode was made in the first place. Today, we’ll be talking about how to be polite in a conversation! In a previous episode, I did mention how Canadians are known to be polite, often embarrassingly so to the point where Americans make fun of us for it! Do any of you listeners remember how I said that Canadians love to apologize? I can say this one is true. I catch myself apologizing to chairs if I accidentally bump into them! It’s an object and not a living being and I’m still apologizing! Sometimes, I’m so used to people being polite back to me that it throws me off when they don’t show it back. I have a funny story about that but let’s get to the featured sentence first!

Today’s featured sentence:
We're not saying you have to be physically further away to be polite, but it is a good way to visualize it.

I’ll say that again.

We're not saying you have to be physically further away to be polite, but it is a good way to visualize it.

Ok, now time for the Pronunciation Tips.


For the first word, we have
physically
Three syllables.
“Ph” sounds like it has a short “i” sound with an F in front. “Fih”. “Si” sounds like it starts with the letter Z and has a short “U” sound. “Zuh”. “Ca” sounds like it starts with a C or K but has a short “U” sound as well. “Kuh”. The last syllable, “lly” (which is pronounced like Lee from Bruce Lee) is said quickly and almost blended with the last syllable, “Kuh”. “Klee”. Physically.


Next up, we have

polite
Two syllables
“Po” has a short U sound. “Puh”. “Lite” sounds like the light you turn on and off whenever you enter a room. “Lite”. Polite.

Lastly, we have,

visualize
Three syllables
“Vi” has a short “i” sound. “Sual” is a tricky one and actually sounds more like it starts with the letter Z. Now add “h o o l” to it and you have something like “zhool”. “Zhool”. “Lize” has a short “i” sound. “Lize”. Visualize.

Moving onto Vocabulary!

The first word is:


1. physically
Definition
in a way that relates to the body or someone's appearance
Used in a sentence you could say,
“It is good for you to stay physically fit.”

Next word,

2. polite
Definition
behaving in a way that is socially correct and shows understanding of and care for other people's feelings
Used in a sentence, you could say:
“I heard that Canadians are really polite!”

And lastly,

3. visualize
Definition:
to form a picture of someone or something in your mind, in order to imagine or remember him, her, or it
Used in a sentence, you could say:
“In sports, athletes often visualize themselves performing the sport in their minds.”

Ok, where was I? Oh, right, my funny story. Well, it’s funnier in my head but I’ll tell you listeners anyways. A long time ago, my high school friends and I visited Chicago for a road trip from Toronto. It was an 8-hour car drive so even though on the map, Chicago looks close to Toronto, it is quite far away! As we got there, I just remember saying thank you to everyone who helped me or just did their jobs. What I mean by doing their jobs would be someone handing a ticket back to me for example after I entered a museum or something similar. Whenever I said thank you, I expected a “you’re welcome” back. Instead, what I got back instead was, “hmmm” or “yeah”. In my mind, they were so rude! However, I started to realize that just because I’m nice to people, doesn’t mean they have to do something in return for me. We do nice things because we want to and not because we want something back. Big life lesson for me!

Alright, that about does it for today’s episode. Get those recordings in if you haven’t done so already. Hit me up on Instagram if you want to keep up with what I'm doing outside of the Pronunciation Challenge @hughtran_. Until the next episode, see ya!

We’re not saying you have to be physically further away to be polite, but it is a good way to visualize it.

We're not saying you have to be physically further away to be polite, but it is a good way to visualize it.

＃1611
We're not saying you have to be physically further away to be polite, but it is a good way to visualize it.
我們並不是說你的人必須在更遠的地方才會有禮貌，但這是可視化的好方法。