This is an All Ears English podcast episode 75.
How to show respect while you argue in English.
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Now here are your hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
Hey.
How can you show respect when you get into a conversational, debate or argument in English with a native speaker?
Find out today.
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Hey, Aubrey, what are you up to today?
What's going on in your life?
I'm going to go to lunch with my husband later.
Every now and then we both work from home.
So we're able to sneak away and grab lunch while our kids are at school.
So that's kind of fun.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Are you going to like a favorite restaurant or what kind of food are you going to have?
We almost always get tacos.
Like Phoenix, Mexican's huge here, lots of taco places.
So there's lots of different ones, even close by, and we just sort of rotate through them because we love them all.
That's fantastic.
I love a good taco food truck or just a very casual tacos lunch.
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
All right.
So yesterday, Aubrey, and guys, if you did not listen to yesterday's episode, it was awesome.
What were we debating yesterday?
We debated whether passion or strength is more important when choosing a What you want to do for your career, and it was interesting.
It was an interesting topic.
I feel like I learned a lot about your opinion and about the topic in general.
I love just sort of having a little impromptu debate like that.
It's so fun.
I know I think you are the debater between the two of us.
I did debate in high school, but this type of thing, I mean, I did, it was like prepared.
You prepared these arguments in advance.
This it's definitely more difficult if it's impromptu.
I feel like you have to have vocabulary and specific phrases in order to, because I think it's so easy with an argument to start getting too fired up.
Maybe, um, Take it personally, especially if you really disagree about something.
You want to keep it respectful and be able to see things from the other person's side so that it's productive.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So that's what we're going to give you guys today.
So get ready to write down this vocabulary.
We're teaching you today how to debate in a respectful way.
This is such an important and a very casual debate, like Aubrey said, not necessarily a structured on the stage debate, right?
This is a debate that might happen at a coffee shop, at a party, okay?
But this is the good stuff in life.
You guys want to have that level of English to be able to debate these things, but you need to maintain the respect as you do it, right?
And it makes for such interesting conversations.
I kind of hate when people agree with everything I say.
I actually really love it when someone says I'm going to push back here a little bit and says you know they disagree.
They are seeing things from the other side, especially if it's not something too political or, you know charged, if it's just more of like an interesting conversation.
I love that.
I think it makes for really colorful dialogue.
Yeah, And I think our listeners of All Ears English, you guys are curious, like you like to think deeper about life in general, right?
We're not just learning English here.
We're learning about life.
We're thinking about life on a deep level on this show.
So that's what it's all about.
How do we maintain respect when we do that?
So let's give our listeners the four phrases today.
Aubrey, what's the first one?
Yeah, it's to find middle ground.
So you could say like, let's find some middle ground here.
And this means you want to find a place where you agree with the person.
That is sort of between your opinion and theirs.
And, like you were saying in this last one, we really did that.
We were able to find that middle ground where you could see both sides.
We really did.
We changed the debate at the end.
I think we kind of agreed on something at the end.
And that's kind of nice, too.
But maybe that's just my personality.
I like to have an agreement at the end.
It would have been okay.
I think we still could have maintained respect if we completely didn't find a middle ground.
But this phrase is great.
It shows that you're looking to kind of collaborate with someone.
Yeah.
And if you aren't able to find that middle ground, a little bonus phrase here is agree to disagree.
You say, I guess we'll just need to agree to disagree, but I see where you're coming from, right?
Oh, that's fantastic.
I knew you were going to say that one.
That's a good one.
This is a good one.
Guys, write these down.
This is gold today for you guys.
Okay, next one is, well, okay, so you could just say, we'll just teach, I see what you mean.
I see what you mean.
Now, what is this conveying?
Yeah, you're offering a concession, right?
That you hear what they're saying.
You respect what they are saying.
It's a good way to prepare the person for a contradicting opinion.
So you can say, I see what you mean, but I feel really strongly that.
And so you're conceding, okay, I get where you're coming from.
I understand your argument. which is a respectful way to let them know you are hearing them.
You don't totally discount what they're saying and where they're coming from, but then sharing something that contradicts.
Exactly.
And if we're not in a debate.
This is also useful if you're actually wanting to agree with someone outside of a debate.
Scenario right?
Oh, I see what you mean.
Yeah, exactly.
If you're sharing something you agree, just say, yeah, I see what you mean.
I agree.
Exactly.
And then the next one is in the same tone, right?
It makes sense.
Or how do we sometimes shorten this one?
Yeah, you just say, makes sense, right?
We leave that subject off.
And this is to show you understand, you've heard them.
You may also say this before offering a different opinion.
Say, makes sense, but what about this?
And offering something else.
Ah, but what about this?
I love these bonuses we're getting here today.
Fantastic.
All right.
Last one for today is my question would be.
So here's where we put forth a challenge.
But because we're using would we're using a more indirect form of grammar.
What is that doing?
Yes, exactly.
Right.
It's challenging the other point of view, but it's being more indirect, stepping back and using that conditional, so it's very respectful, right.
So just say like yeah, I see where you're coming from.
My question would be have you considered and you're sort of sharing a point to what they're saying that might actually change their mind, maybe a side of it that they haven't thought about yet?
Yeah guys, that you have a choice.
And again, these types of topics, strengths versus passion, maybe even something like politics.
I think this would be really useful in politics because political debates... are not debates.
They're just conversations over dinner, right?
And I think in American culture we're afraid to talk about that.
But I don't think we should be, because we actually need to learn what the other perspective is.
What do you think, Aubrey?
Yeah, I think...
It just depends on the person you're talking to.
I feel like I know a lot of people that I can have a conversation about anything politics, religion because they're going to be respectful.
They're going to listen to my side, share their side.
And I know it can be a polite dinner conversation.
I certainly know other people that I know better than to go there with them.
So it depends on the person.
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe that's even when we're talking about family.
Everyone talks about that.
You know having their uncle to dinner.
Who disagrees that family dinner?
Who has such strong political?
You know perspectives.
I feel like everyone has that typical story, right?
It happens to everyone.
Yeah, for sure.
And if you know that they're not going to use any of the phrases we shared today right, they're not going to be really respectful of your opinion, listening to your side then you might not want to engage in that argument.
Save it for people you know who will be respectful, who care about your opinion, will listen, and have those conversations with someone that you know will be open to it.
I love it.
That is important wisdom, Aubrey.
And let's end on that today, guys.
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All right.
Cool.
Yes.
All right.
All right.
We'll talk to you very soon.
Have a good one.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Bye.
Talk soon.
Bye.
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