How to agree and politely disagree in English
2025-01-26 17 min
Description & Show Notes
Do you know the right way to agree—or disagree—in English? This episode dives into the subtle language of agreement. Join us for practical tips and lively examples to sharpen your communication skills! 🎧 Would you like to take an online “Agreeing and disagreeing” quiz before you listen to the episode?
- Episode Theme: Agreeing and Disagreeing in English (0:21 - 1:15)
- Overview of the episode structure (1:15 - 3:16)
- Agreeing tentatively (3:17 - 5:15)
- Being non-committal (5:16 - 5:47)
- Expressing reservations: the softened "No" (5:48 - 9:15)
- Cultural and language nuances (9:16 - 10:21)
- Strong disagreement (10:21 - 11:13)
- Politeness in business and personal contexts (11:14 - 12:00)
- The Golden Nugget: Correct usage of "this" and "that" (12:13 - 14:35)
- Challenges and exercises on "This" and "That" (14:36 - 15:37)
- Preview of the next episode: Present Simple vs. Present Continuous (15:40 - 16:29)
Kennen Sie die richtige Art und Weise, auf Englisch zuzustimmen - oder nicht zuzustimmen? In dieser Folge tauchen wir in die subtile Sprache der Zustimmung ein. Hier finden Sie praktische Tipps und lebendige Beispiele, um Ihre Kommunikationsfähigkeiten zu verbessern! 🎧 Möchten Sie ein Online-Quiz zu „Agreeing and disagreeing“ machen, bevor Sie die Folge anhören?
- Thema der Episode: Einverstanden und uneinig auf Englisch (0:21 - 1:15)
- Überblick über die Struktur der Episode (1:15 - 3:16)
- Zögernd zustimmen (3:17 - 5:15)
- Unverbindlich sein (5:16 - 5:47)
- Vorbehalte äußern: Das abgeschwächte „Nein“ (5:48 - 9:15)
- Kulturelle und sprachliche Nuancen (9:16 - 10:21)
- Starke Meinungsverschiedenheiten (10:21 - 11:13)
- Höflichkeit im geschäftlichen und persönlichen Kontext (11:14 - 12:00)
- Der goldene Nugget: Richtige Verwendung von „this“ und „that“ (12:13 - 14:35)
- Herausforderungen und Übungen zu „this“ und „that“ (14:36 - 15:37)
- Vorschau auf die nächste Episode: Present Simple vs. Present Continuous (15:40 - 16:29)
Transcript
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, we are the 3 English Experts.
I'm Rebecca.
I'm Dave.
I'm Birgit.
And welcome to this episode.
3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey.
Hello, everybody.
Again, this is a new episode.
And we are going to talk about how to agree and disagree in English.
Why do we think is this a subject?
Well, many people are Germans more rather than English people might think, okay, I can say yes, and I can say no, and that's it.
But there are some different levels of how to agree.
And maybe you might wonder if you're in an international meeting, why are they using so many words?
What are they saying?
There might be something between the lines.
We as German natives need to get used to a little bit.
And this is the subject.
This is why we are bringing it up today.
And I'm handing over to the natives.
David first was going to start talking you into it.
Yeah, thanks, Birgit.
For everyone to know there's a link to a little quiz that I made up.
And this is what we're now going to basically talk about the answers.
But of course, you'll still be able to take the quiz if you want to.
It'll be in the show notes.
So what happens is we've divided it into five main sections.
I'm going to cover a few sections, and then Rebecca is going to jump in and cover the others.
But of course, we'll be having our little chats in between as well.
So the two or three that I'm going to be working on is firstly, on the positive side, if you want to agree with people.
And the second one, which is very, very difficult for people to say is agreeing tentatively.
I'll come back to that in a second.
And then there's a third one, which is called being non-committal, which maybe also is a little bit difficult to understand.
But I'll try and explain that in a little bit.
So agreeing, I'm sure you've all heard no phrases for agreeing.
But these are maybe one or two that you've possibly not heard of before.
And we'd like to present, and I'm sure my Birgit or Rebecca will jump in and add some comments as well.
So firstly, one phrase that is quite common that you'll hear us using a lot of the time is, I couldn't agree more.
And I think what's quite interesting about that phrase is that you hear the word couldn't, and then you think, well, that must be negative.
So it must be a disagreeing form.
But this idea with the more, meaning that you couldn't agree more than you are agreeing.
So in actual fact, it is, of course, agreeing.
Yeah, so a very popular one.
Another one that's maybe a little bit more colloquial, maybe, is I'm with you on that.
A nice little phrase.
And people often say also 100% or 1000% is a more modern way to sort of say, I'm with you on that.
Yeah.
Oh, 100% or 1000%.
I'm sure Rebecca and Birgit have heard these phrases as well, right?
Absolutely.
I agree completely, David.
You're reading my list.
I'm using my phrases from your list.
Yes.
Very good.
Very good.
Superb.
Okay.
You're dead right there.
There's another nice little phrase.
If you want to be a little bit more informal as well, that's agreeing.
Let's move on.
Yep.
You're dead right.
Shall we move on to agreeing tentatively?
This is a difficult word to say.
Tentatively.
I always try and break it up into its little parts because people often have problems saying the word when we do the quiz.
Tentatively.
So the four parts to make the word, which means kind of on the way.
So you're not agreeing totally, obviously, but you're going in that direction.
Okay.
So you have phrases like, I attend to agree with you on that, or I'm inclined to agree with you on that.
And they are the sort of main two phrases that you could use to sort of indicate that you're on the way there, but you're not there quite yet.
There are one of two others, but I don't want to give all the phrases away so you can come and do the quiz later.
Then the third one, before we go into the more negative ones is being non-committal.
What does committal mean?
What does non-committal mean?
It means you're not committing.
You're not saying either way.
So in a way you're basically saying neutral.
You're staying neutral.
You don't say yes.
You don't say no.
You stay neutral.
We also have a very English idiomatic phrase called sitting on the fence.
If you're sitting on the fence, you don't say you agree.
You don't say disagree.
And maybe just two phrases from that is things like, I wouldn't like to say, or I can't say.
Either way, yeah, you're being neutral.
You're being non-committal.
Okay.
Thank you, Dave, for introducing all that to us.
And I've just been listening to you now and thinking, do we really have so many ways of expressing how far and how firmly we agree or disagree?
So I'm not sure.
Of course, we could say, I'm with you.
Bye, dear.
But do we do that so much?
So that seems to be very special about when you talk in English.
Interesting.
So, Rebecca, you have the negative reservations, disagreeing.
I do.
I have the negative stuff.
Of course, it's easy to say no.
The problem is that when you say no, first of all, it does sound sometimes too negative if you're always saying the word no, especially if you start a sentence with no.
So we tend to avoid doing that unless you're on the strong disagreement, but we're on this expressing reservation.
I can see on Dave's list here, he's got yes, but there's a lot of buts in this part.
So it's up to a point, but, oh, you have a point there.
But I would agree with that is that you have a softening word before you disagree and you're still disagreeing.
It is still a no.
You just make it a bit softer.
And some of my clients will ask, but why do I need to do that?
If it's no, it's no.
The Germans are very direct.
It's like, if I don't agree, I don't agree.
Exactly.
The point is, it's being respectful as well, that sometimes if you're too direct and you're too no, it's not always very respectful to the other person's opinion.
So it's good to be clear with your opinion, but at the same time, it's always important to be respectful, especially in business, to be polite.
If you want to build a relationship, business relationship with these people, then it's better to always be respectful.
That's what I would say.
I had another few ones.
One that confuses my clients is this.
I'm not sure about that.
Now, British, I'm not sure about that is a big fat no.
It's not like, oh, you can convince me.
And they keep trying to convince you.
And you think, no, I'm not sure about that is really like it's a polite no.
We have quite a lot of those.
And I do understand it's confusing.
Would you agree, Dave?
I'm not sure about that is like, no.
Yeah.
Do you want to fish tonight?
I'm not sure about that.
You know, I'm not sure that that's happening.
Another couple of nice ones I like, which are just little words, but to me say everything.
So did you like the film?
Well, well, is a brilliant word.
Wow.
Yeah.
Do you agree with me?
Well, do you think the same?
Well, well is really just, I don't really know.
What about interesting?
Interesting.
Interesting.
Well, interesting.
Could be positive.
Could be positive.
Depends on how you say it, I suppose.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But well, I find is a good one when you just quite know what to say, but you basically disagreeing.
Well, was dinner good?
Well, yeah.
Well, well, you know, well, you know, actually could have been another one.
Could have been another one is like, actually, I think he's going to be a great president.
Actually.
Hmm.
I'm not sure that I agree.
So it's like, yeah, actually is another one of those kind of filling words.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Does this all feel strange?
No, because I've been in England long enough to get the grip of it.
But I must say people, when you said about expressing reservations and just throwing the no at people, I think a lot of learners realise it sounds not polite enough in English, but they don't know any better and they can't express it in a better way.
And they don't feel happy about it.
And they ask maybe about politeness.
Then I say very often, well, ask a question.
Don't you think I think asking a question, how about that's going in the same direction?
And it's about expressing reservations.
I think that's more or less the same here.
A similar subject.
Yeah.
I think like you said before, Birgit, it's about reading between the lines.
And so, yes, you can stick with your yes and no and your I agree, I disagree.
But if you really want to get into the language, if you really want to read between the lines, even just to understand, is this guy really agreeing or is he seventy five percent there or is he a hundred percent there?
It's quite important at a higher level.
I would expect people at a higher level, B2 plus, to me, you should be able to at least slightly read between the lines and understand, is he agreeing or not?
It's a cultural thing, but it's also a language thing, I would say.
Yeah.
The better you are at these kind of things, I think the better you're feeling for the other side, especially in business, if you're in negotiations or things like this in meetings, you know, how just to gauge how the other people feel.
If you can just know the difference between agree and agreeing tentatively, obviously they're not quite there yet.
Okay.
So you need to persuade them that little bit more possibly.
Okay.
And the other way, if you're expressing reservations and disagreeing.
And what about disagreeing completely?
Do we have some words for that also, other than no?
Oh, no.
I mean, Dave's got his voice.
I'm sorry, but I really can't agree.
We've still got the sorry, and we've got the bot.
You apologise for it.
Yeah.
You're apologising, but I can't agree.
Like, you're not going to convince me no matter what you ask or say, you will not convince me.
Yeah.
We've got, I beg to differ.
That's quite a strong one.
I beg to differ is a bit of a phrase.
Haven't heard that very often.
No, it's quite common.
I beg to differ.
I would say that's fairly common.
Let's agree to disagree.
I would often say, if you really can't find an agreement with somebody, let's just agree to disagree.
And then if you just want to move on from this conversation, if the discussion is not going anywhere and you just want to kind of move on, but we would still, yes, do that.
I'm sorry, but no.
And even at the, I'm sorry, I'm afraid, unfortunately the whole three, you hear that too.
People exaggerate sometimes, especially given the situation.
But on the other hand, I think things are also changing depending on who you're with.
Of course, if you're with friends, of course we disagree and we say we disagree, but often in a business context, we try to soften it with the sorry, or I'm afraid, or unfortunately, or whatever.
And there is the wonderful phrase, Rebecca, come off it.
So if you said to me, Liverpool are the greatest team in England, and I would say, come off it.
No, you wouldn't.
You'd say absolutely.
You're dead right there.
Rebecca is not a Liverpool fan.
I'm not.
Come off it.
Come off it.
Are you Manchester United or something, something like that?
Sheffield United.
Hello.
Sheffield United.
You've forgotten your roots, Dave.
Oh, I'm terribly sorry.
I'm terribly sorry.
The Golden Nugget.
Okay.
Our golden nugget of the week is when you want to agree, very often people would say, I agree with this, but actually you should say, I agree with that.
And that brings us to another tricky bit of the language, using this and that in English correctly.
That might not seem too difficult, and well, maybe it's not, but be aware that when you talk about plural things, you should say these and those then.
And I very often hear this with learners, and that's quite tricky to change once somebody is used to saying it incorrectly.
I looked at this offers, for example, may sound okay in your ears, but it's not actually.
You should say, I looked at these offers or at those offers.
And obviously there's a difference.
This and these is always when you talk about something that happens here and now as a point of time or a place, and that you could use to communicate a contrasting thing at that time.
So back then in time, a longer time ago, and in those days, so obviously a longer period from now in the past to communicate that.
And when I explain that to learners very often see that they realise, okay, they're not using it right then.
And that might be a useful information for learners.
Rebecca and Dave, do you agree?
Absolutely.
I completely agree.
Couldn't agree more.
So you're with me.
I'm with you on that.
I think it's such a little thing, but it is quite difficult sometimes.
And there are these funny rules about when you're describing the size of something.
So like a pizza, you would say, yeah, it was this big.
You don't say it was that big, even though it was in the past and you finished your pizza.
True.
And then you would say, normally you would say, okay, well, then it was that big.
And now you would say, oh, it was this big.
So for some reason, when you're describing those kind of.
Yeah, you're showing it, but you're showing it now.
It was in front of your face.
It's in front of your face.
This face maybe.
Yeah.
Maybe that is the point.
And I think that's the other point is when somebody else says something so big, it just said something.
So I would say, yes, that is the point because she said it, not me.
This is the point.
Yes.
Yeah.
It's like she did it and not me.
So can you repeat that after learners say, could you repeat this?
That means you have to repeat what I'm saying.
No.
Can you repeat that, what you just said?
And I think there are some little ones that are quite tricky with these and those.
Do you have any exercises on this topic in your book, Birgit?
Do you go into this that season though?
Actually, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't think there will be an exercise.
No.
Maybe that's the next book.
At that time when I wrote it, it didn't occur to me because it seemed to be such a beginner sort of this and that.
I've now come to realise it could be worth putting in.
Yeah.
It can be quite tricky.
So next book, Birgit.
Definitely.
There will be another one.
Yeah.
We smell a book coming.
Okay.
Okay.
Speaking of grammar, guys, next week or next time, should I say, we're going to be looking at grammar again and one that also maybe at first sight seems very easy, but in actual fact, even at a higher level of English, we often hear our clients making mistakes, even seem quite easy, but aren't.
So we're looking at the present simple versus the present continuous.
Some people say present progressive, and they go into more of a deep dive into this.
So what to look out for, signal words, all these things.
And of course, when to use them, how to use them.
And maybe there'll be one or two little surprises in there as to when you can use them to talk about the future.
So there you go.
Excellent.
That's our next book.
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