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| Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Top Words! My name is Alisha and today we're gonna talk about 10 words for persuading people. So let's go! |
| 1. urge |
| The first word is "urge," urge, so to urge someone to do something. |
| I urge you to (blah, blah, blah). |
| I urged him to (blah, blah, blah). |
| I urged her to (blah, blah, blah). |
| So you'll hear I'm using "I urge you to..." so we use URGE + (OBJECT), so him or her or them, whatever, to do something, to take an action. |
| So I urge you to buy a new car. |
| I urge you to get a new job. |
| I urge you to talk to your boss. |
| So to urge someone is to strongly recommend them to do something. I strongly recommend blah, blah, blah. We'll talk about the word "recommend" in just a moment, but "I urge you to do (something)." |
| Urge is not really such a common word for persuading, I think, in casual conversation. You might see this in like news reports from, for example, politicians or maybe like policy makers or kind of people in influential positions, like "I urge you to vote for (such-and-such person)." You might hear it in those cases. But in everyday conversation, we don't use urge so much. |
| So in a sentence… |
| "I urge you to make a change." |
| 2. recommend |
| The next word is "recommend." Recommend is a very common, very simple way to make a suggestion, a suggestion based on your opinion. |
| So I recommend you drink a lot of water. |
| Or I recommend you eat healthy. |
| Or "I recommend he…," so you'll notice… |
| I recommend you… |
| I recommend he… |
| I recommend she… |
| Not "I recommend to (blah, blah, blah)," but "I recommend you (do something)." |
| I recommend you take a vacation. |
| I recommend you get a new haircut. |
| I recommend plus who are you recommending this to, you can do that. |
| Also, you can say...you can follow the recommendation, you can follow the verb with, like a noun phrase like… |
| I recommend toothpaste. |
| I recommend restaurant ABC for our dinner tonight. |
| So you can follow recommend with the item you are recommending. |
| So I recommend product A for this. |
| I recommend product B for that. |
| Or you could follow it with a pronoun, so I, you, me. I recommend...well not "I." |
| I recommend you (blah, blah, blah). |
| Or I recommend (noun). |
| Okay, in a sentence… |
| "He recommended I see a doctor." |
| 3. consider |
| The next word is "consider," consider. So consider, to consider something means to think about something. Consider is a little more formal than "think about," so if this is think about, maybe consider is a step above think about. |
| So please consider (blah, blah, blah). |
| So please consider plus some noun phrase usually comes after the verb consider. |
| So please consider my new plan. |
| Or please consider your mother's feelings. |
| So again, use consider in formal situations. |
| So please consider my proposal. |
| Please consider a change in the department, for example. |
| So use consider in more formal situations to ask someone to think about something. |
| So please consider (blah, blah, blah). |
| In a sentence… |
| "Please consider all the options." |
| 4. you should... |
| The next word is "you should...," you should or the next expression is "you should (blah, blah, blah)." So, "you should..." is perhaps the most common way to try to persuade or to give a suggestion to someone. |
| "You should (blah, blah, blah)." |
| I think you should get a new apartment. |
| I think you should find a new job. |
| I think you should be dating a different person. |
| I think you should ask for a refund. |
| So, you should, you should is a very common way to give advice. "What do you think I should do…" is a way to ask for it. "You should (blah, blah, blah)" to give your advice or to try to persuade someone of your opinion. |
| In a sentence… |
| "I think you should find a new apartment." |
| 5. suggest |
| Okay, next word...the next word is "suggest," suggest. So be careful with your pronunciation with this word. There are two "Gs" here. It is not "SUG-GEST" or "SUG-G-GEST," I don't even know. I've heard some very strange pronunciations of this word. It's "SUG-JEST," so there's a G sound /g/, and then it's followed by a J sound, /suggest/. /G-J/ quickly happens there, "suggest." What do you suggest? That's a tricky one, so practice slowly, "SUG-JEST" suggest, suggest, fun. |
| Okay, anyway, so to suggest something is to give a very soft recommendation for something. |
| So I suggest you study every day. |
| I suggest you see a doctor. |
| He suggested...(in the past tense) |
| He suggested we take a vacation. |
| Or |
| We suggest a new policy. |
| Or |
| Why don't you suggest this to your manager? (for example) |
| So suggest is to give a kind of soft recommendation, to just sort of share an opinion. It's a sort of soft persuasion. |
| Okay, in another sentence… |
| "Can I make a suggestion? |
| 6. try |
| The next word is "try," try. So try is commonly used just in the command form, "Try (something)." So like… |
| Try this food. |
| Try that drink. |
| Try (something). |
| So we can use try to kind of give these very direct recommendations. It's a more direct way to try to persuade someone of something. So, it's probably best used in cases where you are fairly close to the other person. |
| So try my new cake. |
| Or |
| Did you...you should try, I've used "you should." |
| You should try this pasta, for example. |
| Or |
| Try my new product, if you're trying to sell something. |
| Or |
| Try out our new online course. |
| So try is a very direct and quick and clear way to persuade someone. |
| In a sentence… |
| "Try new things." |
| 7. why don't… |
| The next expression is "why don't…," |
| Why don't (blah, blah, blah). |
| You can use "why don't…" in the negative, don't, why don't… We use this, this negative form, "why don't you…," "why doesn't he…" of course, if we… if we change the sentence a little bit. |
| Why doesn't he… |
| Why doesn't she… |
| Why don't you… |
| Why don't we… |
| Why don't they… |
| So we use this as a very soft way to make a suggestion. |
| Why don't we see a movie this weekend? |
| Why doesn't he just talk to his girlfriend? |
| Why don't you tell me more about your amazing plan? |
| Why don't we go to bed? |
| So why don't you… or why don't we…, why don't…, why doesn't he…, why doesn't she…, we can use these expressions to make a suggestion. |
| Please be careful. There are…depending on your intonation, you can change the meaning of the sentence. |
| For example, if I say, "Why don't you call me back?" if I ask in like that complaining tone like "Why don't you call me back," it sounds very different from, "Ah, why don't you call me back?" Like… it's make… my second sentence there, "Ah, why don't you just call me back later," for example, sounds like a suggestion. However, if I use a complaining tone of voice, "Why don't you call me back?" it sounds like there's a… like a problem I'm trying to... to communicate. So be careful here. Depending on your intonation, you might cause some miscommunication, so make it, make…make sure you use a suggestion intonation. |
| Why don't you (blah, blah, blah)? (upward intonation) |
| Why don't you call me back later? |
| Or |
| Why don't you meet me for dinner? (for example) |
| Why don't you meet me for dinner? |
| Sounds a lot different than… |
| Why don't you meet me for dinner? |
| So please be careful here. |
| Okay, in another sentence… |
| "Why don't you take a break?" |
| 8. how about… |
| Next expression is "how about…," how about… So you use how about to make a suggestion. |
| How about we go hiking this weekend? |
| How about we have dinner tonight? |
| How about we get a coffee? |
| How about a drink after work? |
| "How about…" is very casual, very simple, easy to use, friendly way to make a suggestion, to try to persuade someone in a very friendly manner. |
| How about (an activity)? |
| So in a sentence… |
| "How about a trip to the mountains this weekend?" |
| 9. what do you think about… |
| The next expression is "what do you think about…," what do you think about… So what do you think about, so not what do you think about, but what do you think about. |
| What do you think about (activity)? |
| So what do you think about going swimming? |
| What do you think about going for drinks tonight? |
| What do you think about studying for the test together tomorrow? |
| So again, we use this as a soft persuasion expression. So what do you think about (something)? So asking the listener, "what do you think…" sounds like you're asking for their opinion. What do you think about doing this activity together? It's like you...you've made a suggestion, you want to persuade that person, and you're getting their opinion in return. |
| So in another sentence… |
| What do you think about Italian for dinner tonight? |
| 10. let's… |
| The next word is "let's…," let's… So, "let's…" is very interesting. There is one common mistake I see a lot with the word "let's…" Let's…, by default, let's… on its own, implies that you are going to do something with another person. "Let's…" means "let us." Let us is the expanded form of "let's…" "Let's…" is the contracted form of "let us." The key here being us. So "let's…" implies, "let's…" means therefore that it is the speaker plus the listener involved in the action. |
| So for example… |
| Let's cook something together. |
| Or |
| Let's eat. |
| Or |
| Let's get a drink. |
| Or |
| Let's study. |
| It sounds already, like the... the listener and the speaker are involved. Sometimes, I hear "Let's study with us," something like that, not correct. "Let's study." You don't need "with" in this case, unless… unless you're talking about a third party, there's someone else. |
| So let's study with Stevens. |
| Or like… |
| Let's talk… let's talk about this with Stevens. |
| Let's talk about this with the boss. |
| So "let's…" means the people who are involved in the conversation. Let's (blah, blah, blah). You can add "with" to talk about somebody who is not involved in the planning conversation right now. So don't use "us" here. This should be somebody not involved in the conversation. "Let's…" is the people involved in the conversation. Be very careful here. |
| So we use "let's…," again, as a very soft way to persuade someone, just a suggestion, a more casual expression. |
| Let's talk about this at the next meeting. |
| Let's talk about this with our manager tomorrow. |
| Let's talk about...I'm doing lots of talking. |
| Let's go to bed, I'm tired, for example. |
| So using "let's…" shows that there are a couple of people, at least the immediate group, whoever can listen at that point in time, they're all involved there, so keep that in mind. "Let's…" is a very interesting word. |
| All right, in one more sentence… |
| "Let's go to the movies." |
| All right, those are 10 words and 10 expressions you can use when you're persuading people. I hope that those are useful for you. Thanks very much for watching this episode. If you have any questions or comments, please be sure to let us know in the comment section below this video. Thanks for watching and we'll see you again soon. Bye! |
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