Speaker 1: Have you ever been in this situation. You're venting to
a friend about having a long and tough day, and
your friend's response is something like, yeah, I hear you.
That little phrase I hear you has nothing to do
with your friend's ears. Let's check it out.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast, coming to you from
New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, Jan and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode nine fifty one.
Does I hear you mean I can hear you? Thanks
for joining me today. So let's talk about those moments
when someone is telling you about a bad day, a
tough situation, or something that's just not going well. You
want to respond in a way that shows you care, right,
that you're listening, that you understand. There are actually a
bunch of phrases like that in everyday English that help
you sound more natural when someone is complaining, venting, or
just needs to feel heard. That's what we're going to
look at today, and let's start with the one we
just heard. I hear you. This one is so simple
but powerful. Imagine your coworker says, oh, I'm so frustrated
with this project. Nothing is going right. You can say yeah,
I hear you. You're not trying to help them fix
the issue, You're just acknowledging their feeling. I hear you
is a conversational way to say, yeah, I get what
you're feeling. Like last week, we had a few minor
earthquakes here, but nonetheless they freaked me out. And when
I told my neighbor that, she said, yeah, I hear you,
they freaked me out too. In situations like these, saying
I hear you is like saying I totally understand how
you feel. A similar phrase is I get it. Keep
in mind that get has a number of different meanings
and uses in English, and in this case, get means understand.
Like one of your friends says her boss made her
work another weekend in a row. You can show your
support or sympathy with, uh, I get it. That's so frustrating.
Sometimes people say I totally get it, and you don't
need to say anything else. That's how natural it is.
The next one is tell me about it. We use
tell me about it when we want to show that
we not only agree with someone's complaint, but we feel
the same thing. Like your friend says, Oh, the weather
is so gross. It's been raining all week. Yeah, tell
me about it. I haven't seen the sun in days.
You're not literally asking them to tell you more. You're saying, yeah,
I know, I feel the same. Like when your coworker
mentions that the boss is in a bad mood again today,
you can reply with, tell me about it. He didn't
even say good morning when he came in. Again, tell
me about it doesn't mean give me more details. It
just means yeah, I totally get it, and I've had
that same experience. Another one of these phrases is you
can say that again. When you tell someone you can
say that again. You're saying I totally and completely feel
the exact same way as you do. Like if your
coworker says something like, man, the traffic going to work
this morning was horrible, you can reply with you can
say that again, it took me twenty minutes just to
pass the shopping mall. Or like at a restaurant, when
your friend complains, Hey, what happened to our waiter? I
think he took our order and went home without telling
the chef, you can reply with you can say that again,
and keep in mind the intonation. The stress is on
the word that you can say that again. So let's
recap thinking about the intonation. I hear you, I get it,
tell me about it, and you can say that again.
These are all part of natural, everyday English, especially when
you're trying to show empathy and connect with someone. You
don't need to give advice. Sometimes just showing you understand
is enough. And keep in mind the best way to
remember English like this and any other word or phrase
in English, is to take that word or phrase, write
it in a sentence that's true for you or true
in your world, and then memorize your sentences. That's how
you build fluency. Thanks for listening. Remember learning another language
is not easy, but it's not impossible, and I'm here
to help you on your journey.
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Happy English.