Speaker 1: Next week is a holiday called Thanksgiving here in the USA.
It's a family holiday where we show gratitude and appreciation
to others. And that gave me the idea to help
you boost your vocabulary about thanking someone.
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, John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode seven seventy four,
showing Gratitude. Today, we're going to be looking at something
that might seem pretty basic at first, but you know,
as always, I like to start at the basics and
then deep dive into the topic. And the topic for
today is how to thank someone and also how to
respond when someone thanks you so you can sound more
like a native English speaker. This is something that a
lot of English learners, you know, get the basics down
pretty quickly, but to really sound natural and fluent, it
takes a little bit more. So let's jump right in.
I like to think about vocabulary as like a tool
in your toolbox, and like any good mechanic, you've got
your toolbox of thank yous and you need to know
which one to pull out for the right situation. So
what are some of the tools that you probably already
have in your toolbox. Well, you know, first you've got
your base thank you. That's your everyday, reliable, polite way
to express thanks. And then you step it up a notch.
You've got thank you very much. Now, that's like, you know,
a little more formal and it shows extra respect and gratitude.
And then on the other end of the spectrum, if
you're just hanging out with your buddies, you can just
throw out a thanks, nice and casual. So thanking someone
is all about matching the level of formality to the situation.
Like if I were in a job interview, I probably
wouldn't want to just say thanks to the interviewer. Thank
you very much is more appropriate. But if I'm, you know,
just grabbing a coffee with a friend, a simple thanks
is perfect. And sometimes you want to go beyond just
a basic thank you, you want to add a little
more flavor. Well, one really easy way is to thank
someone for a specific thing. You just need to use
the structure thank you for plus the noun like thank
you for the coffee or thanks for the coffee and hey,
thanks for the birthday gift. Still kind of simple, but
it gets the message across. Simple. But if you want,
you can add a little something extra to make it
more engaging. So instead of just saying thank you for
the coffee, you could say thank you for the coffee.
It was delicious. You're adding a bit more detail to
your thank you. And you can do the same thing
when you thank someone for a gift. Instead of just
saying thank you for the birthday gift, you could say
thank you for the birthday gift. I love it. It's exactly
what I wanted. And sometimes you want to thank someone
who did something for you. You want to thank someone for
that action. In this case, you're going to use thank
you for and then at jarond you know the ing
form of the verb, like thank you for helping me
or thank you for listening to me complain about the boss.
And just be careful of one point. This is something
a lot of English learners do, but it's not natural.
You can say thank you for helping me, but not
thank you for your helping me. I hear that a lot.
You don't need your because the listener knows who you
are are talking about. After all, you said thank you
for helping me. Some examples could be thank you for
cooking dinner, thank you for working hard today, and I
want to say thank you for studying English with me
here on this podcast. Now, I thought it would be
helpful to add in a few extra ways to express
thanks in English. For example, instead of thank you for
the help, you could say, I really appreciate your help.
And when you want to acknowledge someone's kindness, instead of
just saying thank you, you could say that's so kind
of you. English is that kind of flexible language. Thanks
a bunch, thanks a ton, thanks a million. Now let's
flip the script and talk about responding to a thank you.
Of course, we've got the classic you're welcome. It works
in almost any situation. But instead, when someone thanks you,
you can say no problem, which is super common in
casual conversation, like don't even mention it, or it was nothing,
or my pleasure. You have a bunch of options. You
know it's great, right, So it's all about choosing the
right one for the situation. Remember, context is king. You
got to match your response to the situation and your
relationship with the person. And remember a basic idea in
English is that the longer the sentence, the more formal
or polited sounds. Thank you so much for every thing.
I really appreciate it, versus thanks a bunch, Well, thanks
a bunch for spending time with me today in this
podcast English lesson, and keep in mind the best way
to remember English phrases like these 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 and
check this out. Do you need more experience speaking English, Well,
you can get the chance to practice this kind of
English with me directly. That's right. You can get more
practice using your English when you join my podcast Learner's
study group. There you can make new friends, join us
for live group lessons every week where we practice these
podcast lessons together. Plus you get access to the pda
F transcript and audio download for every Happy English podcast
in the past and in the future. And on top
of that, each episode has exercises where you can practice
this English point with speaking and writing checked by me.
To learn more, just visit Myhappy English dot com and
choose podcast lesson seven seventy four. Thanks a million. 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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