AEE: Socializing in English Part 3 - The Art of the Compliment

This is the All Ears English Podcast, Socializing in English, Part 3, The Art of the Compliment. Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.

Compliments are sometimes about more than you realize. Today, learn about the invisible social layer when it comes to compliments and learn how to handle them with ease to connect.

How many more conversations in English will you sit through feeling like a quieter, flatter version of yourself? You don't need more idioms or even better grammar. You need to know how to enter the conversation, read the social signals and naturally connect in the moment. That's what you'll learn in our new course, Socializing in English.

But enrollment closes soon. The course is brand new and we teach you what other English courses don't teach. Don't stay on the outside of the conversation. Join us now at allearsenglish.com slash social.

Join before Sunday to save up to $100 on our brand new course. Go and grab the special deal now. Go to allearsenglish.com slash S O C I A L. Hello, Lindsay.

How are you today? Good, Aubrey. Are you good at receiving compliments? I'm really not. This is something I need to work on. It's not one of my skills.

I often will dismiss it or play it down. And I have had sort of some negative interactions where I make the other person feel almost like, I don't know, like I almost come off as rude maybe. So this is something I could do better. What about you, Lindsay?

Oh, no. Yeah, I've worked on this consciously, right? I think a lot of us have kind of these scripts of we should be modest or we should say they're wrong and the compliment's not valid or a reason why we don't deserve the credit for something.

But I've been kind of pushing back on that and just trying to get better at saying thank you. Yes. Yes, absolutely. It's crazy. This doesn't come naturally to everyone.

It doesn't come naturally to me. I think like you said, I'm like trying to sound humble, but then I'll end up shooting myself in the foot by making it worse. I'm like, I should have just said thank you. And then maybe a nice...

So I'm excited to dive into this today as I sort of... studied up on this. There were several things where I'm like, I could do better at this myself, actually. Yes.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. So often in North American culture, that's Canada, the US, maybe sometimes in Western Europe, in the UK, for example, a compliment can be a friendly social gesture, right? It's not a deep judgment about you.

It's just a gesture, kind of a conversation starter in a way. Exactly. If someone says, I love your jacket, or great job on that presentation, or your English is amazing. A lot of the time, the person is being warm, and their goal is to open a door to a quick, nice exchange.

And you could accidentally, you know, shut down that exchange if you do what I accidentally do sometimes, which is to push it away, to try and negate it. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

I mean, because the irony here is that it might not be as much about you as you think it is. It might be that the person is trying to, maybe the person is feeling awkward and they make a compliment to you because, and I'm sure it could be genuine, sure, but they're looking for something to say. Right. Exactly.

Right. It's just something to say. Something to spark a conversation. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Exactly. So when we push it away, which is what a lot of people do, Aubrey, as you said, it can feel aggressive.

It can feel really off-putting to the person that made that compliment. Right. Yes, exactly. And it shuts down the conversation when you want to open it up for a deeper exchange.

So today we're going to share about this common mistake that many of us are guilty of, myself included, and how you should respond to compliments to build connection. Yeah. This is one of the important social signals that makes English conversations flow and actually helps you connect. But believe it or not, Aubrey, a lot of courses, schools, classrooms, books, they don't teach this.

They never necessarily taught – they never taught our listeners – this in school. We learned the grammar, we learned the vocabulary, which don't get me wrong, is important. The pronunciation, the idioms, but we never learned the unwritten social codes of connection.

Exactly. Especially if a textbook isn't thinking about culture, isn't focusing on cultural differences. It's They might assume, oh, everyone understands this because they're assuming they're all coming from the same culture, but that's not usually the case.

So it is important to learn about how social cues work differently across cultures. Yeah. So that's why this month we're talking a lot about socializing in English because we realize how important it is, how it's really that missing piece for your connection. And later this month, we have something special coming, Aubrey, don't we?

Yes, exactly. Right. We have a method we are going to share that teaches you these social signals that make English conversations flow and So you can join the early interest list at allearsenglish.com slash social, and then you'll be the first to know when this is available.

Yes. Get on that list, guys. Allearsenglish.com slash social. So let's dive into a couple of role plays here where someone is giving someone a compliment and someone else is brushing it off.

This is how it feels. Okay. I'll start us off. Did you make this cake? It's fantastic. Oh, it was nothing. I just followed a recipe. Yeah. It feels like I was silly to even make that comment.

Right. Yeah. I would feel like, oh, and it just would shut down. Like, what do I say next? Right. It could have opened to an interesting conversation.

Instead, I might feel sort of criticized for having liked the cake at all. Right. Right. I really don't want to keep talking necessarily. I'm going to go talk to someone else.

Yeah. So brushing off a compliment or playing it down can sound like you're correcting them and it can sort of quietly close the conversation, right? This warm little moment that they offered that they tried to open just stops. So yeah, definitely the goal isn't to brag, but it's to receive this compliment instead of waving it away or playing it down.

Yeah. And of course, I'm really aware that a lot of people see North American culture as very self-promotional. So don't get us wrong here. I'm going to repeat what Aubrey just said.

The goal here isn't to brag. You don't need to play it up necessarily. I'm such a great cake maker. No one has my recipes. I have the special touch. You know, that's silly, right?

You're not going to say that. Isn't it amazing? I know everyone loves it. Yeah. Right. Maybe if that's your sarcastic personality, fine. But in general for connection, you're not going to play it down.

You're not going to bring it up. You're just going to accept it. Right. And use that moment that they've opened up for you to connect at that point. Exactly.

So let's share a role play of how this could be handled a little better, how to receive that compliment better. So I'll start us out again. Did you make this cake? It's fantastic.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I was excited to try a new recipe. Well, you picked a really good one. How often do you bake? There you go. See, and that's where we see what the point of that compliment really was.

It wasn't to make you feel like a great baker. It was to actually get started with a conversation. That person may have been feeling just as awkward as you're feeling and they needed a way to get in. They used a compliment.

Now we're off to how often do you bake? Do you cook? What do you cook? What do you bake? Exactly. And who knows where it could go from there. You're going to learn all kinds of things about each other.

It's going to be awesome. So we have this pattern that we want to share, which is to thank for the compliment and then add a small piece of information or a feeling, right? Even if you just said, thanks, full stop, that also would be a problem. You want to add something that opens up the conversation.

Yeah. And this pattern is just one of the many patterns and techniques that you get inside our method, socializing in English, which we'll talk about a bit later this month.

But this pattern essentially, it's better than saying, you know, what you're saying essentially is I'm open, I'm ready to keep talking. You're giving them a signal that they need to keep talking to you. Okay? Okay.

Exactly. Right. And these responses are chunks, right? We don't build them word by word. We grab something like, thanks, I appreciate that. And then you're going to add some kind of little information, right?

For you, you just said like, I was excited to try a new recipe. Amazing. That gives me so many places to go in that conversation. Where do you get your recipes?

Have you heard of New York Times recipe, right? There's so much you could do at that point. Exactly. But Aubrey, is a compliment always an invitation for small talk and connection?

What do you think? That's a great question. Not necessarily, right? There are three things that shift how we respond to a compliment. So we're going to share those three things because first of all, the relationship, right?

With a close friend that you see every day, you could just say thanks and then immediately pivot to how's your son, right? That's very different when you know each other really well. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Very different. These are layers. These are strategies. We don't need those strategies when we know that person well. Number two is the place. If we're at a party or a networking event, that follow-up matters a bit more because the compliment is, like we said, is probably an opening to a conversation.

It's not just a self-contained goal in itself. Exactly. Right. Depending on where you are and who you're talking to, the way you respond to a compliment might really be vital for your network or to create a new friendship.

Right. So yeah, depending on where you are. And then number three is your time. How much time do you have? If you're both running past each other, a quick thank you is maybe all you have time for.

But if you have time, you're stopped, you're having a conversation, it's clearly an opportunity to build a bigger conversation, then you definitely would want to follow this pattern to say, thanks, I appreciate that, and then add something more. And the time piece is in itself a social cultural tip in itself, right? Certain cultures, time really matters. I'm imagining you're at work, for example, and you're passing someone in the office.

The person's not going to turn around and continue the conversation with you long enough to add that extra detail, right? Right. If they continue walking as they say, oh, I love your shoes. I love your jacket.

You're not going to turn and run next to them. No. No. Especially not in North American culture, maybe in other parts of the world, but not here in busy business culture, right?

Fast paced business culture. Yeah. Let's do a role play, Aubrey. Shall we dive into it? Let's do it. You and I are at a friend's party and we have never met before.

I'll start us out. Ready? All right. I love your outfit. That jacket is really cool. Ooh, thank you. That's so nice of you to say. I picked it up at a secondhand shop I found that I love.

Oh, really? Where is it? I love thrifting. It's downtown on Roosevelt. I think it's pretty new. It's called Rag and Roll. That's a great name. I'll definitely have to check it out.

What other good places do you know of? I'm sure there are some hidden gems I haven't checked out yet. All right, so now we're off to the races, as we say, talking about thrifting and secondhand clothing and shopping and who knows where it could go from here, right? Exactly.

One compliment that was received in a great way opened us up to an interesting conversation to connect and find out what we have in common. I love it. So this is just one tiny piece of something bigger and greater that is coming soon, guys. So this month, we're going to help you learn the unwritten rules that help you connect.

Those rules that unfortunately your teacher in school or the English courses that you've taken so far, these were never taught to you because for someone decided they didn't matter, but they do matter so much, Aubrey. Absolutely. And this is likely familiar to you where you have either witnessed conversations or you've been part of conversations where you know that like you missed something, you read something a little bit off or you witnessed someone reads and often it's these cultural nuances that are, it's different, right? If you were having this conversation with someone you grew up with in your culture, it would go different.

It would be read differently and So knowing these little cultural details makes such a big difference in knowing how to respond, how to read the room, and how to socialize. Yeah. So guys, get on the list to be one of the first to know when our socializing in English method becomes available later this month.

So go to allearsenglish.com slash social and you will be one of the first to know. All right. Yes. We want to make sure you don't miss the other episodes in this series.

Part one was here on All Ears English. You can scroll up to see it. Socializing in English part one. Are you a coconut or a peach? If you missed that, definitely go check it out.

Some cultures, people are coconut and some they're a peach. So find out which you are. Exactly. And guys, part two was over on the Business English Podcast.

If you didn't know that we have a whole other podcast that's amazing that focuses on workplace English skills, this applies very much so at the workplace. We socialize at work, don't we, Aubrey? For sure. Yes.

And that was called socializing in English part two invitation or polite goodbye. This is so vital that, you know, there are a lot of phrases that North Americans will use that sound like an invitation and really they might be a polite goodbye and how you handle that could create awkwardness or could open you up for connection.

Yes, exactly. So I believe that came out on 9-10 or right around there. So go ahead and open the search bar. If you're not following Business English, type in Business English.

You'll see the yellow come up. Open it, hit follow, and check out that episode. All right. Awesome. Any final takeaway, Aubrey? Anything you want to leave our listeners with?

Yeah, it's so fascinating. It's just like you said, Lindsay, you can learn all of the vocabulary and grammar and feel extremely fluent and then still be in a situation where you're just not able to connect. And it might not be a lack of vocabulary, grammar. It might just be those social cues, the little nuances of culture that you need to know so that you can

you know, read the rooms, you can understand what these different phrases mean. And that is what we're going to help. I'm excited for everything coming this fall that will give you the keys you need to unlock all of those unwritten rules.

Exactly. Unlock the unwritten rules and understand the invisible social layer that lies beneath our words, our grammar, our pronunciation. Good stuff. Guys, go to allersenglish.com slash social and we'll see you there.

All right. Awesome. Great. Thanks, Lindsay. See you next time. Take care. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level?

Take our two minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time.