How to talk to your coworker in English (2)

Do you want to speak better English at your office? Yes, of course.  But do you think it is possible for you to make it? Yes or no.  Why?  It all depends how much you know about English.  What does that mean?  It means how English functions, or how you use it to say what you want to say.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             (pic source)

So, how does this relate to your office English?  There is an example for you.

TALKING TO YOUR (careless) JUNIORS

Do you have juniors who are careless?  How do you make an instruction to them?   What follows is a sample sentence to Mr. Careless, your junior.

You have to be careful.

What if you are really angry with Mr Careless?  But at the same time you don't want to make things personal by scolding him.   You may add something before 'have' (the verb of the sentence).  Add what?  A ly-word (people usually call it adverb as it is usually added near a verb.) So what is the ly-word to add?

You definitely have to be careful.

What if you are really angry with him?  You may add another ly-word:

I really want to see some improvement (from you).  

(pic source)



Well, but before you tell Mr. Careless the bad news, or before you want to give him a lesson, do you think you need to give him a signal, 'preparing' him to hear something bad?  Once again, you need a ly-word to do it.  What ly-word is it?

Frankly, I have seen very little improvement.  

So, 'frankly' means you want to be frank at one level, but at another, it also means you want to be direct and Mr. Careless, get prepared.





To put all things together, it is something like:

Well, frankly, Mr Careless, I have seen little change since last time we talked.   And I think you  definitely have to be more careful as I really want to see some improvement.    

(pic source)

However, what if you want to talk to your boss?  Or you want to be more friendly and polite?  We will talk about it at the next post.