This is an all ears English podcast, episode 15 10 How to be Gender Neutral When You Give a Compliment in English.

Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 150 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. Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York Radio Girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City U. S a and to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to all ears. English dot com forward slash subscribe.

Today we answer a question from our listener, Josh, about the tone of his compliments and gender. Get our take on this idea of gender in language and find out what you should be focusing on instead.

Hey, Michelle, how are you doing today? We are on YouTube again, so exciting to be here. Hey, Lindsay. I'm good. I'm good. How are you feeling? Good today. Feeling good? I'm excited about 20, 21. We've had some meetings with our team making our plans for the year on the podcast. Some really good stuff coming to English in twenty twenty one guys. Definitely, yes. I can't wait.

So, Lindsay, we have a listener question today that I'm excited to dive into. This is from Josh.

OK, could you read the question for us? Absolutely, Michelle. Oh, it's a long question. So here we go. Get ready. All right. One of the examples that I want to know is an adjective to describe something or someone. I think many American people often praise each other, which is one of my favorite American cultural traits. For example, when I meet someone, he or she often says to me, Hi, how are you?

And then your shirt is cool like this. And I'd like to adopt this culture by trying to describe it with something good and various adjectives. But I do understand some of the adjectives such as lovely or pretty cute are feminine expressions.

So it would be very helpful if you could give us tips about these things to avoid people misunderstanding me. Thanks, Josh. Michelle, this is a really good question from Josh.

Why is this such a good question?

Well, it's really interesting because he's talking about, you know, complimenting people but avoiding using words that may be more geared to a particular gender.

I mean, this gets into into a larger discussion. I mean, I personally, I always feel a little uncomfortable.

Like generalizing words is like one gender or the other. I don't know. How do you feel about Ellen? Thank you.

I think that's true, although I do think there are patterns. There are certain words that that men tend to use more than women. But you're right. I mean, it really does depend on the person. Everyone has their own speaking style. I know in other languages there's more gender for sure. I think in Japanese there's a way to say, when you say I am, it's a specific word for men and a specific word for women.

So that's interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. Listen, that exists in other languages. Yeah. Yeah. So our listeners might be coming from a place where like gender is more layered on top of language. Right.

Right, right. Right, exactly. But because we don't have that in English, it can get you know, it feels funny to like assign something to be masculine or feminine. I mean I could hear a man saying lovely or pretty cute actually I could hear that. So, yeah, I don't want I don't want to generalize and say like, oh you can't say that if you're a man that feels that feels wrong to me.

I like everybody's unique personalities rather than the gender. That's what I think. Yeah, I like that. And I think that's a good point, especially today, you know what I mean? We're less limited by gender roles now. Things are changing so much. We could do other episodes on this topic, too, Michel, but there are no limits nowadays. We could say what we want. We can be who we want. So but but, you know, Josh is concerned about about this.

He doesn't want to. Yeah. People. Yeah, we want to.

Yeah, we want to say that. Josh, we understand the question and we understand why you say that. But it's something to keep in mind is like that you don't have to necessarily assign a word as being more as being masculine or feminine for. Yeah. So but yeah, we definitely understand where you're coming from.

So we're going to talk about some kind of more neutral things that you can say today.

But before we do that, guys, if you haven't done it already, make sure that you hit.

Subscribe to the All Ears English podcast wherever you are listening to this podcast right now. So we'll give you a second. Ding. Time's up. Done. OK, good. OK, also let's get into it that Michelle at this point. So all right, so what are we going to give Josh and our listeners in terms of more neutral words today? Yeah, well, guys, we're going to kind of keep it simple today, right?

So he was asking for adjectives, ways to write. So if you talked about, oh, your shirt is cool, right?

So we are going to talk about some neutral ways to complement appearance. And these include some adjectives, but we're really, really keeping it.

We're kind of like bringing it back to basics today, because I think it is important.

I don't know that you always need to use some sort of complicated.

Right. Yeah. Like a. to to compliment someone.

Right. So today we're going to give you some neutral ways to compliment appearance.

So, Lindsey, what's the first one? OK, so just a very gender neutral way to say it would be. Let's say I'm at a party and I like someone's shirt. Right. And I could say I like your shirt.

Pretty simple. Pretty straightforward, actually. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

So and then the next one is that's a really nice or cool or awesome. Right. So those are some of the adjectives you can use.

So that's a really nice bracelet. Yeah. Or yeah. Yeah. Sorry Michelle. Sorry to cut you off. I just had an idea. You go ahead.

So that's a really nice bracelet bracelet or that's a really awesome hat or something like that.

Or a really cool pair of shoes. Yeah. Right. And now that I think about it though, I do think it's more common for women when they're shopping, for example. Right. Women will often say, oh, this shirt is so cute.

Right.

If they're in a shop and they're shopping for something.

Oh, those shoes are so cute.

That is usually more common for women, although it doesn't like as Michelle was trying to say, it doesn't mean that only women can say it. So I agree. But I do see the trends out in the world.

Yes, right. Right. It is important that we don't have to ignore, you know, what we what we actually experience, what we actually hear. Yes, right.

I think there's a difference between ignoring it. Right. And saying like, oh, no, that doesn't exist. And just like kind of generalizing.

Exactly. Exactly. So what would be the next neutral gender neutral phrase to use?

Hey, guys, would you like to know what your English level is? Get your English fluency score now with our simple two minute quiz. Go to all your English dot com forward slash fluency score.

Right, the next one is to just say the adjective, OK? Say what? It is so cool, nice, awesome. So we're really just kind of changing things around here. So cool. Nice, awesome. Fun. Funny, right.

So, like, yes, all glasses are funny.

Funny pants or nice shoes. I mean, and these are guys these are not even though these are neutral, they're not necessarily textbook phrases like these are natural phrases. I say this all the time. Oh, nice backpack.

Right. Right. Right, exactly.

I mean, lindsy the truth is we don't need to always get complicated, right. Yeah.

Like, oh you got to do this and this and this. Sometimes I kind of just like to keep it simple. Right, because this is how people speak, right.

Yes.

So I don't I mean, I believe that we've talked about words like stunning and beautiful and things like that. Yeah. We can also just be a little bit more basic.

And this is not necessarily about gender or what sounds right, but it's also kind of about keeping things direct and concise.

Yes. Certain situations. I love it, especially if you don't know the person well, maybe you're trying to start a conversation.

You're not going to come in with these flowery words and just overwhelm the person.

You're just going, hey, my shoes. Right. How's the party going for you? Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. Guys, the goal isn't always to have jazzy vocabulary, right? It's more it's sometimes like like floury or jazzy vocabulary isn't always what's natural.

Yeah, right. Isn't always what's used.

Right. So sometimes we just got to keep it to the point, keep it simple the way people speak. Right.

So I mean I think that the situation that Josh is describing with the oh, cool shirt or whatever it was, it seems like these are kind of quick complements that are being thrown out. You don't need to be too complicated or too deep. Right. So there you know, there is a certain time and a place for that.

But I think the situation calls for kind of just a simple yet simple complex.

Keep it simple. I mean, come back to what's going to help you connect. Let's not forget the mission of the show, guys. In the mission of that, you know what we believe learning English is for, right? It's for connection. It's not for perfection. It's not for grammar. It's not for using unnecessarily large words to impress people. It's to connect. It's that moment. What do you need to say that will help you connect?

And sometimes you can overcomplicate it and get tongue tied and get get in trouble. Right, right, right.

And guys, we actually did do an episode, episode twelve fifty, a deeper way to compliment someone in English. So that's kind of a good yeah. It's a good complement to this episode. I get it. A good compliment spelled differently.

Right. And well we'll do another episode on that compliment. Complement another day guys. Just hit subscribe and make sure you don't miss it, OK?

All right. How about some role plays here for our listeners?

Let's try it out. All right. Here we go. Hey, Lindsay. Hey, Michelle. I like your shoes. Oh, thanks. They're new. Awesome.

Simple, simple. You just keep your eyes open the conversation. But you did you did build the connection in a small way, right?

Oh, for sure. For sure. All right. Let's try another one. Hey, Michelle, that's a really cool jacket. Thanks.

Yeah. All right. Next one. I should get a new jacket.

Actually, now that I think I feel like I need to go and get all kinds of new stuff because we've all been inside for months. And, you know, with the.

I know. I know I haven't had a compliment from anybody other than Dan in so long. I mean, because I don't see anybody.

So it's kind of like it's funny because I was thinking about buying some new clothes and then I thought for what was the point?

What's the point of you're not going to go out to any parties or events or barbecues, but soon all this will be over, hopefully knock on wood, right?

Yeah, I hope that. All right. So here's another one. Hey, Lindsey, nice jeans. Thanks. OK, so I don't really need to say anything, but maybe this opens up another a deeper conversation. Right now.

We start talking about other things. It's not really about the compliment. It's about opening the connection.

That's what I think. Oh, exactly. Exactly. Like you could say, like, thanks. I got them at blah, blah, blah. And I know you, Lindsay, you value it. Good jeans. Yes, I know that's important.

Thank you for remembering Michelle. All right. Here we go.

There's another Michelle funny comment on the blog today. Oh, thanks.

I appreciate that. The word funny, though, could be sometimes it could be like I could mean weird, right?

Like, no, I guess in the context of like like if I'm commenting on your sense of humor, if the topic is kind of around that, then that's definitely about your sense of humor. But also that was a funny compliment today on the blog comment on the blog today. That could be weird, right?

It depends on if I wasn't trying to be funny and it was funny. Yeah, that's that's. That's uncomfortable. I love it now, guys, we do have so we redesigned our website this year and we did create a special option for you to search based on male voices. On the podcast, we realized that we don't have any regular podcasters that are guys. We're all women here at all English for now. But you can sample male voices. And, you know, I don't want to deny that that, you know, men sometimes speak differently than women.

Sure. But you can go and search by that type of episode. We have a bunch of them. If you go to the general fluency section of the podcast on our website, all there's English dot com got a pronunciation and filter by male voices. You can go and listen to those episodes.

Really cool. Awesome. I love it. OK, that's so cool. So lindsy. What's the takeaway for today guys?

You know, like I said, coming back to the main point that Michelle was saying, we don't want to generalize based on gender.

Yeah, certainly there are some words that are more masculine or more feminine, but you need to know you need to come back to Conexion.

You need to know when it's important to just not worry about that stuff. Come back to the simple. How do you open that connection with the person?

OK. Right. I think that's really, really important. Definitely. And, you know, definitely think about when do you need to use that jazzy language and when can you keep it simple? Yeah, exactly, Michel. Exactly.

So that's what it's all about. As you guys get better and better, you'll know how to do that. Right. That's those are the skills we want to give you and all your English.

So, so good. Definitely. I love it. OK, so this was a great, great question and yeah, we appreciate it and I hope you get some good compliments today.

Well, thanks, Michel. Same to you. Try and compliment us because this episode is on YouTube. So if you like something, you see you can use one of these guys.

All right, Michel, have a good day. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. All right. Bye.

Thanks for listening to all ears English. If you are taking Eilts this year, get your estimated Vänskä with our two minute quiz. Go to all ears English dotcom, slash my 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.