Native speakers don’t really say this! | Native HABITS | British English

0:00 - Intro
0:40 - she's sleeping
1:27 - Lady
2:27 - Goodbye
3:11 - Eat/drink
5:22 - I'm fine thanks
6:20 - Outro

Hi there everyone! Welcome back!

How are you all? I hope you're all doing really great :-)

Here is a video with some examples of some language we DON'T tend to use in native British English speaking! It will help you fit in more if you come here or if you have to work with a lot of natives! Some of the words create deeper discussions on language and how it's connected with the development of society and how society thinks - pretty interesting if you ask me!

Oh, make sure you watch till the end - there's a guest appearance from a certain neighbour's dog! heehehhhe! He's so cute and his name is Mickey! :-)

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See you again next week!

K xx

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[hawkmoon]

I'm 71 years a native speaker and I use all of those examples to greater, or lesser, extent. Lady / ladies is one that I use quite often much preferring it to women, which makes them sound quite basic.

[cefflello]

" We don't really use Lady anymore"... Been working at Wimbledon tennis tournament for the past 10 days, same as I do every year. Lots of announcements coming out from the loud speakers literally every five minutes. Every single one of them starts with "Ladies and Gentlemen"... Lady is a timeless beautiful word, please keep using it as much as possible.

[yogajaxx]

I'm a native Londoner and often say "I'm fine, thanks" (or more usually, "Fine, thanks") and so do most people I know (I'd go so far as to say almost everyone). I'd say "Fine, thanks" or "OK, thanks". While I agree that lady can sound dated and very odd, there are still times when it's correct – or perhaps more accurately, where woman would sound rude or overly casual. I think that a foreigner referrring to a woman as a lady can sound very odd indeed but I take it that they're trying to be polite and have been taught an old-fashioned/text book-y English.

[alanbudgen]

I'm a native speaker and this is all baffling to me. I'd use all of the 'red' words and phrases - and so do all of the people I know. Interesting, but not exactly true.

[phildane]

I'm a native English speaker, and I can promise you that I, and many others I know, would say 'She's sleeping'. I can't imagine why you would think we don't.

[RIMJANESSOHMALOOG]

I'll continue to use 'lady' because it sounds respectful to women

[johnleake]

One point on 'lady', though. The real trouble with the student's phrase and why it grated so much is that 'ladies' doesn't collocate with 'men' – you don't naturally say 'lady' and 'man' together. 'Lady' collocates with 'gentleman'. 'Lady' has _social_ overtones that 'woman' doesn't. And the social overtones are the reason 'lady' is used less and less ('gentleman' has fallen out of use even more!). If the student had said there were _'three ladies and two gentlemen'_ in their office, it wouldn't have grated, but the sentence would have stood out as very formal.

BTW, we still formally address a group of people as 'Ladies and Gentlemen' (in a speech or an announcement), and if you wanted to address a group of women, you'd say 'Ladies!', *never ever* 'Women!', so: _'Ladies, could I take this chair?'_ (the same for addressing men: 'Gentlemen!', never 'Men!'.) But we'd be likely to use a less formal phase like 'Guys!' (which has become gender neutral in current British English) unless they're older than us.

[josetorres]

As a non native English speaker I always thought that lady was a polite way to refer to a woman

[alicemilne]

I think some of your examples may be more generational than anything else. I'm in my mid-60s and I still say "I'm fine, thanks" or just "Fine, thanks" as a neutral polite answer. I wouldn't say "great" or "amazing" ever in that context. It would make me sound as if I was trying to keep up with the younger generation. And even for younger people, it wouldn't always be appropriate in all contexts either. In learning colloquial sayings it's always important to be aware of age-related and formal or informal situations.

Also, I personally would not use the euphemism "passed away". I might just possibly say "left us" if I was talking to a group of friends about a person we had all been well acquainted with, but most of the time I just use the straight "he/she has died". When Queen Elizabeth died, the notice on Buckingham Palace gates was just that. The Queen has died. No frills.

The difference between "she's asleep" and "she's sleeping" is that the first describes the state of not being awake. However, we don't avoid verbs at all and we can still say "she's sleeping at her friend's house today" or "she's sleeping in the attic room".

So rather than say "we don't say this", I think it would probably be more accurate to say, you will often hear "xxx" in this or that context.

[dekhrahahoon]

Great video, lots to disagree with! ;-) Native ES here, Brit parents, born in Australia.

"She's sleeping": Depends. If someone asks to see her, not suspecting she might be asleep, I'll say "She's asleep." But if she is in hospital and someone wants to know if she is out of the coma yet, I would say "Yes, she's sleeping."


"Lady": Never used it much, until the PC crowd tried to rewrite the language with misuse of "gender" instead of "sex" etc. Now I quite deliberately refer to all females as ladies in protest.

"Goodbye": To me, it is a final farewell, reserved for that occasion. "Bye" is a bit brief, unless the conversation gives one reason to say something like "okay, bye." I might use "g'bye", "see y' later", but never the one people imagine Aussies using: "g'day".

"Eat/drink": Same as "sleeping".

"fine": Not sure, depends on context. If some smug so-and-so asked me contemptuously how I was, I think I might say "I'm FINE, thanks!" A friend asks, maybe just "Great!" Really depends. Not sure how to advise learners on this one. English seems easy to us natives, but it actually has lots of non-obvious complexities. Been watching a lot of Hindi videos (don't speak Hindi, just some common words) and it is amazing how much simpler than English it is, maybe the simplest natural language on the planet.

[anndeecosita]

As an American, I find this fascinating. I think in some ways we are moving in the same direction as you guys language wise and some ways not. I think we still use lady, eat and drink. I think we say asleep more than sleeping. For one thing our restrooms are commonly marked either women or ladies. We are typically going to ask for either generically the restroom or the ladies’ room. I don’t hear women’s room. People will call their wives “my old lady” 😂

[girlfromgermany]

I love the word "Lady" and also the expression "Ladies and Gentlemen". Both sound very elegant and it would be really sad, if that wasn't used at all anymore. 😕

[robmoody]

Really nice idea for a video! 👍As a native Brit, I'm not sure I could agree with most of the points in the video though. Just to pick out a few phrase, "She's sleeping" and 'I'm fine thanks' are super common phrases I would use regularly, as is the word 'lady'.

[marypiper]

Not sure I agree with everything here, I'm a native speaker and I regularly say he/she's sleeping or I'm fine! perhaps this is regional? My husband and a lot of older men I know still use lady or ladies as they think it's more polite.

[KevBarnes]

Hi, Katharine.
The ladies as opposed to the women’s?!
I do say goodbye!
Eat and drink - often used doon south. Eat and drink o’clock.
Often use “I’m fine, thanks”, especially at work, and mustn’t grumble…
The use of language down here in the south is rather subjective and does depend on the demographic.

[Babsza]

In Britain, when asked " how are you ? " or " are you alright ? " We almost always answer with " Not too bad "

[jackwarhol]

Im a native speaker in my early thirties and i use all of these words a lot!

[pandame]

And people now tend to say “I’m good” when asked how they are, which to me sounds an inappropriate use of the word “good”. What do others think?

[Lousysalsero]

Useful video, though... British people do actually say "I'm fine, thanks", as in: "Do you need anything else?" - "No, I'm fine, thanks".

[thetirelesscrusader]

Finally, a youtube teacher who...
is English,
speaks native English,
has a British accent and has
very broad and genuine English smile.
NOW I AM YOUR STUDENT FOR LIFE.
I just happen to stumble upon this channel.