In class this week, we are talking about how to give and accept a compliment. This can be a tricky exchange in English (or in any language). Here are some amazing resources to help you.
English with Kim provides an amazing step-by-step guide to help you with useful expressions. She offers these steps:
- Be appreciative
- Tell them that their opinion matters
- Give credit where it is due – to your hard work or to someone who supported you
- Mention a positive next step
- Recognize people who have supported you
- Take the opportunity to invite more feedback or conversation
This is a great quick reference or study guide to help you practice some useful phrases.
Speaking of useful phrases, Peptalk offers 90 useful phrases when giving a compliment. Some include:
Formal
- Ms. Hima, may I be so bold as to compliment you on your dress?
- May I pay you a compliment Jane? You really look fantastic today.
- I hope you don’t mind, but I just had to say how wonderful you look today.
Informal
- You look great.
- You look phenomenal.
- You look nice.
- You look amazing!
- The dress looks stunning.
- What a lovely necklace!
- I like your shirt – where did you get it?
- I love your new shoes.
- You look very good in that suit.
- This tie looks nice on you.
- That color looks great on you.
- You look very handsome.
- You’re looking very beautiful today.
- I like your new haircut.
- You have a lovely voice.
- Wow, you look hot!
- Reshmi, what a beautiful dress!
- Cool glasses, totally suit you.
- I really love your haircut. It makes you look like a movie star.
Peptalk has organized their examples according to context. The Free Dictionary also provides a great resource for compliments according to situation. Here is a sample:
You can accept compliments with several different expressions.
- Oh, thanks!
- It's very nice of you to say so.
- I'm glad you think so.
- You can also respond by saying how old it is, or how or where you got it.
- 'That's a nice top.' – 'Haven't you seen this before? I've had it for years.'
- 'That's a nice piece of jewellery.' – 'Yeah, my husband bought it for me.'
- If someone compliments you on your skill, you can say something modest that implies that what you did was not very difficult or skilful.
- Oh, there's nothing to it.
- 'Terrific job.' – 'Well, I don't know about that'.
- When someone congratulates you, you usually say 'Thanks' or 'Thank you'.
- 'Congratulations on publication.' – 'Thanks very much.'
- 'Congratulations to both of you.' – 'Thank you.'
For teachers, this is a great lesson plan for teaching how to give and accept compliments: https://blog.esllibrary.com/2016/03/01/how-to-give-a-compliment/