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The Best Professional Connectors to Explain Your Opinions in English
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- How many times have you shared an opinion in English, but halfway through your words weren't really coming together as smoothly
- as you wanted? Maybe you found yourself saying too much or searching for the right words,
- trying to wrap up your thoughts. This might happen, for example, when a coworker asks for your opinion in a meeting and again,
- you have a difficult time explaining why you have a certain perspective or perhaps a friend shares her thoughts about a movie you just saw. And again,
- you're not really sure how to put your ideas into place. If that sounds familiar to you, here's what I want you to know.
- It's not at all because your English isn't good enough. It's simply because you don't have the right connectors in place.
- Words like because. So that and due to these connectors improve your flow and
- help your ideas to feel structured rather than scattered. They also help you explain your reasoning,
- which makes your opinion stronger and more engaging. Ultimately, this helps you sound confident and professional.
- Instead of hesitant or unsure of your own opinions. I want you to think about it for a moment.
- When you hear someone confidently explain why they believe something, doesn't it make their opinion more persuasive?
- That's exactly what we're going to work on today. By the end of this lesson, you'll have the best professional connectors to explain your reasoning
- smoothly. You'll also have a simple structure to make your opinions sound polished and
- professional in English. Ultimately, you'll have more confidence in sharing your thoughts without hesitation or
- over-explaining. Now, I want you to stick with me because at the end I do have a challenge for you so
- you can put all of these strategies together and start using the right connectors to get started.
- Let's talk about how to structure your opinion so that it's clear, logical, and easy to follow.
- English speakers naturally use a three part structure when we're expressing an opinion. The first step is to clearly state your opinion.
- This is where you introduce your perspective in a direct confident way. Most of the time you're going to hear this with a sentence starter like I
- believe, I think I would say, and I feel following that immediate statement of your perspective.
- Step two is to explain why, and this is where the connectors come in. Strong opinions should be supported by clear reasoning and
- connectors help you explain the why behind your statement. So again, this would include words such as because since,
- and due to however, we're going to learn many more in this lesson today. Before we get there, let's talk about the third step in a.
- Clear logical opinion, wrap it up with a conclusion or a question.
- Doing this makes your opinion feel complete or finished. You can do this by reinforcing your point or inviting further discussion.
- For example, after stating your opinion and why you have it, you might say, that's why I think this is a good solution, or what do you think?
- Before we get into our professional connectors, I want to give you two examples of this step-by-step process in action.
- We're gonna look at a social example and a professional, so let's imagine in a social setting I might say,
- I think the new wicked movie was great because the actors did justice to the roles and didn't stray from the original characters.
- What did you think about it? I have my opinion, my reasoning, and a way to reinforce or invite discussion on that opinion.
- And now let's look at a professional option. I believe we should adjust the project timeline since the current deadlines
- don't give us enough time for quality control. What's your take on this? When you structure your opinion in English using this three-step process
- and when you include your reason why you have that particular opinion, your ideas are more clear and more persuasive.
- Now of course, simply following this structure isn't enough. The connectors you choose are going to determine how natural and confident
- you sound. So let's go deeper into the best professional connectors you can use
- to explain your opinions clearly in English. We're going to explore three categories of connectors today and we'll start with
- the most important explaining why you think something or what happened as a result. We need this because when you're expressing your opinion,
- you're not just saying what you think, you're answering an important question why,
- and this is where our connectors come in. So let's start with cause or the reason why you have a
- particular belief or opinion. In English we have several go-to words for this.
- The first is the most common because which means for this reason. Next on this list is sense and we use this when the reason for
- an opinion is already pretty clear or obvious. Now similar to the word because we can also use due to
- it's very similar in meaning but slightly more formal. And here's one more that has a very similar meaning just like due to
- we can use because of these two function in the same way grammatically however of these two due to is more formal
- and because of is used more often in everyday conversation. Now I've got one more in this list, but before I go there,
- I know you might be thinking Annemarie, it sounds like you've just given me a list of words that all have very similar
- meaning. And you're right, English speakers love variety. We like to use different vocabulary and sentence structures.
- This allows us to have more than one way to express what we think. Now you don't have to start using all of these today.
- My recommendation is learn one or two connectors that are new to you. Start incorporating them into your conversations and your writing and
- then once you're comfortable you can add a couple more. Now the last one on this particular list is the word As
- we use this when we're emphasizing the result of a situation, let's take a look at how these work. In real conversations,
- I want you to imagine you're talking about your company, the place where you work, and you might say,
- I like this company because the people are friendly. Or maybe you're making weekend plans and you could say,
- since the sun is shining, let's go to the park. Remember we talked about using sense to highlight that the reason for something
- is already clear and obvious. It is clear and obvious to everyone that the sun is shining and it's a good
- reason to go to the park. If you needed to explain why you were late to a meeting,
- you might say I was late due to traffic. And when letting someone know why an event was canceled,
- you could say the meeting was canceled because of the storm. And here's one more using as as our local coffee shop
- has closed, we have to drive two miles away for good coffee. Before we move on to our next category,
- I wanna talk about something that is grammatically important when we're using the words due to and because of these are always followed
- by a noun like traffic, the storm, the delay for example,
- I cannot say I was late due to it was raining. That doesn't work for us. Instead you would say,
- I was late because it was raining. This is a simple but important difference. Now, at the start of this section,
- I highlighted that we're looking at words that help us explain why or what happened,
- so let's take a look at a few more connectors that help us express the what happened, what was the result of something.
- For that we use words like so, and this helps us to show a consequence or an outcome.
- We might also use witches. Why this explains a reason at the beginning or the end of a sentence.
- Let's take a look at a few examples. Let's say that you studied really hard for some exams and you want to highlight
- the result. You might say, I studied hard so I passed all three exams.
- Or maybe your team just had a really successful meeting and in telling someone else about it, you might say the meeting went well,
- which is why we got the project. Now, before we move on to our second category of connectors,
- I want to give you a challenge to practice. I want you to think about something that you did recently.
- Maybe you just started to learn English, maybe you changed jobs or maybe you moved to a new city.
- How would you explain why? For example, you might start with I started learning English because,
- or since I wanted to improve my communication skills I, or due to my work environment,
- I decided to take a moment to finish those example sentences. As always, you can also share them with me in the comments below.
- Now that we've covered connectors for cause and result, let's move on to purpose.
- To further explain the why behind your decisions. Just like expressing what you think.
- When you share a thought or a decision that you've already made, you're not just talking about what you did,
- you might also need to explain why you did it. And for that we use purpose connectors.
- I want to share with you three great ways to express why you did something. The first is in order to,
- this is more formal and allows you to emphasize your intention. Now a more informal everyday conversational version of in order to
- is simply using the word to, and I'll share an example with you in a moment. The third in this category is so that,
- and this focuses on the ultimate desired response. Here's what all of these would sound like in real conversational examples.
- Let's start with evaluating why you started to learn English for work. You might say,
- I'm taking these lessons in order to communicate better at work. Again, using in order to is a more formal version.
- You might also say, I joined this course to improve my speaking skills, or I'm studying English so that I can work abroad.
- Again, in that example, we're emphasizing the ultimate goal or desire that you have. Now,
- I want to pause here for a moment because in category one, focusing on cause and results we had,
- so as a connector and here when talking about purpose, we had so that what's the difference?
- Let's take a look at two example sentences to help. The first is I went by car so that I could take
- more luggage to the hotel with so that we're highlighting the purpose for making that decision.
- What pros and cons did we evaluate in order to come to that decision? We could also say,
- I went by car so I was able to take more luggage to the hotel. Here we're emphasizing the ultimate result.
- It might not have been a factor in the original decision, but it was a positive result. In the end,
- one is about what you intended to do and the other is about what happened in the end. So now let's do a quick practice again.
- I want you to think about a decision that you've made recently. Maybe you changed jobs or signed up for a new English class.
- I want you to try finishing these sentences. I started learning English two or I changed careers
- so that and now what if you need to give more than one reason for your opinion?
- That's where our next category of connectors comes in because sometimes one reason isn't enough.
- Maybe you love your neighborhood where you live and there are multiple reasons why. Or maybe you think a decision at work is a great idea,
- but there's more than one benefit that you want to highlight. For clear organized speech,
- we use connectors to add more details and here's how we can do that. The first,
- another reason is this allows us to add a separate second reason to support a decision or an opinion we can also
- use, plus, this is a bit more casual, quite often used in everyday speech similar to plus is using
- also very neutral and commonly used. And a fourth option is on top of that.
- This adds emphasis and may be used to highlight a surprising detail. Now again, let's take a look at all of these in action.
- Let's say that someone asks you, do you like your new neighborhood? And you might say, I love my new neighborhood because it's so close to work.
- On top of that my friends live there and there are many great restaurants nearby.
- Or imagine you're trying to explain why you support a particular company policy. You might say this new work from home policy is great
- for those who prefer to work at different times of the day. Also, it helps employees save money on commuting. And here's one more.
- Let's say that you're giving feedback to someone on a new cafe that you tried. You might say, I love this new cafe, the coffee's excellent,
- plus they have delicious pastries. Now, one important thing to keep in mind about using on top of that or another
- reason is both of these can only be used at the beginning of a sentence. And once again, let's do a bit of practice.
- I want you to think of something that you really enjoy or support. It could be your job, a new hobby, a policy change,
- or even a favorite restaurant. How would you give two reasons for your particular opinion? You could try.
- I love because and plus or one reason I support is a, another reason is,
- and now let's do a quick recap. Today we did quite a few things. We started with a three step structure to ensure that you can share
- a clear, well organized opinion in English. Then we learned a variety of connectors for cause and result explaining why
- something happened. Next, we moved on to purpose connectors showing why you did something,
- and finally we learned how to add extra reasons to strengthen an opinion. So now I want you to put all of this into practice.
- Here's my challenge for you. I want you to think about this question. Why did you choose to learn English? In your answer,
- I want you to try to use at least two connectors from today's lesson. You might begin with,
- I started learning English because or since I wanted to improve my communication skills or I'm learning English. So that,
- and another reason is as always you can share your answers and your questions with me in the comments below. Also,
- if you found this lesson helpful to you, I would love to know, give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube and while you're at it,
- make sure you subscribe so you never miss one of my Confident English lessons. Thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you next time.