Name: Is It Really a Good Question? - All Ears English Podcast 1802
Uploaded: 2022-07-01T07:35:33.000Z
Duration: 16 min 59 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

hello aubrey how's it going today  i am great lindsay how are you  

so excited to be recording today's  episode is on video over in youtube and  

Present continuous

it is also a podcast as always yes and i have  a fun question here for you okay i'm wondering  

do you think people should recycle more um that  is a good question yeah i do actually because  

i've recently done oh sorry i've recently done a  couple of trips where i've stayed with some family  

friends and they didn't recycle and i thought oh  my gosh it's 2022 how are we not recycling right  

so yeah available everywhere in the united states  at least a lot of rural areas you have to like  

take recycling and take it pretty far to deliver  somewhere it's not picked up at your home so it's  

less convenient and it costs more money right  so it doesn't always make sense for people yeah  

for sure it's true i agree though i do think  it should happen more this is an interesting  

topic that comes up on ielts a lot which is  interesting right but our question today is about  

your response to my question right i asked you if  you think people should recycle more and you said  

oh that's a good question which is often the  first thing we say when someone asks us something  

a little bit interesting a little bit thought  provoking right yeah yeah and i love that the  

other reason i do this is because i buy myself  some time right and we'll probably talk about  

this here and that could work on ielts too buy  ourselves a little time to actually say what we  

want to say because sometimes when we rush to  the answer we don't say the true answer what  

we actually believe we just say what comes to mind  first right yes exactly with ielts prep we call it  

a filler phrase where you need to have something  to say that doesn't take any of your brain space  

you've practiced it you know you can say it  perfectly and this is how it is for natives we  

can say this without thinking about it well we  give ourselves a second to think what actually  

is my opinion about this yeah and i think for our  listeners guys you can learn to do the same thing  

very quickly right to be able to take these  filler phrases buy yourself a little time and  

get an interesting answer right because we don't  want dull answers we want interesting answers  

yes exactly and this episode was inspired  by a really good question from someone in  

our chinese community we have a really good  friend sandy who posts all of our posts in  

china on billy billy and this came from a lister  in china i'll go ahead and read the question yeah  

yes please do would you please teach us what  people really mean when they say that's a good  

question does it mean the question is good or the  question is hard to answer oh i love this question  

and it means that this listener has been actually  paying attention to real native english right  

aubry yes exactly because you guys hear natives  say that this listener has heard us say this  

and it is you can kind of tell it's a filler so  what do you mean do you mean that's difficult  

for me to answer or do you mean it's interesting  and there is a pretty specific meaning here it's  

a filler phrase like you said yeah we don't say  it when it's something hard to answer it's just  

when we it's something interesting something a  little thought provoking i might have to think  

about my answer here not necessarily difficult i  would never say this if someone asked me to answer  

like a chemistry question right like nano math  or something yeah exactly you know i wouldn't  

say that's a good question i would say something  else right because that question i mean i'm not  

going to make any presumptions right but for me  if someone asked me a question about nano math  

i would not be in the ballpark to answer that  question so if by saying that's a good question  

i'm implying that i can actually answer that  legitimately right and i can't i can't i love  

that you're not making any assumptions assuming  maybe i know something about nanotechnology  

right no i also would not know how to answer those  questions okay so that's the reasoning here yeah  

yes and there are specific phrases that we do  use if a question is difficult hard to answer  

so we're going to first give some information  about the nuance of this of saying that's a good  

question yeah and then also give you these phrases  that you would want to say if something is more  

of a tough difficult question yeah i love this  this is a very high level topic for our listeners  

today aubry do we have any other episodes that are  related that our listeners could check out when  

they're done today yeah i think we should point  out that this is really a compliment this is kind  

of a filler but you're also complimenting someone  that they're asking you a thoughtful interesting  

question and there's a really good episode if  you guys haven't listened to it or not recently  

eller's english episode 718 is the best way  to give a top-notch compliment at work in  

english and this is one of those ways right to let  someone know they've asked an interesting question  

and there's a lot of other great advice in that  episode be sure to check it out yeah i love that  

great idea it's all about how we talk to our  co-workers at work aubry giving compliments is  

a way to build that relationship and we're gonna  need those relationships someday right we wanna  

we wanna like the people we work with so go for  it guys and aubrey i just wanna take a minute to  

say thank you to our reviewers of all ears english  guys you can leave us a review and you'll have a  

chance to get your name announced on the show  so i want to say a special thanks to miriam  

from the us to who else silk road 1123 from  taiwan mabuse from iran and thank you to fat  

fatim aramesh from the u.s those are just a few of  our amazing reviewers in the last couple of months  

guys leave a review and a rating for all ears  english yes awesome i love reading those reviews  

so yes keep them coming guys yes all right aubry  let's get into it so where do we start today  

yeah so there is quite a bit of nuance when  someone says this right especially if it's  

a teacher i feel like if a teacher says that's an  interesting question to a student there are a few  

possible things that that teacher means right so  let's go through these first of all yeah the first  

is kind of what we were saying where it's clear  that you have thought about what's being discussed  

and or being taught and you have an interesting  thought-provoking question right yeah this is not  

something a teacher is going to say if it's not a  great question right yeah of course um like what  

page are we on yeah this is not something that  people just throw out as a compliment when they  

don't mean it right they would not say that it's  only so if you do get this you know response it's  

a good sign that you're actually creating a nice  environment right yes exactly a teacher might also  

say it if you are bringing up a point that hasn't  previously been considered or discussed they're  

sort of complimenting you that okay you're taking  this conversation in a really interesting way  

yeah and then the third one guys is to encourage  participation right and what kind of situation  

would this be aubrey tell us i used to say this to  my students all the time in the bronx in new york  

right if especially if it's a student  that doesn't participate very often  

so if you want to encourage them you want to  them to feel good for having asked a question  

okay there's that mindset of all questions or  good questions in some classes right yeah because  

especially language classes it's a little  scary to put yourself out there and to  

comment so i often a student would ask something  i'd be like that is an interesting question yes i  

love it i love it that makes sense okay all right  and then but can this ever be patronizing aubry i  

mean what do you think about that is this going to  create an air of superiority when we say it yes i  

think that can definitely happen right so i think  of a specific moment i was in a college course  

and a student wasn't paying attention and they  asked about something that had just been discussed  

at length and the teacher was like interesting  question and they were sort of being sarcastic  

and patronizing them and i can see that happening  right so it isn't okay to say this after just any  

question we want to kind of point this out right  here right for example if you're in a business  

meeting if a co-worker has asked a question that  was answered recently making it pretty clear they  

weren't paying attention if you say this it's  going to come across as very sarcastic sort of  

patronizing and you wouldn't want to do that that  might damage their relationship yeah i'm wondering  

what happened in that classroom where did the  student eventually catch on that you know she  

was being made fun of by the teacher in a way yeah  because they did say after it was sort of like can  

some can anyone answer this question and so then  the person was like well like we just discussed  

you know and then they answered it and  the student felt pretty sheepish like oh  

i should be paying attention better that's a  great bonus phrase for our listeners today i  

love that you just threw that phrase that  word in their sheepish what does that mean  

it's funny to think of someone feeling like  a sheep it means to feel a little embarrassed  

a little foolish you've done something that  you regret so you feel a little bit sheepish  

i love it guys so write that word down okay  aubrey what else do we need to know today  

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Is It Really a Good Question? - All Ears English Podcast 1802

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