Full video

0:00

hello to the pointers thank you for

0:02

joining me again and welcome to any

0:03

new viewers um now in the speaking paper

0:06

of the cambridge english exams

0:08

so the b2 first the c1 advanced and the

0:11

c2 proficiency

0:13

you're going to need to converse with a

0:15

partner in the collaborative tasks

0:17

and the discussions now this will

0:20

inevitably

0:21

involve agreeing and disagreeing

0:24

so it's a good idea to go into the exam

0:27

with

0:28

a few options in order to avoid

0:31

repetition

0:32

so in this video i'm going to give you

0:34

five expressions

0:36

for agreeing and five expressions for

0:38

disagreeing

0:39

with your partner now the first thing i

0:42

should say

0:42

and it may seem obvious but agree and

0:45

disagree

0:46

are verbs in english so we can say

0:48

something like

0:49

i agree with you or i disagree with you

0:52

but we cannot say and we must not say i

0:55

am agree with you or i am disagree with

0:58

you

1:00

now as i said that may seem obvious but

1:02

i promise it's a very common mistake

1:04

that my students make

1:05

at all levels really and if you make

1:08

this mistake in the exam

1:09

the examiner will just fail you

1:11

immediately for the whole exam they'll

1:13

just close their books get up and walk

1:14

out and say you failed

1:16

obviously that's an exaggeration but you

1:18

really want to try to avoid making that

1:20

mistake

1:20

remember i agree i disagree the second

1:22

thing i want to say is that

1:24

when you agree with someone you can be

1:26

quite emphatic

1:28

because it's it's nice to agree it's

1:30

good it's positive so you can be a

1:32

little bit exaggerated or

1:33

um very emphatic but when you disagree

1:36

you have to be a little bit more

1:37

diplomatic

1:38

because you don't want to risk offending

1:41

the other person

1:42

or creating an uncomfortable situation

1:46

so as we'll see in the examples the

1:48

expressions for agreeing are quite

1:50

emphatic the expressions for

1:52

disagreeing are more diplomatic now a

1:55

very simple way of agreeing

1:57

quite emphatically is just to say 100

2:00

percent

2:01

now of course the whole expression the

2:02

whole sentence would be i agree with you

2:04

100 percent

2:06

but often in modern english we don't say

2:08

the full expression it's not necessary

2:10

just say 100

2:12

so if your partner says we need to

2:14

reduce our carbon footprint you could

2:16

say

2:17

100 percent so it's just to show you're

2:20

agreeing

2:21

completely with what the with what your

2:23

partner is saying

2:24

another similar option number two is

2:26

absolutely

2:28

again it's it's very emphatic absolutely

2:30

so if your partner says something you

2:32

agree with you just say absolutely

2:34

you can exaggerate with the intonation

2:36

again because you're agreeing it's okay

2:38

to exaggerate because

2:40

it's nice it's all good you're not

2:42

offending anyone

2:44

again similar with number three you say

2:46

i couldn't agree

2:47

more i couldn't agree more it seems a

2:50

bit a bit of an exaggeration i couldn't

2:52

i literally couldn't agree more but it's

2:53

a very common expression in english

2:55

and you can you can combine it with

2:57

number two you could say

2:59

absolutely i couldn't agree more again

3:02

very emphatic but that's what we do

3:04

and the fourth option is spot on spot on

3:07

so this is when somebody says something

3:09

quite particular that you you really

3:11

agree with

3:12

it's the point they have made that

3:15

precise point they have made

3:16

is exactly the right thing to say so i

3:19

spot on you've got it spot on

3:21

again quite similar with number five but

3:25

number five is an idiom an idiomatic

3:27

expression

3:28

which again is very common but you have

3:30

to be careful how you use it like with

3:32

any idioms

3:33

you need to use the right vocabulary and

3:36

it's you've hit the nail on the head

3:38

you've hit the nail on the head so we

3:41

use this

3:41

when your partner the person you're

3:44

speaking with

3:45

says something very specific

3:48

that is completely right is something

3:51

you completely agree with

3:52

so it's not just the general idea of

3:54

what they're saying

3:56

it's not their beliefs or the idea

3:59

it's something that you have identified

4:01

in what they have said that is exactly

4:03

right so you haven't hit the nail on the

4:06

head you the nail on the head so you can

4:07

imagine you have a nail a hammer

4:10

you haven't missed that the nail you've

4:12

hit it right on the head you've

4:14

completely got it

4:15

exactly right okay so now let's look at

4:18

some

4:19

options for disagreeing so as i said you

4:22

need to be a little bit more diplomatic

4:23

when disagreeing because you don't want

4:25

to

4:26

offend your partner or create a bad

4:28

feeling

4:29

so the first option you have is to say i

4:33

take your point

4:34

but i take your point but

4:37

so that's a very english way of

4:38

disagreeing because you know you're

4:40

saying i take your point that sounds

4:41

like you're agreeing

4:43

but the but the butt word is very

4:46

important it means a lot to this but it

4:48

signals to the the listener your partner

4:51

that you're going to

4:53

say something different degrees so it's

4:55

nice to say i take your point that's

4:57

fine

4:58

but and then you disagree and the second

5:00

option you have is to say

5:02

that's not exactly how i see it that's

5:05

not exactly how i see it again that's

5:07

basically saying

5:08

i see it very differently it's a

5:10

diplomatic a soft way of disagreeing so

5:12

that's not exactly how i see it

5:14

another very nice and common polite way

5:17

to disagree

5:18

is to say i beg to differ i beg to

5:21

differ

5:22

so this is perhaps a little bit more

5:23

direct than the the last two

5:25

examples but it's still very polite

5:28

because you say i beg to differ

5:30

uh you're not risking any sort of

5:32

arguments

5:33

you're just giving your opinion i beg to

5:36

differ

5:36

the next option you have is a little bit

5:38

more emphatic

5:40

so you can say i totally disagree i

5:43

totally disagree

5:44

that's quite emphatic so you might want

5:46

to prefix that by saying

5:48

sorry but so sorry but i totally

5:50

disagree

5:51

so that takes the edge of it a little

5:53

bit it softens it a little but it's

5:55

definitely stronger and more emphatic

5:57

than the

5:58

the first three options and the last

6:00

option is an expression you can use when

6:02

you

6:03

realize that you're just not going to

6:05

agree there's no

6:06

way that you're both going to have the

6:07

same opinion about the subject and

6:09

that's fine

6:10

in the exam you don't have to agree you

6:12

have to try to agree you have to

6:14

negotiate in some way to

6:16

to come to an agreement but if in the

6:18

end you don't then you can say this

6:20

expression i think we'll have to agree

6:22

to disagree

6:24

i think we'll have to agree to disagree

6:25

so that's quite a nice way we're

6:27

agreeing

6:27

to disagree so really we're disagreeing

6:29

but it's

6:30

a polite indirect way to disagree

6:34

okay i hope that helps you hit the like

6:36

button if you found that useful

6:38

and don't forget to check out all my

6:39

other videos i have lots

6:41

to help you with the cambridge english

6:42

exams now so

6:44

don't forget to subscribe because i'm

6:46

going to be making many more in the

6:47

future

6:48

okay see you again soon bye