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

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  

yeah so let's go over a few phrases that you  should say if a question is hard to answer if  

it's a difficult answer if someone asked  us about nanotechnology what would we say  

all right well i would say something like that's  a tough question right or that's a difficult  

question okay so that's different than that's  a good question or a great question yeah that's  

a tricky one i love the word tricky meaning just  we use it just to mean difficult right oh i don't  

know the answer that's a tricky one yeah or i  here's another great vocabulary for our listeners  

to stump you right something has stumped you so  that one i i might say that one stumps me right  

in the present tense but you had suggested  in the past tense and the present perfect  

what do you think yeah this is how i'd say it i'd  be like oh that one stumped me meaning has to know  

the answer right and this isn't something  you'd say like oh that stumped me and then  

and then you say the answer then you think of  it this means i don't know right right you got  

me i'm stuck yeah i'm stumped and then i think  in the pres yeah there's a lot of ways we could  

do this a lot of different ways we can use this  word but i'm stumped as good too i'm stumped i  

don't know what's the answer right exactly i love  it sorry i think we should do a couple of little  

mini role plays yeah this first one it's it's like  a co-worker is um asking you a question that is  

personal that you don't wish to answer okay i'll  start us out ready here we go um what religion are  

you do you mind me asking oh yeah i'd rather  not say you know what they say never discuss  

politics or religion oh yeah true what about  hobbies have you gotten into anything fun lately  

okay so this is interesting what we're talking  about here is some questions aren't as appropriate  

to ask right but how do you handle that  if someone asks you a question at work  

and it you don't want to answer this  could potentially create a really awkward  

a really awkward interaction and we want  to avoid that so you need the vocabulary  

for that how can i politely say no i don't want  to answer that right yeah that's a good example  

yeah and so how does this tie back to the good  question don't say that's a good question exactly  

right this is a question that you wouldn't  answer with oh that's a good question that's  

a great question and then say but i don't want to  answer very awkward very weird and honestly we can  

do another episode someday on how to handle those  questions right those questions that are awkward  

that you just don't want to talk about but totally  different response guys okay yes exactly and and  

here's um a possible better reaction than  my professor had let's assume that student  

asks about something or at work in a meeting  somebody asks about something that you just  

discussed let's do a mini role play on a better  way to handle that vocabulary you can use to  

get rid of the awkwardness to avoid that awkward  interaction okay here we go go for it you can  

start us off yeah yeah what impact has our  recent volunteer work had on public opinion  

well we discussed that while reviewing our most  recent survey right if you can get notes from jan  

that would be great and that way we can move on  to the next agenda item oh okay sounds good i must  

have missed that sorry okay so what you're saying  here is we've already talked about that right your  

question is inappropriate is that what we're doing  right exactly right this is that scenario where  

you're in a a work meeting and someone's asked  about something you just discussed at length  

yeah and so we're not going to again discuss  that at length to answer their question because  

everyone in the meeting has already heard it that  would be a waste of their time so you need to have  

a polite way to let them know okay we've discussed  this you know what should they do and how can we  

quickly move on to the next agenda items right  love this way of handling that yeah because  

oh and this could be another great episode  too aubry you know certain words are just  

they can sound very rude even if you don't want  them to sound rude for example if i had said  

we already talked about that that sounds rude  and it doesn't sound professional right or  

aren't you paying attention we just covered that  anything like that which might be what your first  

instinct that might be what you want to say  because you're frustrated with this colleague that  

let themselves get distracted and missed something  i can see frustration coming and you responding  

with something that might embarrass them or call  them out it is a real skill to avoid doing that  

it is instead pull yourself back and politely let  them know oh we discussed that while and i think  

name right yeah from the previous agenda point  yeah we discussed that while reviewing our most  

recent survey now oh if you can get the notes from  the person sitting next to them then we can move  

on to the next point i think you can say that very  politely and avoid humiliating them yeah it's a