Tip 36 ”You seem to be distracted.”　無料ビジネス英語学習

Hello and welcome to this Bizmates words and phrases
video series for Japanese businesspeople.

And today's phrase,
It's kind of a...

It's one used in a negative situation.
You seem to be distracted.

But very useful OK,
which we will learn.

But first let's do our usual test.
OK.

On a scale from 1 to 10,
what or who would you give an eleven to?

Who? What? Anything.

I don't know, a song, could be a band?

What would you give an eleven to?

All right, OK.
I hope you came up with a great answer.

And we're gonna go on to
something a little bit serious today.

You seem to be distracted.

OK, a very useful one,

especially used in a stressful work environment.

OK, here's the situation.

Imagine that Taro is talking to me, to Hika.
Saying Hika, you know....

And I'm not listening.

I'm not listening, I'm going huh, what, what.
I'm sorry, did you say something?

And Taro's a little worried. Is Hika OK?
And he says, are you OK?

Is there something serious you are thinking about?

You know, you have stress? What's wrong?
You have problems? Personal problems?

OK, so Taro was trying to... He's worried about me.
And he's asking but...

Is there something serious you're thinking about?
It's a confusing question.

I don't really know.

What? Are you worried about me?

Or, Are you...

You know it sounds like I'm doing some math problem or something.
I don't know.

It's. It's.

It's a strange question.

Instead, a natural way to handle this.
So Taro is talking to me, and I'm not listening.

I'm not focused.

And I say, Yeah. I'm sorry,
Did you say something, Taro?

And Taro says,

Hika, are you OK?
You seem to be distracted.

And you say that softly.

You know, are you OK? With a puzzled look.

Are you OK?
You seem to be distracted.

OK.

So he's seeing you,
You Hika, you seem to have stress..

You seem to have...

You seem to not be concentrating.

What's wrong?

It's a very nice way to ask someone this.
OK?

Let's work on pronunciation, so it's...

Are, are you OK?
Pause.

You seem ta be distracted.

You seem ta be distracted.

OK, you try.

OK, let's try it with my question.

I'm sorry, did you say something?

OK, were you able to get that?
OK, let's go on to homework.

Homework is simple.
I just want you to practice this phrase over and over again.

So next time we meet,
I'll say I'm sorry. Did you say something?

And you'll say, are you OK?
You seem to be distracted.

OK, so please try that for homework.
Thank you.