Tip 89 ”Oh my goodness!”　無料ビジネス英語学習

無料ビジネス英語学習 Words & Phrases 第89弾は、”Oh my goodness!” です。

驚いたときに思わず口にしてしまう一言に、”Oh my god!” という言葉がありますが、
実はこの表現はグローバルビジネスの中ではあまり使わない方が無難なんです。

例えば、デスクで仕事をしていたあなたに同僚が、

“Don’t you have a meeting now?”
「今、ミーティング中じゃないの？」と、ミーティングを忘れていたことを指摘された時に、
驚いたあなたが発する言葉としては、何というのが適切でしょうか。

“Oh may god!” と言うべきではない理由としては、
グローバルビジネスの中では、様々な文化、宗教の方と接することが考えられるため、
むやみに”God”「神」という言葉を使うべきではない、といった事情があります。

こんな時は、”god” の表現を”goodness”変えて、

“Oh my goodness!”
を使ってみてください。

これはどんな相手にでも幅広く使える表現で、とてもナチュラルです。
ぜひ覚えておいてください。

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

And today's phrase is maybe everyone knows
it's oh my goodness. OK.

And it's a simple phrase. I'm sure just about
everyone knows what this means.

It's you know, when you express surprise.
But the reason I put this in

today, I will talk about it in just a minute.
First, let's do our test.

I'm back from the convenience store,
I have some chocolate and I say,

here's the chocolate you requested
or you asked for. And you say...

I owe you one. You could say thank you.
But it's better to say I owe you one.

I will do something for you next time, thank you.
OK, I hope you got that.

Let's go on to today's phrase
oh my goodness. What does this mean?

Of course you know what it means right?
It's to express surprise.

So if I say to Taro,
Taro, don't you have a meeting now?

And Taro is like, and he says,
oh my God!

OK. Which of course, we all understand.
You've probably heard this before.

But, to be honest, some people will not
feel very good to hear oh my God. OK.

You shouldn't use the G word OK.
So, in a situation like this especially if it's a bad situation OK.

So, that's why we changed it to goodness.
It's another G word but it's not God you know.

So, just to protect yourself not to
offend other people, I would say this.

OK. So if I say,
don't you have a meeting now?

You could say, oh my goodness!
I'd better go.

It's much safer OK. Yeah. So when you use
that big G word, some people will gonna look

what? Who said that? So, try not to use it.
I know some foreigners use it too

but to be honest, some people feel a
little bit offended when they hear that OK.

OK. So use oh my goodness, much safer.
Pronunciation, just like that.

Oh my goodness!
You try.

OK with my question.
Don't you have a meeting now?

OK. You're surprised right?
OK, for homework.

So, I'm gonna say,
don't you have a meeting now?

And you just respond with,
oh my goodness,

in the next lesson. OK.
Thank you.