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English compliments to get you on anyone’s good side!

In some cultures, flattery may not get you anywhere, but in English-speaking countries, you might find that a simple compliment will take you a long ways. It doesn’t take much, so keep on reading for a few easy and guaranteed ways to get on people’s good side.

Finding the right compliment actually isn’t as difficult as it seems. A little sensitivity, intuition and observation and you’ll be everyone’s favorite person in no time.

The easiest praise to deliver is object-related. For example, while amongst friends, you can adopt a casual tone and drop compliments such as “I like your shoes” or “Nice haircut”. You can’t fail with one of these and often they can serve as good conversation starters in social situations as well. Just find an interesting object or thing to focus on and then concentrate on the delivery.

In business situations, compliments never hurt either. If one of your colleagues or teammates has done a good job on a project, why not let them know what a great contribution they’ve made. Simply use a positive adjective with a work-related term and your work compliment is all ready. An occasional “great job!”, “nice effort!” or “good work” will work wonders for maintaining productive work relationships.

In cases where you struggle to find something nice to say, think twice before saying something you may regret later. For example, if someone is wearing an extremely unflattering outfit, don’t tell them how bad it looks right away. Instead, start by saying something like “that dress looks really nice”, and then launch into your true opinion “…but the black pants you wore last week were really, really amazing, you should wear them more often.”

Lastly, one word of precaution for your future compliment endeavors: try to avoid certain sensitive topics such as weight or physical attributes. Even with the best intentions, these types of compliments might be misinterpreted. The last thing you want to do is congratulate someone on their impending pregnancy only to find out the extra curves are due to a few unwelcome pounds picked up over the past few months.

Again, focus on inanimate objects or things and most likely your flattery will be well received. Of course, a little sincerity in the delivery always helps and may just win you a compliment yourself one of these days!