Charlie Baxter

Some would even appreciate the efficiency.

Others might respect the directness.

But in Britain, they land with a tiny but impactful thud.

the other person if they're british will smile and nod and say no worries and quietly downgrade you in their mind forever and the worst part you'll never know about it

Welcome to the British English Podcast.

I'm Charlie, your host, and today I'm going to give you a three-step formula for leaving any conversation in British English without ever coming across as slightly socially awkward, robotic, memorised, or worst of all, rude.

And if you stick around till the end, I'll include a bonus tip about the one situation where you can break the formula entirely.

Right, let's get into it.

So the thing about Brits is that we are incredibly indirect, which you might well know by now, but this particular social rule might even catch Japanese people out.

And I say that because I understand that the Japanese culture is also indirect, but different in many little ways.

So when we leave a conversation, we don't just leave.

We have to do this weird little dance.

We have to make the other person think

feel like we'd love to stay.

But life is cruelly pulling us away from one another.

It's a tiny piece of social theatre, almost.

We're saying, I enjoyed this immensely.

I wish I could carry on.

But sadly, something more important than my free will is forcing me to go.

And if you skip that dance, you sound cold, you sound abrupt, you sound, dare I say it, a bit bloody rude.