Complaining: How Did You Feel?
| This entry is part of the Complaining in English series. You can find more vocabulary there. This entry is available as a Adobe Acrobat file for printing or use in a class.This entry is spoken, so that you can listen to it while you read. (MP3) |
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I have never met a student who didn’t have bad experiences with a service or product of some kind. We’ve all had these experiences, and when something like this happens, most of us are ready to explode: we want to scream at someone, or maybe just to cry. No matter what you feel, it’s natural to want to tell someone else how we’re feeling.
If you have a bad experience somewhere where you have to communicate about it in English, what are you going to say? Did your English class include a lesson on bad experiences?
Today you’re going to learn some vocabulary that I hope you never need.
When ‘Angry’ Isn’t Enough
The word ‘angry’ means that you’re not happy. But you’re not sad, either. Something has happened that you didn’t want to happen, and now you’re angry. Angry is how you feel when your children do what you don’t want them to: maybe they eat food you told them not to. (I did that a lot when I was a child.)
But ‘angry’ is a pretty normal feeling. If you’re more than angry at someone, it’s good to have the vocabulary to describe it.
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If you’re so angry that you can’t think right anymore, you’re enraged. If your face starts turning red and you can’t even think in full sentences, you were enraged. In a cartoon, steam comes out of a person’s ears when he’s enraged.
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One step below enraged is furious. If you’re so angry that you do things you shouldn’t do—or maybe say something you should say—then you’re furious. I think the worst my parents ever felt about me was furious: when I didn’t bring their car back when I said I would.
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There’s a slang word for angry, of course. In the U.S., we say we’re pissed off. Of course, because it’s slang, there’s no really exact meaning for how angry you are. If your child breaks something, you might say “I was pissed off about it.” (Though, it’s not the kind of English I recommend you use in front of your child.) And if your child drives your car into your house, well, then you’re really pissed off. Or maybe extremely pissed off. Talk to an American long enough, and you’ll hear the words pissed off.
You’re Not Just Angry, You’re. . .
I think that anger is the first feeling most people associate with a complaint—or maybe it’s only the first feeling I associate with a complaint—but there are other things you’ll feel, too. Here are some other feelings you’ve probably felt before, even if you didn’t know the names in English:
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Most English learners know what it is to be frustrated, or to feel frustration. Frustration is the feeling you have when you’re doing everything right, and something still isn’t working. Think about grammar: we’ve all had the experience where we think we understand something. . . and then the teacher tells you “No, that’s not how we use the word. . .” When that happens, you feel frustrated. When you call a customer service telephone number and they make you wait—while you’re paying for the call—you might feel frustrated. Or, when the salesman tells you that something is under guarantee. . . but the customer service people tell you it isn’t . . . well, I’d feel some frustration. (‘Frustration‘ is the noun, ‘frustrated‘ is the adjective.)
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One of the feelings I really don’t like is when I’m excited about going to a new restaurant. Maybe my students have told me about it, and I’m happy all week about the idea of eating really great food on Friday. Then, Friday comes and the food and service my students told was so great is just terrible! Then I’m disappointed, or I feel disappointment. Disappointment is a common feeling when you spend money and don’t get what you expected. I know that I’m normally very excited about what I pay for. . . if I don’t get what I expected, I’m as much disappointed as I am angry.
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Humiliation is, I think, the worst thing that a person can make another person feel. When someone makes you feel stupid, or like you’re worse less than they are, they make you feel humiliated. This is especially true if they do this in front of other people. Humiliation is one step higher than embarrassment. You’re embarrassed when you make a mistake in front of other people. You’re humiliated when some one else makes jokes about your mistakes in front of other people.
Practice These Words!
Have you felt any of these things before? Tell us when! Write a comment using these words in context. An example might be: “I was really disappointed when I went to a movie I thought would be good and it wasn’t.”
If you don’t want to write comments, I understand that. Still, I think that it’s a good idea for you to take some time to make sentences with the words that are new to you. And, if you use them in ‘real’ sentences (sentences about things that really happened to you) I think you’ll learn them faster.
