Hi students, it’s Shayna, from EspressoEnglish.net and today I’m going to teach you three phrases that use the word yourself. The first phrase is: “make yourself at home.” This is a phrase we use when receiving visitors at home.
When somebody comes to your house, you can say “make yourself at home.” It’s a way to tell that person to relax, to sit down, be comfortable, be more informal, and act as if that person were in their own home. So, to greet your visitors, you can say, “Come on in, and make yourself at home.”
The second phrase is: “help yourself.” This is also often used when you have visitors. “Help yourself” means you can take what you want without asking permission.
For example, if a friend is at your house, and they say that they are thirsty, you can say, “There’s soda in the fridge, help yourself.” That means they can go into your kitchen and get the soda and take as much as they want. So, “help yourself” is a way to offer things to somebody and say that that person can take or use as much as they want.
Now, the third phrase is a little bit different, it’s: “suit yourself.” What does this mean? “Suit yourself” is used when somebody else makes a decision about something that they want or a particular way that they want to do things, and you don’t necessarily agree, but you recognize that they have decided that that’s the best way for them.
Let me give you an example; let’s say you want to go to a party, and you want your sister to go with you to the party, so you say, “Come on, let’s go to the party, it’s gonna be a lot of fun!” and she says, “No, I think I’m going to stay in tonight”, and you try to convince her: “All our friends are gonna be there, there will be great music and great food, let’s go!”
But she says “No, I’m really tired from work, I’d rather stay home.” You can respond: “Well, suit yourself, but I’m going to have a great time.” So, “suit yourself” means I recognize that you have decided to do things your way, even if I don’t agree with it, but I won’t argue anymore, or try to convince you.
So that’s 3 phrases with the word yourself; “make yourself at home” to greet visitors and tell them to relax when they’re visiting your home, “help yourself” to tell somebody that they can take what they want without asking specific permission from you, and “suit yourself,” which is a way to recognize other peoples decisions, even if you don’t necessarily agree with them.
Tomorrow I’ll be back with more phrases in our February phrases video series – talk to you then!
You’ll learn hundreds of conversational English expressions in this course:
