 Hi students, it's Shayna, your teacher from EspressoEnglish.net and in today's lesson I want to teach you about a phrase that one of my students asked me about and that phrase is it can't hurt. This is an interesting expression when we're talking about it can't hurt. We are not really referring to physical pain. Usually when we use the word hurt we're saying oh my arm hurts or my leg hurts. We're talking about physical pain although hurt can also refer to emotional pain. But in this phrase it can't hurt. We're expressing something different. It can't hurt is used when your friend or whoever you're talking to is a little bit nervous or scared to do something. And then you want to show your friend that there won't be any negative consequences to doing this thing. So they just need to do it. For example let's say you have a friend who wants to join a singing group but in order to join this group she needs to audition. That means she needs to do a demonstration of her singing abilities in order to see if the group will accept her or not. And she's debating on whether or not to do this audition and you can tell her it can't hurt to try. Meaning you should try because there will be no negative consequences. It can't hurt to try. A very similar phrase is there's no harm in trying. The word harm refers to damage, injury, bad things happening. So another way to express this is there's no harm in trying. You're trying to convince the other person to do that thing that they're nervous about or that they're scared to do by telling them that there will be no negative consequences if they just do it. Now it can't hurt to try. We use the to form. It can't hurt to try and in the other phrase there's no harm in trying. We use the ing form. There's no harm in trying. And we can actually put other verbs in there too. For example, if your classmate wants to ask the teacher for an extension on a project he needs more time to finish it, but he's not sure if the teacher will say yes or no, you could tell him, well, there's no harm in asking. In other words, he should ask because the teacher might say yes, the teacher might say no, but there's no negative consequences just for asking. There's no harm in asking. And a third phrase that you can use in these types of situations is what have you got to lose? This is asking the person even more directly. What will be the negative consequence to you if you try this or if you do this? So in both situations the girl who wants to audition for the singing group and the guy who is thinking about asking for an extension, you could ask both of them, well, what have you got to lose? Because it means, again, that there will probably be no major negative consequences from this, so they should think about that fact and actually do what they are thinking of doing. And when we say this in fast-spoken English it sounds like what have you got to lose or what have you got to lose? That word have actually gets reduced and shortened when we say it fast. So when you're speaking fast you can say, what have you got to lose? I hope this lesson helped you understand these three phrases and when to use them. And you might be thinking about joining my everyday English speaking course, which focuses on what to say in different situations that you might encounter in daily life, traveling, socializing, and so on. In order to help you make your decision I've made some free sample lessons available so you can take those by clicking on the link in this video or in the video description. There's no harm in trying, what have you got to lose? Go ahead and take the free sample lessons and then if you like them you can join the full everyday English speaking course.