Learn English – How should I reply when I answer some question on Stack Exchange sites, people thank me and say it helped

phrase-usage

In order to be polite and answer in a social way I have had some hesitation to choose which phrase I should use.

  1. You are welcome. I'm glad it helped.
  2. You are welcome. I'm glad I could contribute.
  3. You are welcome. I'm glad that I could help.
  4. No problem. I'm happy that I could help.

If you have better phrases, please add, since it's fun to learn more.

Best Answer

All your examples are fine. I would offer the following advice to make it sound more natural to a native, however, the most important of which can be summarised by saying keep it short.

  • Shorten "You are welcome" to "You're welcome".
  • You don't necessarily need to say I'm in the follow-up sentences, as this is obvious to the reader from context. Saying something like "Happy to help" or "Glad it helped" is fine. In fact, if you use the word "I" or "me" too much, it can come across as being self-congratulatory/boastful/self-centered/self-important.
  • The simple acknowledgement of thanks is often sufficient ("You're welcome"), you don't necessarily also need to state your happiness for being helpful.
  • (Flagrantly stealing from Robusto's comment) You can often shorten "you're welcome" or "no problem" to the acronyms YW or NP.
  • Use exclamation marks or smiley faces to appear more jovial, e.g. "Happy to help!" or "You're welcome :)".
  • Contribute is probably more appropriate if it was a group effort, e.g. a discussion, otherwise, help is probably more appropriate. You can also use "to be of service" (e.g. "Glad to be of service"), but "help" is again probably more informal/generally appropriate.
  • If you don't know whether the OP has found something helpful yet, you can use "I hope" to indicate that you would like your contribution to be helpful. You could say something like "I hope you find it useful/helpful".
  • (Especially if you are Australian/speaking to an Aussie) You can use the phrase "No worries" in a similar way to "No problem".
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