Talking about pros and cons in English

In my last article, I talked about the pros and cons of different workplaces, so today I’d like to share some vocabulary that you can use to talk about the pros and cons of something in English.

The word pro refers to a good thing - a benefit, advantage, plus or upside.

The word con refers to a bad thing - a detriment, disadvantage, minus, downside, or drawback.

As you can see by all the synonyms, there are many nouns that you can use to talk about good things and bad things. You can also simply refer to them as the good and the bad (in this case, the words good and bad are nouns).

To connect these nouns to the thing you’re talking about, you can use the preposition of, as in “The downsides of my job are the long hours and the unpredictable schedule” (be sure to use an appropriate verb - the downside is… / the downsides are…).

Sometimes, you may want to say just how good or bad something is, and in this case you can place an adjective like big, huge, small, tiny, significant, or considerable before the noun, as in “One tiny disadvantage is…” or “The most significant downside was…”

Of course, you can also use an adjective with the word thing (or part) to refer to pros and cons, as in “The nice thing is that we get to learn something new every day” or “The worst thing was having to commute to work during rush hour.” As you can see in the example, a “that” noun clause or a gerund can be used to complete the sentence.

The words upside and downside can also be used in the phrase on the upside / downside, which is commonly placed at the beginning of a sentence, as in “On the upside, working from home gives me more free time.” This phrase is often used to contrast the pros and cons of a thing or situation.

Finally, another way to contrast pros and cons is to say that one outweighs the other. If the pros outweigh the cons, the thing is good overall despite its drawbacks, but if the cons outweigh the pros, the thing is bad overall despite its upsides.

Well, I think that should be enough vocabulary for now, and I do hope that it will help you to talk about and contrast the pros and cons of things in your own life in English!