It's actually important not to forget to say MashaAllah/SubhanAllah when we praise someone as in truth the one that deserves all praise is Allah. That said though, praising people has it's limits. Sometimes you have to be careful not to praise people as you might ruin their sincerity. I think there is a hadith in which someone praise Sayyidina Umar (ra) and in response he picked up some mud and threw it at the person. Reason being that praise can actually hurt someone. Unfortunately I don't have the hadith reference to place here.
At this point in time, I am using the following approach.
1. If you want to praise someone for their religious devotion in acts that are between Allah and the person, e.g salah, etc. say MashaAllah, TabarakAllah...
2. If you want to praise someone for how they deal with people, dont say anything, encourage them by actions that reinforce their good behaviors, e.g. by being nice to them in turn, etc.
3. Praising people in front of their face is not a good idea, it sometimes makes them conscious of what they are doing, unless you want to help someone suffering from low confidence, but be subtle and artful.
The above approach seems to give better results than my previous attempts, but I still have a lot to learn.
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