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hi everyone welcome back to advanced
english
greg and md here nice to see you all
hello hello so today's topic
is all about politely declining
an invitation in other words how do you
say
no when you either can't
make that event
or outing or if you don't want to and
you want to find a way out of it and say
no how do you do that in a nice way
[Music]
yeah that's a very very helpful tool to
have in your tool kit
because you know particularly
as we get better uh
at the language that we're learning um
the more opportunities we have to do
things
that's true right and so we get more and
more invitations to do things
um and being able to politely decline
protects your time uh while also
uh ensuring that you keep the
relationships that you have healthy
exactly that's a really good point right
we want to make sure that we keep the
friends we have
and not alienate them by always saying
no
right right all right so we're ready to
jump into this
yeah what do we have all right so the
first thing
is not to apologize right just i want to
preface it with that
there's no need we did a lesson before
on over apologizing
and saying sorry you don't need to be
sorry
right okay so that's one thing right we
don't need to be sorry if we can't make
something
right if they're trying to invite us
yeah and and to be clear
uh this is something that happens a lot
or that we hear people
say a lot right i'm sorry uh i can't
make that yeah uh i'm sorry uh
that won't work for me right the the i'm
sorry part is what we're talking about
it's that
apology that isn't actually necessary
yeah
so so that's a good sort of you know
rule of thumb
to have when you're really when you're
going into these kinds of things and
keep the apologies for the times when
you need to apologize
so with saying no tell them that you
have plans right tell them that you
you could say something like i would
love to but
right if indeed you are if you do want
to do that at some point for example
if greg is inviting me out to dinner
and i really want to at some point but i
don't have the time i already have plans
then i would say i would love to but i
can't do this friday
would next week work right giving them
an alternative
for example yeah i would love to but
it's yeah it's a very powerful phrase
um because it shows your interest yeah
um
but then clearly states that it's not an
option at least this time around
exactly and you're not like completely
um what's the word like you're not
telling them that in the future right
you're not completely rejecting it
exactly that this wouldn't be a
possibility for another time
yep so that's a good one um don't
feel pressure to give an elaborate
explanation
sometimes when people ask us uh
something or like to go out somewhere
and we can't do it or we don't want to
do it we feel badly
and then we try to come up with this
long
elaborate explanation as to why
we can't do it yeah right oh you know i
really i have a lot of laundry i have to
feed
my dogs and then i have a lot of
homework to do
or i have a lot of business proposals to
uh write i don't know why you would
write so many at one time but
you might um so there's no need to go
into all this detail about why you can't
do it
yeah it's it's always good practice to
keep things
short and simple um the more excuses you
give
the more it sounds like maybe you're not
being honest
or uh that you have something to hide
right
people respect it when you keep it short
so just saying
you know i can't make that this time
around uh
maybe next week and not explaining why
that that just helps keep the
conversation
on track and it prevents you from saying
something that maybe you didn't want to
say
or don't feel comfortable saying and it
prevents them
from probing more and trying to convince
you to do whatever it is they invited
you to do
right like it prevents them from talking
you
into it yeah right forcing you to change
your mind or your plans
trying to be convincing right to talk
you
into something or talk you out of
something right
so the other thing you can do is provide
an alternative
so that you know let's say you are busy
the next two weekends you can say if you
want to
spend time with this person you can
invite them to something
or suggest an alternative let's say they
want to play mini golf
you don't have time so you say i'm free
on this date can we agree on that date
are you
free at that time yeah i love that
basically a counter invitation
it's almost building on the first
suggestion that you gave which is
um i'm sorry i'd love to but because
this is proving by by inviting them
into something new um at a different
time
it really shows that you're genuine
about wanting to spend time with them
wanting to do whatever it is they
invited
exactly um and maybe what they asked was
not something you wanted to do
but you do want to spend time with them
right this is an opportunity to present
an alternative
that you are more comfortable doing yeah
so again what it reinforces is
this relationship this person is
important to you
and that you would do something with
them
if the time were different or the
activity were different so by proposing
it you put something forward
that you're comfortable doing um that
you're excited about doing
with them so they're happy you're happy
i
i love that as a strategy so it's a
win-win yeah it's a win-win
definitely and the last thing is you
know be honest right if it's something
where
you just don't feel comfortable doing it
or you
don't know how to do that type of
activity let's say they invite you for
skiing and you just you don't know how
to ski and you don't really feel like
learning at that time because you've
other stuff on your plate then you can
say
i'm i don't know how to ski um at some
point i'm thinking about learning
but thank you for the invitation and
then you can propose a
counter invitation for another time yeah
there's nothing wrong with being upfront
about something yeah the more
the more honest people are with me the
more i actually like them even if it's
because
even if they're presenting their honesty
in the form of rejecting me yeah
because uh it just shows that they speak
their mind that they have nothing to
hide
yeah so i i completely agree with that
right
um by by being upfront about
um you know a reason why you might not
want to do something
it kind of it puts some closure on the
conversation
um it shows you're not trying to make up
something yeah
um and uh and it you know it just it
just i
i think creates a much cleaner and
crisper conversation
yeah yeah so try those out the next time
you
don't want to do something or you can't
do something
and let us know how it goes figure out
what the best
strategy is for you based on the amount
of
invitations you get you might be super
popular and get a lot of invitations
and don't be afraid to say no and greg
touched on it earlier
about protecting your time yeah right
because time is something that we can't
get back
we can't buy more of so you know
definitely don't feel the pressure to
accept an invitation that you don't want
to
or you don't feel like doing at that
time there's nothing wrong with that
right yeah that's great so
thanks for joining us and uh we look
forward to having you in our next
conversation about whatever it is we
discuss
yeah stay tuned keep it right here on
advanced english and we'll see you soon
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