Hey,
I'm Anne Marie with Speak Confident English and I have a question for you.
If you're traveling for work and you've just had a successful business meeting
and after the meeting some of your partners invite you out to dinner,
how do you accept or decline that invitation or if it's the holiday season
and your neighbors invite you over for a dinner party or maybe they invite you
over for a backyard barbecue during the summer.
Again, how should you accept or decline that
invitation? That is exactly what we're going to
focus on in today's Confident English lesson. Now,
where I live, it's officially the holiday season and
that means we have so many events get togethers and invitations with
coworkers, family,
neighbors, and friends,
but of course we also get invitations for different events all throughout the
year. Maybe someone in your yoga class invites
you to a house warming party or maybe a parent at your child's school invites
you and your family over for dinner. I want you to know exactly how to
respond to those invitations in English. Whether you want to say yes or you need
to decline or say maybe today we're going to focus on really simple steps
and the language that you need to use so that you can respond to invitations
confidently and politely and English. Let's start with saying yes,
you've just received an invitation and you're super excited about it.
You definitely want to go, so here are three simple steps that you
need to properly accept the invitation and some phrases that native speakers
use to do this. Number one,
be sure to say thank you for the invitation and a couple of ways that you
can do that are: Thanks so much for the invite or thanks
for the invitation. That's so nice of you to think of us or
that sounds great. Step two is make it clear that you're
saying yes and here are a few great ways to do that.
Count me in or count us in. I'd love to come or I'll be there for
sure. Now a couple of weeks ago I did a lesson
with Kelly and we talked about how we make plans with friends and we compared
Australian English to American English, and we used a couple of expressions that
would be perfect here as well. For example,
I'm in or I'm down. Both of those mean yes,
I'm interested. And finally another fun one to use,
especially around the holiday season is I'll be there with bells on. Now this one is a really fun expression
and in the online lesson I've given you a to read more about that expression and
where it came from. Now after you've said thank you and made
it clear that you're saying yes, the third step is to confirm the
details, for example,
so I'll see you on the 10th or we'll see you Friday at seven.
Now it's not necessary, but it's always nice to also offer help.
So you could also ask something like, is there anything that I can bring or is
there anything I can do to help? And now you have three really easy steps
to follow to accept an invitation in English.
And here's how it might sound. If you put all three of those together,
for example, thank you so much.
That sounds great. I'll definitely see you Friday at seven
or thank you so much for thinking about us. We're really looking forward to your
holiday party. Will be there with bells on and please
let us know if we can bring anything. Now.
You can review all of those examples that I've just provided in the online
lesson and I'll include a link to that lesson below this video on youtube as
well. Now let's say you get an invitation and
you really do want to go, but you're not sure about the timing.
Maybe you've got something else scheduled and you're going to try to
move it. The truth is you can't commit yet,
so you need to say, maybe I've actually got a lesson on this
topic of how to better say yes, no,
and maybe, but I'll give you a quick overview now
when saying maybe it's definitely a good idea to start with a thank you for the
invitation and then say something like, I'm not sure if I can make it. Let me check my calendar and I'll get
back to you or perhaps I can reschedule something.
Let me see what I can do and then make sure that you definitely followup,
that you let them know for sure whether you're going to accept or decline the
invitation, and finally let's talk about saying no.
Now you might need to say no because you really can't go.
You've got something else scheduled or you might be out of town,
but you might also be saying no because you just don't want to go,
and that is totally okay. In both of those situations,
I've got four steps for you to follow to politely decline the invitation.
There are a few things that are really important with declining.
Be clear, be succinct and be polite.
So number one of course is first say thank you for the invitation.
That is always the best way to start. So again,
it could be a simple thank you or thanks so much for the invitation.
Thanks for thinking of me and then step two explain that you're not able to go,
but using an apologetic tone. What that means is using words like,
unfortunately, and I'm sorry,
here are a few examples. Unfortunately I'm not sure that I'll be
able to make it or unfortunately I can't make it.
I'm so sorry, but I don't think I'll be able to make
it work. I wish I could join you,
but. And then step three,
after you've politely declined with that apologetic tone,
you want to give a brief or succinct reason.
You don't need to give a lot of details or explain too much.
Just keep it simple. Here are few examples.
It's my sister's birthday on Saturday and my whole family is getting together.
We've already got plans that evening or our children have an event that day at
school and finally another one we're going to be out of town. Those are all really simple,
but they do provide a little bit of a reason for why you have to decline the
invitation. And then finally,
step four is to close with something positive.
For example, I hope you have a great time or I hope
it's a great event or we hope we can see you another time soon.
When you put those four easy steps together,
they sound something like this. Thank you so much for the invitation.
Unfortunately, I've already got an event that night.
My children have a program at school, but I really hope we can do it again
another time and here's another example that sounds like so much fun,
but unfortunately I have to say, no,
we're going to be out of town. Hopefully we can do it next time and
with that you've got easy to follow steps and the language that you need to
accept or decline an invitation in English. Now,
as always, I have a couple of challenge questions
for you. This is an opportunity for you to put
all of this together and get some practice.
Before I give you those questions. If you liked this video,
be sure to let me know and there are few ways that you can do that.
You can like this video on YouTube and subscribe to this channel so you never
miss a lesson. You can also share it with friends and
family on Facebook and you can share a comment at the end of this lesson and
answer. My challenge questions,
so here they are, number one,
someone you've recently met at a yoga studio is moving and they're inviting
the whole yoga class over for a house warming party and you definitely would
like to go, so how can you use this three strategies
we talked about to accept the invitation?
Number two, another parent at your child's school is
inviting some of the parents over for coffee one morning and she invited you
and you'd like to go, but you're really not sure it will work,
so you need to let her know maybe, you need to let her know that
you'll get back to her soon. How could you do that?
And finally, number three,
your neighbors are having a holiday party.
They do it every year and you're new to the neighborhood,
but you're traveling over the holidays. So you have to say no.
How could you do that? Politely?
Those are my three challenge questions for you.
You can share with me just below this video and use it as an opportunity to
practice what you've learned. Again,
you can find more examples of common phrases that we use to accept and
decline invitations in the online lesson.
Thank you so much for joining me this week and I look forward to seeing you
next time for your Confident English lesson.
