How to Say NO English Conversation Pronunciation Skills
I’m Emma from mmmEnglish
and today we’re going to practise some different ways
of saying ‘no’ in English.
Absolutely not!
What? Hell no!
I’m afraid I can’t!
Not in a million years!
I’m all good thanks!
No way!
Forget it!
Yeah right!
I’m afraid that’s not possible!
Nah!
I’d love to, but I can’t.
It’s just not possible.
Fat chance!
Yeah, there are lots of different ways
to say ‘no’ in English.
Can you think of any others?
I’m sure you can think of more!
Write them in the comments below this video.
Saying no can sometimes be a difficult thing to do
even in your own native language.
I don’t like saying no either.
I don’t like refusing someone,
I don’t want to hurt their feelings.
But saying no is a part of life, we say no in so many
different ways, at different times of the day.
And when you’re learning a language, understanding
the nuances of context and tone and body language
are so, so important.
It’s so important that you get your message across
clearly
without offending someone accidentally.
Because it’s quite easy to say no in the wrong way
in English.
And today I’m going to show you a whole lot of
different ways to say no, some casual and relaxed,
some formal and more polite,
and some rude ones which,
I think you should try to avoid.
Now before we start saying no,
I really want you to think about saying yes
to the Lingoda Language Marathon.
I’ve just registered yesterday!
I spent a week trying to find reasons why I shouldn’t.
No I’m too busy or
I’m going on holidays right in the middle of it.
But then I bit the bullet.
I said yes to the full marathon.
If you haven’t heard about
the Lingoda Language Marathon,
I explain everything in detail up here.
But let’s be real,
if I’m going to make it through ninety days
of language lessons, I’m going to need your support.
So I’ve created a popup Facebook group
that’s just for mmmEnglish students who’ve also
signed up to the Lingoda Language Marathon.
This group is so that we can support each other
through the marathon, for three months and hopefully,
we can all complete the marathon
and get our full refund!
If you want to join the marathon
and take the challenge with me,
then use the link and the instructions
in the description below
and then come find the Facebook group
The Lingoda mmmMarathon.
All right today we’re going to talk about
a whole bunch of ways to say no in English.
Not only are the words that you choose important,
when you say no but also
your tone of voice and the way that you say those words
is also equally as important.
Sometimes you really need to say no politely
so that you don’t offend someone.
And other times you need to be a little more forceful,
you need to use a bit of attitude.
You’ll see this dial up here to show you
how rude or how polite the expression is
all the way through this video, all right?
And we’re going to practise saying
each of these expressions together naturally
so that you can make sure you’re saying no
the right way.
Hello?
Thank you so much for inviting me.
I really would love to go, but I can’t make it today.
I’ve just got too much on.
That was a really polite way to say no to someone,
to decline an offer from them.
Firstly, you’re saying that you really like
the sound of the idea, you’d love to do it,
but
then you’re adding a ‘but’ and you’re explaining
that you can’t.
All right? So it’s quite a polite way of saying no.
You’re saying
Now there’s quite a bit of flexibility in this expression.
You can replace the verb ‘go’ with any verb.
So you’re politely turning down someone’s offer.
And if you’re responding to something that someone
said, you don’t even need to use the verb at all
because the action has actually
already been made clear when they asked you.
The action’s ‘hang out’
So you don’t always need to include the verb.
Another way to express the same feeling is to say
And all of these examples are polite ways of saying
no to someone.
You know when you genuinely do wish that you could
accept their invitation, that you could actually go,
but you have to say no.
But also, this expression is
really useful for those times when
someone’s inviting you to something and you
really want to go.
Maybe you don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings
or make them feel bad
by telling them that you don’t want to go.
So this is a useful expression
if you’re talking to someone that you care about
or someone that you respect.
You could either use it on a friend who you love
and you don’t want to disappoint
or your boss or a client
who you need to treat with respect.
So it’s quite versatile like that.
By being quite polite it’s also a little formal.
Now let’s talk about how to say this.
So when spoken, ‘I’ and ‘would’ are usually contracted.
They’re spoken together.
It’s a little more natural to say ‘I’d’
instead of ‘I would’
so you’ll hear most native speakers say this.
And ‘love’ is a stressed word in this sentence.
So it’s said very clearly.
‘to’ is unstressed so the sound reduces down
to the schwa.
And then, the main verb is stressed.
And don’t overlook the importance of the comma here.
You need to pause because the pause is very important.
So hear how those sounds reduce,
‘but’ becomes
I’m going to need you to come into work on Sunday,
okay?
On Sunday?
I’m afraid I can’t,
I’ve got my parents visiting from interstate.
This one is a little more confusing because
usually we think of the word ‘afraid’
as being scared.
But we’re not scared in this situation,
we just need to say no in a more formal
and respectful way.
means I’m sorry to tell you that I can’t.
Or I wish I could help you but I can’t.
This expression is often used in more formal situations
when you need to decline an invitation or a request
from someone important
like your boss or another colleague.
So it’s perfect to use this expression
in a professional context
where you need to answer someone respectfully
but you need to make it clear that you
cannot do something.
Now compare this to our previous expression here
we’re suggesting that we’d really like to do it.
Maybe just maybe,
there’s a way that you can convince me to do it.
But now, we’re actually
being quite forceful and direct.
means that you really actually can’t do it.
You don’t have any interest in trying to make it happen.
I have to work the night shift.
Let’s focus on the pronunciation for a moment.
The contraction, ‘I’m’ is unstressed
so when it’s spoken by a native speaker,
it’s very weak, you may just hear
or
So that contracted sound really just becomes
the consonant only.
Hey Em, I’m going to grab a coffee, do you want one?
It’s not that this phrase is rude but
this is quite informal language.
Believe it or not,
in some contexts, all of these expressions
are informal ways of saying no thanks.
So all of these expressions are common
especially when you’re talking to friends or family
or coworkers
in a casual context.
They’re commonly used
when someone offers you something.
And less commonly used as a way to
respond to an invitation, so I wouldn’t say
Right? But I would say
If someone offers you a ride to work,
but you’d rather walk, you might say
Or if you’re Australian or you’re talking to an Australian
Now I know that some of you are living in
English-speaking countries, and this expression
is a useful one to know
if you are working in a restaurant
and you have the situation where you’re
asking a customer if they want to order
more food or drinks and they say
Well it would be really good to know what that means,
right?
It means no thanks.
It’s a little confusing.
Have you ever had a native speaker say something
like this to you and you’ve been
completely confused by it?
If you have, I’d love to hear about it.
Tell me in the comments, tell me what happened
when you were completely confused.
Now these phrases are often followed by
‘thanks though’ or ‘thanks anyway’
Adding ‘thanks though’ just helps to soften
the expression a little bit and show the person
that you appreciate the offer
but you’re not interested.
So it’s a little more polite.
Now I want to highlight
how native speakers will say these words because
when they come out, they usually sound a bit
blurry.
Again, the unstressed contraction
reduces down here and we hardly hear it!
And because we had a consonant sound
at the end of ‘I’m’,
in natural pronunciation, we link that consonant sound
to the vowel sound following.
And this is a really common feature in
naturally spoken English.
Native speakers will do this all the time.
This lesson here will explain how consonant sounds
link to vowel sounds in spoken English.
So you can check it out
if you want to learn more about it.
But again, sometimes
the tiny little vowel sound just disappears
and it just sounds like
Most importantly for you though is how to
hear and recognise these really common
casual expressions. So when you hear these sort of
muffled expressions,
recognise them as people saying no thanks.
Okay now I want you to think about a situation
where you need to say no
but in a stronger way.
Like when there’s no option to negotiate.
The answer is just no, right?
Like when you’ve worked twelve hours straight
every day for the last two weeks
and your colleague comes up to you and says
You need to be quite forceful, right?
And say something like
I’m spending the day with my family tomorrow.
So ‘absolutely not’ is a strong way of saying no.
You’re saying there is zero possibility
that I’ll change my mind about this and say yes, right?
Like if you just got married and your
new husband or wife’s best friend asked if they could
come with you on the honeymoon.
But even though ‘absolutely not’ is strong,
maybe even a little harsh,
it’s not necessarily rude, right?
And there are a few other ways to say no in a firm way.
We can say that the idea is
Or we could say
And these expressions are similar in strength
and in meaning but these are also quite
serious and more formal expressions.
Are you kidding me?
All right, let’s change the tone a little.
We want to clearly say no still
but we want to say it in a less serious way.
Like if your brother said
Now all of these expressions
are a little softer because they’re funny,
they kind of make the situation lighter.
Now all of these phrases that I’ve just introduced
are firm and strong.
But there are some that are appropriate in formal
situations and some that aren’t.
So
and
are okay for friends and family,
informal situations
or when someone’s driving you crazy.
And
and
they’re sort of a bit more formal.
All right so let’s take it one step further.
What? You want me to write your assignment for you?
Fat chance!
Like the previous situations, I’m definitely
one hundred percent saying no there.
But this time I’m responding with sarcasm.
Now sarcasm is a type of humour in English
where we criticise someone or something
in a way that’s
quite funny for others but a bit annoying or maybe even
embarrassing to the person that you’re criticising.
So saying no in a sarcastic way can be rude.
It can sometimes be funny but you need to be extremely
careful about how you use it
because it’s very easy to offend someone.
Now there are a lot of different ways to say no
in a sarcastic way.
Like
Can you think of any others?
Now all of these expressions are used quite similarly
so in a situation when
someone asks you a favour that’s too big
or too ridiculous.
Or maybe they’re just annoying you by asking it.
But you do need to be careful about
how you’re using these expressions.
If you’re joking around, they can be really fun.
When they’re used in the wrong context,
like if your boss came into your office and said
“I need that report finished by the end of the day”
don’t say “Fat chance!”
Unless you want to be fired!
Right
so I introduced a whole lot of different ways of saying
no in English
and how important it is to learn how to say no
in the right way.
And I’m sure you’ve heard of many of those expressions
before but if there were some new ones
that you learnt today, then tell me about them
in the comments.
Make sure you write about a situation
where you think it might be appropriate to use
that new expression.
I’m going to go down and check out
all of those comments once this lesson’s finished.
If you’ve got any questions about saying no in English
then drop them in the comments below this video
and make sure you hit the subscribe button
if you haven’t already, just to show me that you support
what I do here at mmmEnglish.
You might be interested in this lesson here
where I’ll teach you some useful expressions to help you
cancel your plans in English or
here’s another one that I think you’ll enjoy.
I’ll see you in there!