How to Express Disbelief in English

Do you ever have it where someone tells you something

and you're not quite sure they're telling you the truth,

you don't believe what they're saying?

Well, in this English lesson,

I'll teach you eight different ways to express that feeling

and it's called disbelief.

So you'll learn eight different ways

to express disbelief in English.

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For each of the phrases I'm going to teach you,

I'll start by describing a situation.

So for the first phrase you can use to express disbelief,

imagine that Jen says to me, "The van is out of gas."

If I doubt what Jen is saying,

if I don't believe what she's saying,

I could respond by saying, "You sure?"

A simple two word question, "You sure?"

This means that even though Jen has just told me

that the van is out of gas,

for some reason I don't think it's true

and so I respond by saying, "You sure?"

Jen will probably then respond and say,

"Yes, I just drove the van. It's definitely out of gas."

And then of course I'll believe her,

and then I'll go and buy some gas.

For this next phrase that I'm going to teach you,

imagine a friend of yours says,

"I went to the World Cup and I saw the finals live.

I was in the stadium."

The best way to respond if you want to express disbelief

would be to use the English phrase, "No way!"

If a friend of mine said,

"I went to the World Cup and I saw the finals live,"

I would say, "No way!"

I would not believe them.

If I told you that I went skydiving last weekend,

many of you know that I'm afraid of heights

and I would never go skydiving,

you would probably not believe me.

And a good phrase to use would be to say, "No way!

No way, Bob. There's no way that you went skydiving."

So another little two word phrase you can use

to express disbelief in English is to simply say, "No way."

A very formal way to express disbelief in English

is to say, "I find that hard to believe."

I'm even saying it in kind of a formal way,

"I find that hard to believe."

Maybe you're in a meeting at work and someone says,

"Sales will be down in 2023.

The year coming up

is not going to be a good year for sales."

If you knew that sales were probably gonna be good,

you might say, "I find that hard to believe,

and here's why."

And then you would explain why.

So in a formal situation,

if you have trouble believing what someone's saying,

you can use the phrase, "I find that hard to believe."

For this next phrase, imagine a friend calls you and says,

"I won the lottery. I won a million dollars."

You would probably respond with one of these two phrases.

You might say, "Get out,

which doesn't mean you want them to leave

because they're not even in the same place as you,

you're on the phone with them.

Or you could say, "Get outta here."

Both of these phrases are used to express disbelief

when someone tells you something like that.

If a friend of mine phoned and said,

"I won the lottery. I won a million dollars,"

I would definitely say, "Get out,"

or, "Get outta here" to express my disbelief.

This next way of expressing disbelief

is actually three different ways.

Let's say someone said,

"They aren't going to make any more Marvel movies.

No more Captain America, no more Ironman.

They are going to stop making those movies,"

I would probably ask one of these three questions.

I would say, "Who told you that?"

or, "Where did you read that?" or "Where did you hear that?"

I'm not believing what the person's saying,

and so I'm asking to find out

where they got the information from.

And so those are the most common questions.

Either they were talking to someone,

so, "Who told you that?"

Or they read it online or in a newspaper,

"Where did you read that?"

Or maybe they heard it on the radio

or when they were watching the news,

"Where did you hear that?"

So a way to express disbelief

when someone tells you something like that

is to ask one of those three questions.

Another way to express disbelief in English

is to simply use the one word question, "Really?"

For this, let's imagine you have an aunt.

Her name is Sally, and she's really nice.

When you go to visit, you have tea and cookies.

She never does anything wrong. She is a really nice person.

If someone in your family said, "Aunt Sally got arrested,"

you would probably ask that question

because you wouldn't believe that.

You would say, "Really, what happened?

Really, I don't believe it?"

So a simple way to express disbelief in English

is to simply ask the one word question, "Really?"

So if you look behind me,

you'll notice that the front tire of my van

has a silver hubcap,

but the back tire doesn't have a hubcap.

We lost the hubcap.

When I told Jen, "The red van is missing a hubcap,"

she did not believe me.

Her response was to say, "You gotta be kidding me."

When you say, "You gotta be kidding me," in English,

what you're saying is, "Are you telling me a joke?

Are you just saying this because you think it's funny?

Because I don't believe what you're saying."

But I wasn't joking.

There's definitely a hubcap missing from that wheel,

and we'll have to see if we can find it or buy a new one.

But when Jen expressed disbelief,

she simply used the English phrase,

"You gotta be kidding me."

This last way of expressing disbelief is to simply say,

"I don't believe you."

Now, adults normally don't say this to each other

because it's very direct

and it can also seem a little bit rude,

but it's definitely used by parents

when talking to their children.

If one of my kids came up to me and told me something

that I didn't think was true,

I would probably just say, "I don't believe you."

I wouldn't try to say it in any other way

because I want to be clear

and I want to be direct as a parent so that they know

that I don't believe what they're telling me.

So one last way to express disbelief in English

is to simply use the phrase, "I don't believe you."

Well, thank you so much for watching this lesson

about how to express disbelief in English.

I hope one, or two, or all of the phrases

are useful for you in a future English conversation.

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helped you learn a bit more English.

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why don't you stick around and watch another English lesson.

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