Interruptions in English — How to Respond

Hey, it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English.

This is exactly where you want to be every week to get the confidence you want

for your life and work in English. Let's talk about interruptions.

A couple of years ago, I did a lesson on how to politely interrupt in English,

but what should you do when someone interrupts you?

If you're like me, on a good day,

when you feel absolutely clear and confident about what you want to say,

when you're fully prepared, an interruption can be disruptive,

but it's manageable.

You may briefly lose your train of thought and then need to continue what you

were saying was something like, Oh, what was I saying again? Oh yeah,

let me continue. But in the worst of situations,

an interruption can be rude, hurtful,

and it may even derail you. If you're derailed,

it means you're completely off balance or off track.

You've lost your composure and you may even just shut down or stop talking.

So how can you best handle those situations when they happen in English?

What can you say to make sure that you have the opportunity to finish your

thoughts?

That's exactly what you're going to learn in today's Confident English lesson.

We're going to focus on three things. Number one,

how to identify why interruptions happen because the truth

is not, all of them are bad and,

depending on why the interruption happened,

your response might change. Number two,

how exactly should you respond?

And I'll give you examples you can use in a variety of situations.

And then finally, number three,

how to avoid interruptions so they don't happen in the first place.

Let's start right away with a focus on why, why do interruptions happen?

You've had enough conversations in your native language and in English to know

that interruptions happen for a variety of reasons. For example,

someone might need to deliver an emergency message to you,

add a point or join the conversation,

request clarification, interject to show agreement,

surprise, or some other strong emotion,

or they may simply be interrupting out of rudeness or

to cut you off. That's a great phrasal verb to know,

to cut someone off means to rudely interrupt and prevent someone

from speaking.

So if you accidentally cut someone off a great

way to respond after you do that is to say, I'm so sorry I cut you off.

I didn't mean to please continue. But when this happens to you,

when someone interrupts for one of these reasons,

we have to understand the interruption before we can decide

how to best respond. For example, when someone interjects,

it's usually a brief but supportive interruption,

you might hear someone say, Oh, I totally agree. Oh my gosh,

are you serious? I can't believe it.

But what if someone interrupts you with something like, sorry,

I don't understand what you mean.

That interruption is really a request for clarification.

And with that kind of interruption,

you're obligated to stop sharing your thoughts and instead

focus on clarifying your meaning before you continue. Of course,

the most difficult situations is when someone blatantly interrupts you with

something like that's enough, we've got it. Or, Oh,

let me jump in. I want to share something or they just start talking.

They talk over you,

which means they speak more loudly and try again to cut you off.

So when one of those things happens when you're interrupted and you

will be because that's what happens when we have conversations with other

people, how can you respond?

Let's go over five different options that you have depending on

why, why the interruption happened.

Option number one is to just let it go.

What that means is to allow the interruption,

stop talking and let the other person speak.

I don't think this is the best solution,

but sometimes we just don't feel comfortable addressing the

interruption. And we just let it go. In English,

we have the expression, choose your battles.

What that means is to be selective about which problems or arguments you become

involved in.

And there may be interruptions that happen and it's just not worth fighting

about or dealing with. So you let it go.

That is always up to you. And again,

you get to decide when you want to respond using one of the next four

options, or just let it go. Option number two,

when someone interrupts you,

particularly if they're jumping into a conversation and cutting you off,

you can simply keep talking. And when you do that,

you can use a simple hand gesture or some kind of body language to indicate

that you're not finished and they need to wait.

You could also address the interruption by saying something like one moment I'm

not finished, or just a moment. Let me finish. Hold on.

I'm just about finished or let me finish my thought.

But what you're doing is making the decision to keep talking.

Option number three,

when you're interrupted is to clarify and continue. Of course,

this one is specific for those situations when someone is interrupting you

because they need clarification.

You don't want to lose your listeners.

You want them to follow what you're saying.

And there may be times when you need to explain or rephrase

something. So when that happens,

you might pause what you're saying, rephrase it,

or give an example and then confirm that it was clarified.

We usually ask something like, did I answer your question?

Does that make sense? And if so,

then you can continue or go back to your point by saying something like, great,

so as I was saying. Or perfect,

let's go back to what I was saying. Now, if you forgot what you were saying,

if that interruption distracted you and you lost your train of thought,

we usually say something like, so what was I saying again?

And hopefully someone else can remind you option. Number four,

when someone interrupts you in English is to acknowledge the value of what

someone is saying or their value of their ideas,

and return back to your topic.

There are times when someone interrupts with a great idea,

suggestion or story, a gracious,

polite response to that is to acknowledge that what someone else has to say is

valuable, but you would like to finish your thoughts.

And here are three ways you can do that. Oh, that's a great point.

Let's come back to that in a moment, but I want to finish my thought.

Number two, I'd like to hear more about that,

but give me just a moment to finish what I was saying. And number three,

that's an interesting thought.

Will you hold onto it just for a moment before I lose my train of thought,

I want to finish what I'm saying, but I definitely want to hear about that.

When you ask someone to hold on to something for a moment,

you're asking them not to forget it,

to repeat that question or statement again, after you finished speaking.

And finally, option five. When someone interrupts you is to address it,

head on what that means is be direct or assertive.

This isn't always comfortable, but it's sometimes necessary.

Particularly when someone just rudely or thoughtlessly

interrupts you, here are five ways you can do that.

And you'll notice that several of them include the person's name.

You're being very direct in your response. John,

I'm not quite finished yet. Give me just a moment. John, I was speaking.

Hold on just a moment. I wasn't finished. One moment.

Let me finish. And finally, number five,

I value your comments, John, but could you let me finish my thoughts first?

And then we can have an open conversation about it. Again,

these are all very direct, assertive comments, but they are still polite.

You're not being rude by telling someone you want to finish your

thoughts. And did you notice that? I never said I'm sorry.

I never said, Sorry, can I please finish what I'm saying?

If someone interrupts you,

there is no reason for you to apologize or ask

permission to keep speaking. Now,

before we move on to how you can avoid being interrupted,

I want to talk about one more thing. If you have a coworker,

a supervisor,

or even a friend who chronically interrupts you and it

bothers you, you can definitely address it in a private conversation.

I talk about how to do that in my lesson, on how to be assertive in English.

I'll leave a link to that lesson just below this video in the notes.

And you can review that so you know exactly how to handle that situation and

talk about it politely.

And now let's move on to the best part of the lesson today,

which is what can you do to avoid getting interrupted in the first place.

Whether you're giving a presentation to a large audience,

speaking to a group online or sharing an idea in a business meeting,

there are two strategies you can use to avoid getting interrupted.

Number one, set expectations in advance.

What that means is before you begin to share your ideas or your key

points,

tell your listeners or your coworkers that you want to share all of your

thoughts first, before any questions or comments.

And here are three ways you can do that.

I definitely like to hear your thoughts on this today,

but before you ask any questions or share your ideas,

I'd like to lay everything out first.

That expression to lay everything out first means to get all your

ideas, all your thoughts out first,

and then there's opportunity for questions and comments.

Number two, I'm still organizing all my thoughts on this.

So it may take a couple of minutes for me to explain what I'm trying to say.

And number three,

I think our discussion today will be much more productive if I can get all my

thoughts out there first, and then we can open up for questions and comments.

All three of these statements are a signal to your listener that you may

have some longer pauses while you're speaking,

or you may need some extra time to really what you want to say.

And it lets them know that you're asking them to simply be patient while you

speak, and you will give them the opportunity to respond when you're finished.

The second thing you can do to avoid getting interrupted is to learn,

to control your voice so it sounds strong and confident.

When someone sounds prepared, calm and confident,

it's less likely that they'll be interrupted.

Controlling your voice is something we help our students do inside our Fluency

School course and our Powerful Public Speaking course,

for some examples of how to do this,

I recommend reviewing my lesson on how to communicate easily - three

strategies for shy speakers. Again,

I'll leave a link to that lesson in the notes below the video.

Before we finish today,

I would love to hear from you share with me one new phrase or statement

that you learned today that will be helpful for you

the next time someone interrupts you in English. And as always,

if you found this lesson useful to you, you can let me know in three ways.

Number one,

give this video a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to this channel.

So you never miss one of my Confident English lessons. Number two,

you can share it with friends and coworkers on Facebook or LinkedIn.

And number three,

if you know someone who really would love some help with how to handle

interruptions in English, you can email this lesson directly.

Thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you next time for your Confident

English lesson.