How to Accept and Decline Invitations in English Politely and Confidently

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.