❌ Cancelling Plans In English ❌ Useful Vocabulary & Expressions

Hello I'm Emma from mmmEnglish! Have you ever made a plan

with someone, but then realised that you need to change the plan or cancel it?

In English, you need to be careful about the language that you use to make sure that

you're doing it politely. Now, there's lots of reasons why you would need to

change your plans or cancel your plans in English.

Perhaps you genuinely can't meet someone because something more important or

urgent has come up. Perhaps you've double booked yourself

- and that means that you've made two appointments at the same time without

realising it, so you need to cancel one. And other times you might just be

feeling lazy or you just don't feel like meeting them. But of course, you don't

want to offend someone by telling them that! Cancelling plans can be a little

uncomfortable, a little awkward. So in this lesson I'm going to give you some

useful expressions that will help you to change or cancel your plans in English!

Now, these expressions will be useful for formal appointments that you've made,

like, at the doctors or the dentists, with a work client or a colleague, your child

school principal or even a Skype lesson with a new English teacher!

But they can also be used informally as well, when you've made plans to have a coffee with

friends or meet a date for dinner or even to cancel or change a meeting time

with a new friend that you've met online. So, the first thing you'll need to do is

"break the news" and this idiom means to tell someone something - especially if

it's something that they're not expecting to hear or it's bad news.

To "break the news" start with something like "I'm calling because..." or

"The reason I need to speak to you is..."

So if you're at a professional office, for example, you

could say "I need to cancel or change my appointment." If you're talking to a

colleague that you don't know that well, you could say "I won't be able to attend

the meeting on Thursday." But with a colleague that you do know well, you

might say "I can't make it to the meeting on Thursday." It's a little more informal.

And, with a friend you could say "I can't make it to dinner on Friday."

Now, these expressions are great if you're cancelling or rescheduling in a

reasonable amount of time, you know, with enough notice. But let's be real,

sometimes we aren't as organised as we want to be and we need to change or

cancel an appointment without much warning, right? Perhaps the meeting or the

appointment is tomorrow or it's even the same day! So then, you really should

include an apology. It's polite to include an apology any time that you

change plans but if you do it at late notice you must apologise and you can do

that simply by adding an introduction to your sentence. "I'm really sorry, but... I need to cancel."

"I'm so sorry for the late notice, but... I need to cancel."

"My apologies, I need to cancel." Now, that 's quite formal, that last example - best in an email or in

a very formal situation. So, to "soften the blow" and that idiom means to make a bad

situation less serious. To "soften the blow"

you could add "I was really looking forward to it!" Now this helps to reassure

the person or tell them that you're upset that you can't make it and that

you still want to meet them at some stage in the future.

"I was really looking forward to dinner on Thursday." "We were really looking

forward to meeting you!" "I was looking forward to seeing your new office!"

Okay, so you've broken the news, you've cancelled your plan and you've

apologised. So now, you need to explain why you cancelled. It's polite in any

situation to offer a reason why you have to cancel. But you might not want to

explain all of the details, especially if you don't know the person well, it might

be a personal reason or it could be embarrassing! At times like this, you can

use the expression "Something's come up." "Something has come up." Now, this is a good

expression to cancel an appointment with someone that you don't know and most

English native speakers will understand this expression. They'll understand that

it's not possible for you to attend the meeting or the appointment and there is

a reason but you don't want to explain why and that's perfectly acceptable!

Especially with formal appointments in a professional context or with people that

you don't know well. "Something's come up and I need to reschedule." It's perfectly acceptable!

But don't use this expression with friends or close colleagues because

they might feel a little offended that you don't feel comfortable enough to

explain why. Usually with friends, you can be a little more honest, right? So if you

don't mind explaining why you had to cancel or change the plans, you can

simply explain why. "I was really looking forward to dinner on Thursday, but I'm

flying to Sydney on Wednesday night for work." "I'm really, really sorry. I've had

such a busy week and I've double-booked myself!"

"I've been feeling under the weather all day. Is it okay if we postpone dinner until I'm feeling better?"

So now the last thing that you need to do is reschedule your

appointment - to make another time. Since you're the one who's cancelling or

changing the plans, you should try to reschedule the meeting by offering some

suggestions. "Can we reschedule? I'm free at 3 p.m. on Friday." "Can we try for

Tuesday instead?" It's a little more informal. Now these ones are better for

appointments, more formal appointments. "Is it possible to reschedule?" "Can I make a

new appointment time?" So do you want to see some examples of all of these elements together?

"I'm so sorry, Sarah. I was looking forward to catching up on Friday, but my boss has asked me to work late,

so I won't be able to make it. Can we reschedule to Monday?"

"My apologies, but I can't make our meeting this afternoon. Something's come up. Are we able to

reschedule to next week?" "Hi Farah! I'm really looking forward to meeting you on

Skype, but I have to apologise because I need to cancel our meeting. I was

confused by our time zone difference, so I need to reschedule

to later in the evening. Is 7pm okay for you?"

Well that's it for this lesson, I hope that you've learned a few new useful expressions

that can help you to cancel appointments or change meeting times in English.

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