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!