Now you might look at this phrase and think, “Make what? I invited them to go somewhere, not make something.” But this is just an informal way to say, “I won’t be able to attend,” or “I won’t be able to go to this event,” or this party, this meeting, whatever the invitation was. They might say, “I won’t be able to make it.” They might say, “I can’t go … ” to the party or to the concert. When you invite someone to some event and they can’t attend, then they’ll probably say one of these phrases. Today I’m going to teach you some different phrases you can use in this situation. What do you say in reply? Do you say, “Thank you?” Do you say, “Sorry?” I don’t know. In today’s lesson I want to answer a student question that I got some time ago, which is what’s an appropriate response for when you invite somebody else to go to an event or a party or go out, and the other person says they can’t go.

There are some times in English when you know the right thing to stay automatically, like when someone says, “Thank you,” you automatically say, “You’re welcome.” (Click here to learn some other replies to “thank you.”) Or, when someone says, “Have a nice day,” it’s easy to just reply, “You too,” or “Thanks, you to.”īut there are some situations when you don’t know the correct phrase or you don’t know a natural-sounding phrase.

You know you have to say something but you’re not sure what the natural phrase is, or you don’t know how a native English speaker would say it, so you kind of pause and just say, “Yes,” or “Oh.” It’s very uncomfortable, right, when you don’t know the right thing to say. Today I want to talk about a very common situation for English learners, and that is when someone says something to you in English and you don’t know the right way to respond. If you’re watching me today, then I’d love to see you write “hello” or “hi” in the comments.

Oh no moment synonym