Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Hi everybody, and welcome back to Love English, and welcome back to twelve days of Christmas with Love English.

  • Now, as you guys know, we are approaching the festive period in the UK, and we're getting very excited about all the events we're going to go to and catching up with friends and family.

  • But not all of those events are great fun.

  • Sometimes you end up getting stuck in an awkward conversation with someone at work that you don't know very well, your boss, a family member that just keeps and keeps talking.

  • And you want to end the conversation, but you want to do it subtly and politely.

  • After all, there is only so many times you can hear your boss talking about his cheese-making hobby or that you can put up with your Auntie Linda showing you your baby photos again.

  • So in this video guys, we're going to look at three ways to end an awkward conversation.

  • And for you guys, you can, of course, use these all the year round, at work, with friends, with family just when you want to bring a conversation, which is really going nowhere, to an end

  • Now the key guys with all of these is, of course, politeness

  • But it's also, not making the person feeling bad.

  • You don't want to let them know that you want to get out of the conversation.

  • You don't want them to know that you think they're boring.

  • So, you always want to have some kind of excuse as to why you have to leave.

  • So, in number one, we extricate, which means find a way out of the conversation, by saying that we feel bad, we feel guilty, that we haven't spent enough time with other people.

  • There's no way that they can feel bad about that.

  • Of course, they want you to be polite to everybody, so this is a great way to get out of the conversation.

  • So you can say, 'Wow, that's so interesting, I really enjoyed hearing about it.

  • 'Could you tell me the rest later?'

  • 'I just feel really bad that I haven't spent any time with this colleague yet or I haven't talked to my aunt yet - this kind of thing.'

  • And then you can say, 'Well, we'll catch up again later.'

  • Even if you don't intend to do that, it's a nice way to round off the conversation.

  • Number two: It's a cliched excuse guys, but it still works.

  • You can say that you, you've seen a call that you need to respond to or a message or an email it still works.

  • Even if people might be a little suspicious, it's still a good excuse

  • So you can say, 'Oh it's been really great talking, but I've just seen an email and must respond to it, it's a really important one, or I've just had a text message I need to reply to.'

  • 'Do you mind if we catch up later, or do you mind if we carry on this chat another time?'

  • And if you are worried that they might think you're being rude or they're suspicious, you can always add, 'I'm so sorry, I hope you don't think I'm being rude.'

  • Number three is my personal favourite, and it's one I use all the time.

  • And basically, it's where you suggest that you go and talk to other people and then slowly you can start to separate from that person that you would rather not spend any more time with.

  • So you can say, 'Wow, it's been really interesting talking to you or really great catching up.'

  • 'Shall we, shall we go and network, shall we go and talk to some other people.'

  • Or you can say, 'Shall we go and do the rounds?', which means go and network meet other people to do the rounds at the party.

  • So I always use this one, and it always works for me.

  • 'So, it was great talking to you, it was great catching up.'

  • 'What do you say we go and do the rounds now, what do you say we go and network?'

  • Usually this works because people want to do that as well, they want to socialize as well.

  • But sometimes it's difficult doing it on your own, so it's quite nice to do it with somebody, and also it means that you are not making them feel bad that you're saying 'bye-bye, I want to end this'.

  • You're suggesting you do it together, so that's a great one guys - give that a go.

  • Right guys, they were our three phrases and ideas about how to end an awkward conversation.

  • Do tell me below in the comments what do you do if you want to end an awkward conversation and what phrases do you use.

  • Be sure to tune in soon guys for the next video which is on five ways to give a compliment in English.

  • We'll see soon guys bye bye

Hi everybody, and welcome back to Love English, and welcome back to twelve days of Christmas with Love English.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it