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Today we’re going to look at some alternatives to the word “no.” It’s a little repetitive to always use the word no, no, no, so it’s good to enrich your vocabulary. And we’re going to share with you some ways to politely decline an invitation or show that you don’t want to do something and that you’re expressing a clear and categorical refusal.
Be careful, these expressions depend or the way to use them will depend on the context. You can’t use them in all situations.
So we will for each word or each expression
explain the context and give you examples.
Let’s start with some classics, classic ways of saying no. The first, the simplest, the most common, is “no, thank you.” It’s a polite way of saying no and you can use it in all cases. So it’s really the one you’ll use most often. No, thank you.
Sometimes “no, thank you” can be us humorously to refuse something in a clear way, to really express a categorical refusal. And then, we will understand poland whatsapp number data that it is a categorical refusal and that it is not just a polite “no, thank you”. We will recognize it by the intonation of the voice.
For example :
– Are you sure you don’t want to go clubbing with us tonight?
– No, thanks. You know I hate that.
So here, the “no, thank you” doesn’t just mean “no, I refuse in a polite way”, it means “no, no, it’s clear, it’s categorical, I don’t want to go clubbing with you”. So here, “no, thank you”, with this intonation, it expresses a categorical refusal.
The second classic way to say no is mark lucas ceo to say “nan”. So it would be “nan”. We don’t say “non”, we say “nan”. This is the one that is often pronounc orally, in the street. French speakers use it a lot even if it is rather familiar. In general, we prefer a non, which is a little more standard. Nan, it has a little familiar connotation, although it is very us.
You see here: nan. We probably use nan in this case with a friend or a family member. It’s still a rather familiar context. If your boss at work asks you “have you finish the report?” you’re not going to say “nan”. It’ll sound a little sloppy, familiar. You’ll say: “no, sorry, I’m not done yet”.
The third standard, classic way to say no is to say: “it won’t be possible”. We use it to respond to a request, to say no when we are ask for a service or a favor. We use it to say that something cannot be done, cannot be achiev.
For example you call a customer service on the
phone and you say “can I cancel my order?” you may be told… to refuse your request, to refuse the favor you are asking for, you may be told “sorry, that won’t be possible.”
Sometimes we don’t want to say no right away, we want to give ourselves a little time to be sure that we don’t want to accept something. And in a case a complete list of unit phone numbers like that, we don’t say no directly, we say “I’ll think about it”.
So some people abuse this, some know they’re going to say no, but they don’t dare to do it, so they say “I’ll think about it” thinking “the person will forget”. It happens sometimes at work. O they don’t dare to person to insist, so they say “I’ll think about it”. So in some cases, “I’ll think about it” means “no, but I don’t want to tell you”; in other cases, it’s sincere.
I try to use this formula often because I don’t want to give a yes too quickly and I like to take the time to think. So I like to say “OK, I’ll think about it” or “I’ll think about it”.