Hi everyone. It's Jennifer. In one of my earlier lessons, I gave suggestions for
refusing a request or declining an invitation.
It's not always easy to say no, is it?
Another thing that can be hard is ending a conversation.
But sometimes we just don't have the time to talk. So what can we say?
If there's somewhere else, you need to be, say so.
Have to get going I'm late for something
You'll hear: I've got to get going. I have to get going. I gotta go.
I think we all know that people may or may not be telling the truth when they say, "I've gotta go."
But if they say this, it's a signal to end the conversation.
Second, you can simply say, "I'm sorry. Now's not a good time."
This works on the phone. For example, your friend calls, you don't want to ignore their call,
so you answer and say:
If a topic is rather serious and you want to postpone it, you can say:
Can we talk about this later?
Maybe someone is bringing up a topic that you want to talk about when there's more privacy. Over the phone you can say:
Sometimes people aren't prepared for a discussion. This could happen at a business meeting.
Did you know that "table" could be a verb?
We have the expression "to table a discussion."
This means to postpone it you set it aside and you want to address it at a later time.
So "to table a discussion" is an appropriate expression for the workplace.
Of all the expressions, this one is the most formal.
Here are the expressions again. Repeat after me.
I gotta be going/ I gotta get going.
Well, we're going to end here. I'm sure I'll have more lessons like these in the future, but for now
I hope I've given you enough to study.
Please remember to like this video if you found it useful.
I think all the expressions you learned in this lesson and the past lessons will help you boost your
conversation skills. If you know others who would appreciate learning more expressions in English,
please share these videos with them.
As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!
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