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Practice: Listening
Speaking Skills: Interrupting
Language: Phrases to interrupt and return to the topic
In this week's Premier Skills English podcast, Rich and Jack help you with the language you need when you want to interrupt someone. This is a speaking skill that can be difficult because you have to wait for the right moment and often need to be polite. Jack and Rich look at some polite (and less polite) phrases that you can use to interrupt people. They also look at some phrases that you can use when someone interrupts you to return to the same topic after the interruption. We also have a new football phrase for you to guess so don't forget to listen to the end of the podcast. Enjoy!
How much did you understand?
Vocabulary
In the podcast, Rich and Jack used some words and phrases that might be new for you. You can see two examples here:
I was just getting a bit of revenge for that silly cow joke.
We actually left before Ronaldo scored a consolation goal for Madrid.
There were a few more tricky words in the podcast. Can you remember all of them? Try the activity below, then, listen to the podcast again to hear how we used the words in context. This can really help with understanding.
Activity 1: In this activity, try to match the words and phrases to their definitions. All of the words were in this week's podcast.
Sorry for interrupting but can I have a word about that last offside decision.
Interrupting
In this week's podcast, the main focus was on the language we use when we interrupt someone; when we say something to make someone else stop talking or doing something. Interrupting someone can be done in a polite way or an impolite way. The way people interrupt can be different in different cultures and countries. In this podcast, we discussed the language of interrupting but if you want to learn more about cultural differences, take a look at this article from the BBC. If we look just at the language of interrupting there are phrases that are more polite than others. Take a look at these two sentences:
Sorry for interrupting but why didn't you invite me to the match?
Hold on! Why didn't you invite me to the match?
In the sentences above, the first sentence is much more polite than the second which could be a bit rude or impolite. In this activity, take a look at some more phrases we use to interrupt people and decide if they are polite or impolite.
Activity 2: In this activity, put the phrases into two groups - polite phrases and impolite phrases. Remember that depending on your tone of voice that it is possible that some of the polite phrases can sound rude if you interrupt in an inappropriate way.
Returning to the topic
When someone interrupts you it is often necessary to return to the topic that you were talking about. In the podcast, Rich interrupted Jack a lot when he was talking about Cambridge.
Jack: Excuse me for butting in, but are your friends from Madrid?
Rich: Not far from Madrid, yes. Anyway, as I was saying, they're Real Madrid fans so didn't ...
In the example above, Rich answers Jack's question but tries to return to the topic that he was speaking about as quickly as possible. He uses two different phrases to do this: anyway and as I was saying. These are both polite ways of returning to what you want to say or an earlier topic. Here is a list of other phrases you can use to return to a topic:
Phrases to practise
- Where was I?
- Anyway ...
- As I was saying ...
- I was just getting to that.
- In any case ...
- Can I get back to what I was talking about?
- Can I return to what I was saying?
Waiters often need to interrupt people's conversations. How do they do this?
Your task is to play the game that Rich and Jack played in the podcast. First, you need to find someone to play the game with. Find a friend who is learning English or ask your English teacher to play the game in class.
The objective of the game is for one person to speak for a minute about one of the topics in the table below. The other person needs to interrupt the speaker with relevant questions using some of the phrases in activity two. The speaker then needs to answer the questions and use the phrases above to return to the topic. Here are some example topics for you to speak about:
Topics to speak about
| Favourite Football Team | Something in the news | Favourite musician or band |
| Favourite Food | Favourite Football Player | The last party you went to |
| A place you've visited recently | Someone in your family | The best football match you've ever seen |
Remember:
- The speaker has one minute
- Try to use the phrases we used in this podcast
- Give the speaker 30 seconds to think about the topic
Tell us in the comments section who you played the game with and where!
What do you think?
In this week’s podcast, Jack and Rich spoke about different phrases we use to interrupt people and phrases we use to return to a previous topic.
Do you find it difficult to interrupt people when they are speaking? Do you know anyone who interrupts people a lot? Is it polite?
Were the phrases introduced in this podcast new for you? Is this type of language easy to use? Is it easy to learn these phrases?
Look at the task above and write your answers. Don't forget to reply to other listeners too.
Remember to write your guess for this week's football phrase, too!
If you want us to correct your English, just write 'correct me' at the beginning of your comment.
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