How to Interrupt in English

Interrupting is one of the most difficult but important things to do in a foreign language – because otherwise you won’t have the chance to speak! This article gives tips on the best language and tactics to use to smoothly stop others speaking so that you can add what you want to say.

When to interrupt

Although there are times when interrupting is necessary when people are in the middle of what they are saying, it is generally best to wait until they are at least nearly finished. This can often be seen by the speaker’s intonation dropping at the end of the sentence.

How to interrupt politely

As you are stopping someone who is still speaking, you will almost always want to be as polite as possible in such situations. Common tactics and phrases to make interrupting more polite include:

• Apologising and expressing regret (“Sorry for interrupting, but…”, “I hate to interrupt you in full flow, but…”, etc)
• Requesting (“Can I interrupt you for a second?”, “Can I come in here?”, etc)
• Checking (“Would this be a good time to add…?”, etc)
• Showing how brief your interruption will be (“Before you go on,…”, “I’ll let you finish in a moment, but…”, etc)
• Unfinished phrases (“Sorry, could?”, “Could I just?”, etc)
• Agreement and other positive phrases (“Sure. And…”, “For sure. In fact,…”, etc)
• Polite disagreement (“Good point, but I’d say that…”, “Sure, but on the other hand…”, etc)
• Softening language/ Hedging language (“This may be the right time to say…”, etc)

A more friendly way of lessening the negative impact of interrupting is to start with things in common with what is being said, as in “No way! I also…” and “Wow, that’s just like my…”

There is a whole article on polite disagreement with many more useful phrases in the article How to Interrupt Politely.

More direct interrupting/ Less polite interrupting

You may sometimes find that the phrases above don’t work or aren’t suitable. This is most commonly because the other person won’t let others speak, but there are other possible reasons like wanting to show your disagreement straightaway.

Perhaps the most common strong expression to use is “have to”, as in “Before you go on, I have to say…” and “I’ll have to interrupt you there and say….” Although it is strong, it is also showing that you can’t avoid interrupting and so is not necessarily impolite.

Perhaps the simplest direct phrases are simple statements of fact like “I have something to say (on this point)” and “I have some information on this”.

Phrases with “will” like “I’ll interrupt you there” and “I’ll stop you there” don’t have any softening at all and instead might seem like someone acting like they are in charge. They should therefore only be used if you are sure that you want to give that impression (and should never be used towards your boss!)

Phrases for getting back on topic and changing topic like “Anyway, we need to talk about…” and “Okay, we seem to have covered that” are sometimes used to interrupt. However, such phrases make it seem like the last person was going off topic, so should only be used if you want to make it clear that there was such a problem.

Interrupting and doing other things

As seen above, interrupting phrases are often followed by or replaced by particular functions like polite disagreement. Other functions that often interrupt and/ or follow interrupting include:

• Strong disagreement (“Sorry, but do you really mean to say that…?”, “That’s not right”, etc)
• Ending discussion (“So, we all seem to agree on this”, etc)
• Checking/ clarifying (“So, if I understand you correctly…”, “Sorry, do you mean…?”, “Actually, what I meant was…”, etc)
• Going off topic (“By the way,…”, “Sorry, going off topic for a second,…”, etc)