How do you interrupt politely in English?
In English you interrupt in two steps: first a softener such as "Sorry to interrupt", "Can I just come in here?", or "May I add something?" — and only then your point. A flat "Wait!" sounds rude in an English meeting.
- Step in softly: Sorry to interrupt, but … / Can I just come in here? / May I add something?
- Hold the floor: Let me just finish this point. / I'll come to that in a second.
- Get back on track: As I was saying … / Where was I?
B1 · Meetings · 10 minInterrupting Politely, taught brick by brick.
A structured ten-slide lesson for B1 learners. Hear a polite interruption in context, meet the three toolkits from a tutor, then practise the phrases across five interactive drills before a final five-question quiz. The whole arc is under ten minutes and nothing requires a signup.
- CEFR levelB1 · Intermediate
- Time to completeAbout 10 minutes
- SkillsSpeaking, Listening, Business English, Writing
- Bricks10 blocks
01 / 06
Why interrupting in English is a technique, not a rudeness
Interrupting is one of the trickiest moments in any English-language meeting — and also one of the unavoidable ones. If you never interrupt in a project meeting, a status call, or a video call, you simply never get a turn. English meetings rarely run in an orderly way, with each person finishing calmly and the next one politely invited in. People cut in, add, query — and anyone waiting for a clean pause is often still waiting when the hour ends. The difference between an interruption that reads as competent and one that reads as rude almost never lies in the content. It lies in the two to four words you put in front of it. "Sorry to interrupt, but could I just come in here?" and "Wait!" do fundamentally the same thing: they take the floor away from someone else. Only the first version makes you sound like a person others enjoy working with. That is what this lesson is about. Not whether you interrupt, but what you lead with. You will meet three toolkits: how to step in softly, how to keep your turn when somebody cuts into it, and how to find your way back to your own point afterwards. All three are made of fixed phrases, and you should know them by heart, because a real meeting leaves you no time to build them from scratch.
02 / 06
Toolkit one: stepping in softly
A polite interruption in English is nearly always built from three small parts. The apology: "Sorry to interrupt, but …". It costs one second and signals that you know exactly what you are doing. The word "just", which sits inside the question: "Can I just come in here?", "Could I just add one thing?". This "just" has little to do with "only" in the sense of exclusivity — it shrinks your request and promises that you are not about to take the next ten minutes of the meeting. And the modal question itself: "Can I …?", "Could I …?", "May I add something?". Formally you are leaving the decision to the room, even though in reality nobody ever says no. That politeness fiction is the heart of English meeting culture. There are two specialist tools alongside them. "Before we move on …" is what you use when a topic is being closed and you want to keep it open — it is the most elegant opener of all, because it sounds procedural rather than interruptive. And "I hear you, but …" acknowledges the speaker before you push back; it is the spoken equivalent of a nod. Feel free to stack the parts: "Sorry to interrupt — can I just add one thing before we move on?" is flawless on a client call.
03 / 06
Toolkit two: holding the floor
Just as important as getting in is the opposite direction: what do you say when somebody interrupts you? Many learners give way automatically in that moment, simply because they lack the phrase that would let them keep going pleasantly. The phrase is short. "Let me just finish this point" is the standard — again with "just", again kept small. You can run straight on from there: "…and then I'll come to your question." That does two jobs at once: it defends your turn and promises the other person an answer. The promise is the second tool in its own right: "I'll come to that in a second" or "I'll get to that in a moment" parks a question without dismissing it. What matters is that you actually keep the promise later — in English it is heard as binding, not as a filler. You need a third tool when someone disagrees with your content while you are still speaking: "I hear you, but let me finish this thought." The first half takes the edge off, the second half holds the thread. And if your counterpart still will not let go, a calm "Can I finish?" does the job — short, friendly in tone, unmistakable in substance. Tone matters more than the words here: stay quiet and even, and none of these phrases will land as aggressive.
04 / 06
Toolkit three: getting back on track and letting others in
Every interruption leaves a small gap behind it, and whoever fails to close that gap loses the point they were making. The standard tool is "As I was saying …". It is not a complaint, it is pure signposting: we are back on the previous topic. Say it casually, or it starts to sound reproachful. If you genuinely have lost the thread, you say "Where was I?" or, more fully, "Sorry, where was I? Ah yes, the second site." Both are entirely normal in a meeting and come across as human rather than unprepared. The third phrase in this toolkit points outward: when you notice that somebody has been trying to speak for a while, you bring that person in on purpose. "You wanted to add something?" or "Sorry, I cut you off — please go ahead" are two sentences that land exceptionally well in English working life, because they show that you are tracking the whole room. On a video call this matters even more than in a meeting room: network delay means two people constantly start at the same time. The usual repair is "Sorry, go ahead" — and the person who says it first reads as confident, not as weak. Master these three toolkits and you can not only enter a discussion, you can steer it.
05 / 06
Common German-speaker errors
The most frequent error comes from direct transfer. In a German meeting, "Moment!" is a completely harmless way to cut in; its English mirror image, "Wait!" or "One moment!", sounds like a command and is heard as unfriendly. The same happens to the clipped German request "Darf ich kurz?": as a bare "Can I?" it is missing everything that makes the request polite in English — no "just", no "sorry", no object. Say "Can I just come in here?" or "Could I just say one thing?" instead. The second typical error involves "Excuse me". Many learners put it in front of every interruption, because school taught it as the translation of "Entschuldigung". It is not wrong, but it is noticeably formal, and inside a running project meeting it lands rather as if you were stopping a stranger in the street. "Sorry to interrupt" is the collegial version. The third error is one of content: "Das stimmt nicht" becomes "No, that's wrong" — grammatically flawless, but an attack in tone. Put a softener in front of it: "I hear you, but I have a different number here." And finally the classic false friend: "actually" does not mean "aktuell", and it only partly overlaps with "eigentlich". It means "in reality", and in a meeting it works as a polite correction: "Actually, the deadline moved to Friday." If you mean "aktuell", say "currently" or "at the moment".
06 / 06
On video calls and client calls
The channel changes the rules. On a video call you lose the small physical signals that normally announce you — the slight lean forward, the raised hand, the caught eye. So you need more language there, not less. A brisk "Sorry, can I just jump in?" replaces the gesture, and many teams also use the raise-hand function in the tool. Factor in the delay as well: when two of you start at once, one of you says "Sorry, go ahead" — and it costs you nothing to be the one who says it first, which reads as confidence. On a client call the politeness level shifts upward. With clients you reach for "May I add something here?" or "If I could just come in on that point …" rather than the casual "Can I jump in?" that is perfectly fine between colleagues. In your own team status meeting the opposite applies and shorter is better: "Quick one — can I just check something?" is plenty. Practise the phrases aloud, and keep going until they are available without thinking. In the exact moment somebody quotes a wrong figure, you have no spare second to build the right sentence. Start with three: "Sorry to interrupt, but …", "Let me just finish this point", and "As I was saying …". Those three will carry you through almost any meeting.