Asking for repetition when you miss what someone says

However much you work on your listening skills, there are still going to be times when you don’t hear or understand what somebody says to you, or you need a bit of clarification. Don’t worry, that happens to native English speakers too, you just need some nice, natural phrases to ask for repetition. So that’s what you’re getting in this lesson! 😀

Formal ways to ask for repetition

You can use these with your manager, in an exam or with somebody you don’t know very well:

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“Would you mind saying that again?”

“Could you repeat that please?”

“What was the question again, sorry?”

Informal ways to ask for repetition

Make sure you only use these ones with close friends or a family member who is the same age as you, or younger as they can sound a bit impolite otherwise:

“Huh?”

“What did you say?”

“Come again?”

That last one (Come again?) is a bit of a strange expression but we do use it sometimes so keep it in your vocabulary bank to impress native English speakers 😉

Clarifying missing information

If you just missed a little part of the sentence and you want to check what that bit was, here’s how to do that:

a) I went to XXX at the weekend

b) You went where?

a) I saw XXX last night

b) You saw who?

a) I bought a new XXX last month

b) You bought what?

If you use this technique, it’s really important to stress the question word (where/who/what). That means you use a stronger voice for that particular word to emphasise it (you’ll hear what I mean in the audio below!)

Pronunciation practice

Listen to me saying those 10 phrases and try to copy my pronunciation. Pay specific attention to my intonation:

Did you also notice how the ‘t’ at the end of words is not always clear?

Question for you…..

Which of these phrases is your favourite? Let me know by leaving me a reply below!

Before you go, make sure you get my free fluency guide – Just click the image below 😊