When You Don't Know What to Say in English

1 hour ago

6 min read

When you don't know what to say in English

Hi there!

How many times have you prepared for an important conversation in English? You have thought about what you’re going to say, maybe even rehearsed a few sentences in your

head? And then, the other person says something you weren’t expecting, and suddenly all the preparation feels almost useless...

I know, I know, saying “don’t worry, it’s normal” only makes you roll your eyes… Well, what I can tell you is that there is actually a difference between prepared English and responsive English 😉

Prepared English can be excellent. You can know exactly what you want to say. But real conversations aren’t speeches where you can control the next sentence.

This is where fluency becomes much more interesting, because being fluent doesn’t necessarily mean knowing what to say in every possible scenario. Being fluent is more about: Can you understand something unexpected? Can you react quickly enough? Can you ask for clarification without panicking? Can you change direction? Can you express a thought you haven’t practised beforehand?

So, for you to get one step closer to feeling like you can do any of those above things (if not all 😉), let’s have a look at those conversations you simply can’t prepare for, and why they can be so difficult even when your English is already very good.

What happens when the conversation goes off script?

Real conversations don't follow a script

Learners tend to prepare for conversations as if they were predictable structures like:

question → answer

But real conversations branch off. They could end up looking more like:

You: “How was your weekend?”

Them: “Really good. We went to this tiny restaurant outside town”

You: “Oh, nice! What was it like?”

Them: “Amazing! Actually, it reminded me of this place I went to in Japan. Have you ever been?”

Suddenly, the conversation has moved from weekend plans → restaurant → Japan → travel. And let me guess, you didn’t prepare to talk about Japan, right? But this is what conversational fluency requires: to follow the conversation rather than controlling it. Fluency is not about knowing what to say next. It’s about being able to deal with not knowing what comes next.

The hardest questions are often the simple ones

You might think that someone asking you “What are the economic consequences of artificial intelligence?” is a difficult question to answer, right? But what about:

So, what do you actually think?
Why?
Would you do it again?
What would you have done?
But do you really like it?
How did that make you feel?

These questions are difficult because there is no memorised answer. For the economic consequences question, you can do your research and learn about that topic. But for the simple ones, you need to:

Understand the question
Decide what you think
Formulate the thought
Find the English (words, grammar, pronunciation, etc)
Say it
Potentially respond to their reaction

There is a lot happening at once. Let me show you an example:

You: “I moved to London because I wanted a change”

Them: “Oh, what kind of change?”

You: “Ehm…”

The first sentence was prepared. You always give that explanation. The second question, however, came very unexpected. This is exactly where many learners often realise that their English is much stronger when they control the topic, not the language.

The conversation suddenly becomes more personal

This is another kind of conversation that can’t really be rehearsed… You might be talking about work, travel or a restaurant, and suddenly someone asks: Are you happy with what you’re doing? Would you ever move back? Do you actually like living there? What made you decide to leave? Would you want to do that for the rest of your life?

These questions require more than vocabulary. You need to decide: How much do I want to share? How direct do I want to be? How personal is this conversation? Do I actually know this person well enough to answer honestly?

Being fluent doesn’t mean answering every question directly. You could say:

That’s actually quite a complicated question
I’ve never really thought about it like that
I have mixed feelings about it, to be honest
That’s a long story…
I suppose the short answer is…
I’d rather not get into all of that, but…

These are useful because they give you time and control, without ending the conversation.

Then there are the moments when you simply don't understand

I’m sure you can relate to this - you might understand every word but still not understand what someone really means.

This could look like someone making an unexpected cultural reference, using humour or sarcasm, telling a story with lots of implied context or suddenly referring to “that whole thing with Sarah”, and you have no idea who Sarah is 😳 Fluent speakers often rely on shared context. And if you have no idea about what’s going on, you need to be comfortable saying things like:

Wait, what happened on Tuesday?
Sorry, I missed that. What happened?
Hang on, who’s Sarah?
I think I’ve missed part of the story

This isn’t a failure in English. In fact, knowing how to repair a conversation is part of the fluency you’re trying to reach.

You don't always have to answer immediately

You might think that fluent speakers always respond instantly. However, they pause, think, restart and reformulate all. the. time. Let me show you some realistic examples:

Hmm, that’s a good question
How do I put this…?
Off the top of my head, I’d probably say…
Let me think about that for a second
I suppose it depends
I’ve never really thought about that
That’s interesting. I think…

I wouldn’t say that these are filler sentences in the negative sense. But they are tools to manage conversations. They give your brain time to process the question, decide what you think, organise your answer and retrieve the English knowledge that you have. There is a clear distinction between silence because you’re completely frozen and a natural pause because you’re thinking. The latter is completely normal, even for native speakers.

What actually makes someone good at unpredictable conversations?

I don’t want to bore you with a rigid “5-step method”, so here are some skills that work really well together:

Listen beyond individual words: notice the point of what someone is saying, listen to what they are interested in or what they are asking you to respond to
Ask for clarification: don’t pretend you understood. Ask things like: “What do you mean by that?”, “Sorry, what do you mean?”, “Do you mean…?” or “I’m not sure I’m following”
Buy yourself time: Phrases that are super helpful for that are: “Let me think”, “That’s a good question” or “I’ve never really thought about that”
Reformulate: If your sentence isn’t really coming together (we’ve all been there…), you can say something like: “What I’m trying to say is…”, “I suppose what I mean is…” or “Maybe a better way of putting it is…”. This is a great skill to have because being fluent doesn’t mean producing the perfect sentence the first time.
Follow the other person: Ask questions based on something they just said, react rather than mentally prepare your next answer and let the conversation develop organically. I’d highly recommend the book “How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen” by David Brooks.

I think it’s worth reiterating that some of the best evidence of fluency isn’t being able to deliver a beautiful and prepared answer at all times. It’s what happens when someone catches you completely off guard. That’s why certain conversations can be very valuable for a learner like you. Not because you’re comfortable or because you learn 20 new words, but because they force you to think, react, listen and communicate in real time.

So next time a conversation takes an unexpected turn, and you find yourself not knowing what to say, don’t see it as a sign that your English isn’t good enough. That moment might actually be where you’re practising one of the most important parts of fluency.

And honestly, this is one of the reasons live conversations are so valuable. You can’t predict what the other person is going to say, which means you have to listen, react and find your words in the moment. And that’s where a lot of real progress happens. A great place to start is The English Life Academy 😉

I hope you enjoyed today's topic, and until next time!

Camila