Canceling Plans
Learn to cancel plans in Korean โ politely, naturally, and with the right level of apology for the situation.
Iru Helper Note
In Korean, canceling plans requires more than ๋ชป ๊ฐ์ (I can't go). You need to acknowledge the inconvenience, give a reason with ~์ด์์ or ~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ (because of ~, unexpectedly), and offer a fix or closing. The key verb is ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ๋ค (to cancel a plan) and the key softener is ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ (I'm sorry, but...) as the opener.
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒจ์์. ์ค๋ ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์? ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์.
(I'm sorry, but something suddenly came up. Would it be okay to cancel today's plan? Next time it'll be on me.)
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๐ต What You'll Learn Today
Today you'll learn how to cancel plans in Korean in a way that feels sincere and natural, not blunt or cold. You'll use ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ (I'm sorry, but) as a softened opener, ~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ (because ~ happened unexpectedly) for sudden reasons, and ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ (next time it's on me) as a goodwill closer. These patterns let you cancel gracefully while preserving the relationship.
๐ Canceling Plans Vocabulary
Expression | Meaning | Notes |
์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ๋ค | To cancel a plan | ์ฝ์ ์ทจ์ํด๋ ๋ ๊น์? |
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ค | Something suddenly comes up | Very common reason |
~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ | Because ~ happened (unexpectedly) | Sudden/unexpected cause |
๋ฏธ๋ฃจ๋ค | To postpone | ์ฝ์์ ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? |
๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ | Next time it's on me | Goodwill closer |
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ | I'm sorry, but... | Softened apology opener |
๋ชธ์ด ์ ์ข๋ค | Not feeling well | ๋ชธ์ด ์ ์ข์์์ |
๊ธํ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ค | An urgent matter comes up | ๊ธํ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒจ์์ |
๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ฃ์กํด์ | Sorry for the inconvenience | Formal apology |
์ดํดํด์ค ์ ์์ด์? | Can you understand/forgive? | Asking for understanding |
๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ | At the next opportunity | ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๋ด์ |
์ทจ์ํ๋ค / ๋ฏธ๋ฃจ๋ค | Cancel / postpone | Different outcomes |
์ผ์ด ๊ผฌ์ด๋ค | Things get tangled/go wrong | ์ผ์ด ๊ผฌ์ฌ์์ |
๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด | If it's okay with you | ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ ์ง๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๊ฟ์? |
๐ก Key pattern: ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, [reason]์ด์์ / ~๋ ๋ฐ๋์์. ์ค๋ ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์(or ๋ฏธ๋ค)๋ ๋ ๊น์? [goodwill closer]. = "I'm sorry, but [reason]. Would it be okay to cancel/postpone today's plan? [goodwill closer]." This three-part structure โ apology + reason + fix โ is the complete, natural Korean cancellation.
๐ฌ Conversations in Action
Conversation 1 โ Sudden work emergency
A: ์ด, ์์? (Oh, what's up?)
B: ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ํ์ฌ์์ ๊ธํ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์์. ์ค๋ ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์? (I'm sorry, but because an urgent matter suddenly came up at work, would it be okay to cancel today's plan?)
A: ๊ด์ฐฎ์์. ์ผ๋ง๋ ๊ธํด์? (It's okay. How urgent is it?)
B: ์ค๋ ์ ๋
๊น์ง๋ ํด์ผ ํ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์. ๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ ๋ง ์ฃ์กํด์. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์. (I think I need to finish by this evening. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience. Next time it's on me.)
Conversation 2 โ Feeling unwell
A: ์๋
, ์ค๋ ๋ช ์์ ๋ง๋์? (Hi, what time are we meeting today?)
B: ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ์ค๋ ๋ชธ์ด ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ ์ข์์์. ์ฝ์์ ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? (I'm sorry, but my body suddenly isn't feeling well today. Would it be okay to postpone our plan?)
A: ์ด๋จธ, ๊ด์ฐฎ์์? (Oh no, are you okay?)
B: ๋ค, ์ฌ๋ฉด ๊ด์ฐฎ์์ง ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์. ์ดํดํด์ค์ ๊ณ ๋ง์์. ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ค์ ์ฃผ์ ๋ค์ ์ก์์. (Yes, I think I'll be okay if I rest. Thank you for understanding. If it's okay with you, let's reschedule for next week.)
๐ Cultural Note โ ์ฝ์ ๋ฌธํ (Plans Culture) in Korea
In Korean culture, canceling plans โ especially last minute โ is considered ์ค๋ก (rude) or ๋์น ์๋ ํ๋ (socially unaware behavior). Koreans put a lot of weight on ์ฝ์ (plans/appointments). When you do cancel, the key elements are: (1) apologize first, (2) give a real reason, (3) offer a way to make it up (๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ or ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์). Failing to offer #3 can feel abrupt and cold, even if your apology was sincere.
<summary>Try This Speaking Exercise
Practice canceling plans in different situations politely and naturally.
A. Cancel a dinner plan because something came up at work.
<summary>Answer
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ํ์ฌ์์ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์์. ์ค๋ ์ ๋
์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์? ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์. (I'm sorry, but because something suddenly came up at work. Would it be okay to cancel this evening's plan? Next time it's on me.)
</summary>
B. Postpone a plan because you're not feeling well.
<summary>Answer
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ์ค๋ ๋ชธ์ด ์ ์ข์์์. ์ฝ์์ ๋ค์ ์ฃผ๋ก ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? (I'm sorry, but I'm not feeling well today. Would it be okay to postpone our plan to next week?)
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C. Cancel and offer to reschedule for another time.
<summary>Answer
์ค๋์ ์ทจ์ํด์ผ ํ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์. ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ค์ ์ฃผ์ ๋ค์ ์ก์ ์ ์์ด์? (I think I need to cancel today. If it's okay with you, can we reschedule for next week?)
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D. Apologize for the inconvenience and promise to make it up.
<summary>Answer
๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ ๋ง ์ฃ์กํด์. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ๊ผญ ์ด๊ฒ์. (I'm really sorry for the inconvenience. Next time I'll definitely treat you.)
</summary>
E. Ask if it's okay to cancel because of an unexpected situation.
<summary>Answer
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒผ๋๋ฐ, ์ค๋ ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํด๋ ๊ด์ฐฎ์๊น์? ์ ๋ง ์ฃ์กํด์. (Something suddenly came up. Would it be okay to cancel today's plan? I'm really sorry.)
</summary>
F. Say something unexpectedly came up and you have to cancel.
<summary>Answer
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ๊ผฌ์ด๋ ๋ฐ๋์ ์ทจ์ํด์ผ ํ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์. ์ดํดํด์ค ์ ์์ด์? (Because things suddenly went wrong, I think I have to cancel. Can you understand?)
</summary>
G. Apologize and suggest meeting at the next opportunity.
<summary>Answer
์ค๋ ๋ชป ๊ฐ์ ์ ๋ง ๋ฏธ์ํด์. ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์. (I'm really sorry I can't come today. Let's definitely meet at the next opportunity.)
</summary>
H. Respond to a friend canceling on you with understanding.
<summary>Answer
๊ด์ฐฎ์์! ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ . ๋ชธ์กฐ์ฌํ๊ณ , ๋ค์์ ๋ด์. (It's okay! Those things happen. Take care of yourself, and see you next time.)
</summary>
I. Text-style: cancel a plan briefly but politely.
<summary>Answer
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ์ค๋ ๊ธํ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒจ์์ ๐
์ฝ์ ์ทจ์ํด๋ ๋ ๊น์? ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์! (I'm sorry, but an urgent matter came up today ๐
Would it be okay to cancel our plan? Next time it's on me!)
</summary>
J. Cancel and ask when the other person might be free to reschedule.
<summary>Answer
์ค๋ ๋ชป ๊ฐ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์. ์ ๋ง ์ฃ์กํด์. ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ์ธ์ ์๊ฐ ๋ผ์? ๋ค์ ์ก๊ณ ์ถ์ด์. (I don't think I can go today. I'm really sorry. If it's okay with you, when are you free? I'd like to reschedule.)
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Expression Reference
Expression | Nuance/Key |
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ | I'm sorry, but (opener) |
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ค | Something suddenly came up |
~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ | Because ~ (unexpectedly) |
์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ๋ค | Cancel a plan |
์ฝ์์ ๋ฏธ๋ฃจ๋ค | Postpone a plan |
๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ฃ์ก | Sorry for inconvenience |
๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ | Next time it's on me |
์ดํดํด์ค ์ ์์ด์? | Can you understand? |
๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ | At the next opportunity |
๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด | If it's okay with you |
Speaking Tip
The complete Korean cancellation: (1) ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ โ soften first, (2) [reason]์ด์์ / ~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ โ give the reason, (3) ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์/๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? โ ask permission to cancel, (4) ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ / ๋ค์ ์ก์์ โ close with a goodwill gesture. Four moves, one graceful cancellation.
</summary>
Want more reps?
Practice the full cancellation formula in three different scenarios: (1) work emergency, (2) feeling unwell, (3) an unexpected family situation. For each, say the four-part structure out loud: apology opener โ reason โ cancel/postpone request โ goodwill closer.
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๐ฆ Practice Hub โ Canceling Plans
Exercise 1 โ Choose the Right Expression
Pick the most natural Korean expression for each situation.
A. You want to softly open a cancellation message.
(1) ์ฌ์ค์์ (2) ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ (3) ๊ทธ๋ฐ๋ฐ์ (4) ์ ๊ธฐ์
<summary>Answer
(2) ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ โ this is the natural, softened apology opener for a cancellation. It signals sincere regret before the bad news.
B. You want to say "something suddenly came up."
(1) ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒผ์ด์ (2) ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ๋ฐ๋น ์ (3) ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ๋ชป ๊ฐ์ (4) ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ ํ์ด์
<summary>Answer
(1) ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒผ์ด์ โ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ค = something comes up. This is the set expression for a sudden situation.
C. You want to say "because something unexpectedly came up" using the ~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ structure.
(1) ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒจ์์ (2) ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์์ (3) ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์์ด์์ (4) ๊ธํ ์ผ์ด ์์์ด์
<summary>Answer
(2) ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์์ โ ~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ specifically signals an unexpected cause. More natural than just ~์ด์ for sudden situations.
D. You want to cancel a plan. Which phrase is most appropriate?
(1) ์ฝ์ ๋ชป ํด์ (2) ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์? (3) ์ฝ์ ์์ด์ (4) ์ฝ์์ ์ ํ ๊ฒ์
<summary>Answer
(2) ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์? โ asking for permission to cancel (~ํ ์ ์์๊น์?) is much more polite than just stating you can't go.
E. You want to postpone rather than cancel outright.
(1) ์ทจ์ํ๊ณ ์ถ์ด์ (2) ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? (3) ๋ชป ๊ฐ์ (4) ๋์ค์ ํด์
<summary>Answer
(2) ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? โ ๋ฏธ๋ฃจ๋ค = to postpone. Asking permission with ~๋ ๋ ๊น์? is most natural.
F. You want to close a cancellation with a goodwill gesture.
(1) ๋ค์์ ๋ด์ (2) ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ (3) ์ธ์ ๋ง๋์? (4) ๋ค์ ์ฐ๋ฝํ ๊ฒ์
<summary>Answer
(2) ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ โ offering to treat next time is the key Korean goodwill closer. It shows you value the relationship.
G. You want to apologize for the inconvenience.
(1) ๋ฏธ์ํด์ (2) ๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ฃ์กํด์ (3) ์ฃ์กํฉ๋๋ค (4) ๋ถํธํด์
<summary>Answer
(2) ๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ฃ์กํด์ โ this specifically addresses the inconvenience caused to the other person. Most complete and considerate.
H. You want to ask if it's okay to reschedule.
(1) ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ ์ง๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๊ฟ์? (2) ์ธ์ ๋ง๋์? (3) ๋ค์ ์ฝ์ํด์ (4) ์๊ฐ ์์ด์?
<summary>Answer
(1) ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ ์ง๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๊ฟ์? โ ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด = if it's okay with you. Asking permission to reschedule is key.
I. You want to say "next time let's definitely meet."
(1) ๋ค์์ ๋ด์ (2) ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์ (3) ์ธ์ ๋ง๋ ๊ฒ์ (4) ๋ค์์ ์ฐ๋ฝํด์
<summary>Answer
(2) ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์ โ ๊ผญ (definitely) + ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ (at the next opportunity) is the warmest, most committed closer.
J. A friend cancels on you. What's the most natural, gracious response?
(1) ์๊ฒ ์ด์ (2) ๊ด์ฐฎ์์! ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ . ๋ชธ์กฐ์ฌํด์. (3) ์์? (4) ๋ค์์ ์ทจ์ํ์ง ๋ง์ธ์
<summary>Answer
(2) ๊ด์ฐฎ์์! ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ . ๋ชธ์กฐ์ฌํด์. โ this is warm, understanding, and gracious. ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ = those things happen.
Quick Reference
Expression | Meaning |
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ | I'm sorry, but (opener) |
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ค | Something comes up |
~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ | Because ~ (unexpectedly) |
์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ๋ค | Cancel a plan |
์ฝ์์ ๋ฏธ๋ฃจ๋ค | Postpone a plan |
๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ | Next time it's on me |
๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ฃ์ก | Sorry for inconvenience |
๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด | If it's okay with you |
๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์ | Definitely meet next time |
์ดํดํด์ค์ ๊ณ ๋ง์์ | Thank you for understanding |
Pitfall
Don't just say ์ค๋ ๋ชป ๊ฐ์ (I can't go today) and stop. Without an apology opener, reason, and goodwill closer, this sounds cold and inconsiderate in Korean. The minimum polite cancellation is: ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ + reason + ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ โ all three parts matter.
Exercise 2 โ Korean โ English Translation
Translate each sentence naturally into English.
A. ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์์.
<summary>Answer
I'm sorry, but because something suddenly came up (unexpectedly).
B. ์ค๋ ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์?
<summary>Answer
Would it be okay to cancel today's plan?
C. ๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ ๋ง ์ฃ์กํด์.
<summary>Answer
I'm really sorry for the inconvenience.
D. ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ค์ ์ฃผ์ ๋ค์ ์ก์ ์ ์์ด์?
<summary>Answer
If it's okay with you, can we reschedule for next week?
E. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ๊ผญ ์ด๊ฒ์.
<summary>Answer
Next time I'll definitely treat you.
F. ์ค๋ ๋ชธ์ด ์ ์ข์์์. ์ฝ์์ ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์?
<summary>Answer
I'm not feeling well today. Would it be okay to postpone our plan?
G. ์ดํดํด์ค์ ์ ๋ง ๊ณ ๋ง์์.
<summary>Answer
Thank you so much for understanding.
H. ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ๊ธํ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์ ๋ชป ๊ฐ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์.
<summary>Answer
Because an urgent matter suddenly came up, I don't think I'll be able to go.
I. ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์.
<summary>Answer
Let's definitely meet at the next opportunity.
J. ๊ด์ฐฎ์์! ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ . ๋ชธ์กฐ์ฌํด์.
<summary>Answer
It's okay! Those things happen. Take care of yourself.
Vocabulary Cheat Sheet
Word | Meaning |
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ | I'm sorry, but |
~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ | Because ~ (unexpected) |
์ทจ์ํ๋ค | Cancel |
๋ฏธ๋ฃจ๋ค | Postpone |
๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ฆฌ๋ค | Cause inconvenience |
๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด | If it's okay with you |
๋ค์ ์ก๋ค | Reschedule |
์ดํดํด์ฃผ๋ค | Understand/forgive |
๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ | At next opportunity |
๋ชธ์กฐ์ฌํ๋ค | Take care of yourself |
Grammar Tip
~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ vs. ~์ด์: ~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ = because (an unexpected/unwanted thing happened) โ used for sudden, uncontrollable situations. ~์ด์ = because (general cause). For cancellations, ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์ sounds more apologetic and sincere than ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒจ์.
Exercise 3 โ Complete the Sentence
Fill in the blank with the correct word or ending.
A. ์ฃ___ํ๋ฐ์, ์ค๋ ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์? (sorry)
<summary>Answer
์ก โ ์ฃ์กํ๋ค = to be sorry (formal apology word).
B. ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋___์. (because of ~)
<summary>Answer
์ โ ~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ = because (something unexpected happened).
C. ์ฝ์์ ___๋ ๋ ๊น์? (postpone)
<summary>Answer
๋ฏธ๋ค โ ๋ฏธ๋ฃจ๋ค โ ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? = would it be okay to postpone?
D. ๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ ๋ง ___ํด์. (sorry)
<summary>Answer
์ฃ์ก โ ๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ฃ์กํด์ = sorry for the inconvenience.
E. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ___๊ฒ์. (I'll treat you)
<summary>Answer
์ด โ ์ด๋ค (to buy/treat) โ ์ด๊ฒ์ = I'll treat you (buy the meal).
F. ๊ด์ฐฎ___๋ฉด ๋ ์ง๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๊ฟ์? (if it's okay)
<summary>Answer
์ผ์ โ ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด = if it's okay with you (honorific).
G. ์ดํดํด์ค์ ___๊ณ ๋ง์์. (really)
<summary>Answer
์ ๋ง โ ์ ๋ง ๊ณ ๋ง์์ = really thank you.
H. ๋ค์ ___์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์. (opportunity)
<summary>Answer
๊ธฐํ โ ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ = at the next opportunity.
I. ์ค๋ ๋ชธ์ด ์ ___์์์. (feeling well)
<summary>Answer
์ข โ ๋ชธ์ด ์ ์ข๋ค โ ์ ์ข์์์ = because I'm not feeling well.
J. ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ___์ฃ . (happens)
<summary>Answer
์ โ ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ = those things happen (it also happens like that).
Sentence Starters
Pattern | Use |
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ~์ด์์ | I'm sorry, because ~ |
~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ | Because (unexpected) ~ |
์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์? | Can we cancel? |
๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? | Can we postpone? |
๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ฃ์ก | Sorry for inconvenience |
๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด | If it's okay with you |
๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ | Next time it's on me |
๋ค์ ์ก์์ | Let's reschedule |
์ดํดํด์ค์ ๊ณ ๋ง์์ | Thanks for understanding |
๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์ | See you at next chance |
Production Tip
The difference between cancel (์ทจ์) and postpone (๋ฏธ๋ฃจ๋ค) matters. When you cancel, suggest rescheduling: ๋ค์์ ๋ค์ ์ก์์. When you postpone, suggest a new time: ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ค์ ์ฃผ ์ด๋์? Either way, always close with ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ or ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์ to show the relationship still matters.
Exercise 4 โ Dialogue Completion
Complete B's line in each dialogue.
A. A: ์ค๋ 6์์ ๋ง๋์! / B: ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด _์. ์ค๋ ์ฝ์ ์ทจ์ํด๋ ๋ ๊น์?
<summary>Answer
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒจ์์. ์ค๋ ์ฝ์ ์ทจ์ํด๋ ๋ ๊น์? (I'm sorry, but something suddenly came up. Would it be okay to cancel today's plan?)
B. A: ์์? ๋ฌด์จ ์ผ์ด์์? / B: ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ํ์ฌ์์ ๊ธํ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ _์์.
<summary>Answer
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ํ์ฌ์์ ๊ธํ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์์. (Because an urgent matter at work suddenly came up unexpectedly.)
C. A: ์, ๊ทธ๋์. ๊ทธ๋ผ ์ด๋ป๊ฒ ํด์? / B: ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ___ ์ฃผ์ ๋ค์ ์ก์์?
<summary>Answer
๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ค์ ์ฃผ์ ๋ค์ ์ก์์? (If it's okay with you, let's reschedule for next week?)
D. A: ์ข์์. / B: ๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ ๋ง ___ํด์. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์.
<summary>Answer
๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ ๋ง ์ฃ์กํด์. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์. (I'm really sorry for the inconvenience. Next time it's on me.)
E. A: ์ค๋ ๋ชธ์ด ์ด๋์? / B: ์ฌ์ค ๋ชธ์ด ์ ___์์. ์ฝ์์ ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์?
<summary>Answer
์ฌ์ค ๋ชธ์ด ์ ์ข์์์. ์ฝ์์ ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? (Actually I'm not feeling well. Would it be okay to postpone our plan?)
F. A: ๊ด์ฐฎ์์. ์ผ๋ฅธ ๋์์! / B: ___ํด์ค์ ๊ณ ๋ง์์. ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์.
<summary>Answer
์ดํดํด์ค์ ๊ณ ๋ง์์. ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์. (Thank you for understanding. Let's definitely meet at the next opportunity.)
G. A: ์ค๋ ์ฝ์ ์ด๋์? / B: ์, ์ฌ์ค ์ค๋ ์ผ์ด _์ด์ ๋ชป ๊ฐ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์.
<summary>Answer
์, ์ฌ์ค ์ค๋ ์ผ์ด ๊ผฌ์ฌ์ ๋ชป ๊ฐ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์. (Oh, actually things have gone a bit wrong today so I don't think I can go.)
H. A: ์น๊ตฌ๊ฐ ์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ์ด์. ์ด๋ป๊ฒ ๋ฐ์ํด์? / B: ๊ด์ฐฎ์์! ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ___์ฃ .
<summary>Answer
๊ด์ฐฎ์์! ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ . (It's okay! Those things happen.)
I. A: ์ ๋ง ๋ฏธ์ํด์. / B: ๊ด์ฐฎ์์. ๋ค์์ ___๊ฐ ์ด๋ฉด ๋์ฃ .
<summary>Answer
๊ด์ฐฎ์์. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๋ฉด ๋์ฃ . (It's okay. You just treat me next time.)
J. A: ๋ค์์ ๊ผญ ์์! / B: ๋ฌผ๋ก ์ด์ฃ ! ๋ค์ ___์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์.
<summary>Answer
๋ฌผ๋ก ์ด์ฃ ! ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์. (Of course! Let's definitely meet at the next opportunity.)
Useful Phrases
Phrase | Meaning |
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ~์ด์์ | I'm sorry, because ~ |
์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์์ | Because something came up |
์ทจ์ํด๋ ๋ ๊น์? | Can we cancel? |
๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? | Can we postpone? |
๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ฃ์ก | Sorry for inconvenience |
๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ | Next time on me |
์ดํดํด์ค์ ๊ณ ๋ง์์ | Thanks for understanding |
๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์ | See you at next chance |
๋ชธ์ด ์ ์ข์์์ | Not feeling well |
์ผ์ด ๊ผฌ์ฌ์์ | Things went wrong |
Conversation Tip
When you're on the receiving end of a cancellation, showing grace is as important as the apology itself. Say ๊ด์ฐฎ์์! ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ (It's okay! Those things happen) rather than ์๊ฒ ์ด์ (okay) โ the warmer response shows emotional intelligence (๋์น) that Koreans deeply value.
Exercise 5 โ Free Speaking Practice
Answer each prompt out loud in Korean using lesson expressions.
A. Cancel a dinner plan because something came up at work. Use the full four-part formula.
<summary>Sample Answer
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ํ์ฌ์์ ๊ธํ ์ผ์ด ์๊ธฐ๋ ๋ฐ๋์์. ์ค๋ ์ ๋
์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์? ๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ ๋ง ์ฃ์กํด์. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์. (I'm sorry, but because an urgent matter suddenly came up at work. Would it be okay to cancel this evening's plan? I'm really sorry for the inconvenience. Next time it's on me.)
B. Postpone a plan because you're not feeling well. Ask if next week works.
<summary>Sample Answer
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ์ค๋ ๋ชธ์ด ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ ์ข์์์. ์ฝ์์ ๋ค์ ์ฃผ๋ก ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? ์ดํดํด์ค์ ๊ณ ๋ง์์. (I'm sorry, but my body is suddenly not feeling well today. Would it be okay to postpone our plan to next week? Thank you for understanding.)
C. Say something unexpectedly went wrong and you can't make it. Use ~๋ ๋ฐ๋์.
<summary>Sample Answer
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ๊ผฌ์ด๋ ๋ฐ๋์ ์ค๋ ๋ชป ๊ฐ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์. ์ ๋ง ์ฃ์กํด์. ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ค์์ ๋ค์ ์ก์์? (Because things suddenly went wrong, I don't think I can go today. I'm really sorry. If it's okay with you, can we reschedule?)
D. Offer a goodwill closer after canceling. Make it feel genuine.
<summary>Sample Answer
๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ ๋ง ์ฃ์กํด์. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ๊ผญ ์ด๊ฒ์. ๋ง์๋ ๋ฐ ๊ณจ๋ผ์. (I'm really sorry for the inconvenience. Next time I'll definitely treat you. Pick somewhere delicious.)
E. Respond graciously when a Korean friend cancels on you.
<summary>Sample Answer
๊ด์ฐฎ์์! ๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ . ์ผ ์ ๋ง๋ฌด๋ฆฌํ๊ณ ๋ค์์ ๋ด์. ๋ชธ์กฐ์ฌํด์. (It's okay! Those things happen. Wrap up your work well and see you next time. Take care.)
F. Ask if it's okay to reschedule and suggest a specific time.
<summary>Sample Answer
์ค๋์ ๋ชป ๊ฐ ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์์. ๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด ๋ค์ ์ฃผ ๊ธ์์ผ์ ์ด๋์? ๋ค์ ์ก์ผ๋ฉด ์ข๊ฒ ์ด์. (I don't think I can go today. If it's okay with you, how about next Friday? I'd like to reschedule.)
G. Cancel via text in a brief but polite way.
<summary>Sample Answer
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ์ค๋ ๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒจ์์ ๐
์ฝ์ ์ทจ์ํด๋ ๋ ๊น์? ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์! (I'm sorry, but something suddenly came up today ๐
Would it be okay to cancel our plan? Next time it's on me!)
H. Explain that you feel bad about canceling and mean it.
<summary>Sample Answer
์ฝ์์ ์ทจ์ํด์ผ ํด์ ์ ๋ง ๋ง์์ด ๋ถํธํด์. ๋ถํธ์ ๋๋ ค์ ์ฃ์กํ๊ณ , ๋ค์์ ๊ผญ ๋ณด์ํ ๊ฒ์. (I really feel uncomfortable having to cancel our plan. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and I'll make it up to you next time for sure.)
I. Tell someone you look forward to meeting at the next opportunity.
<summary>Sample Answer
์ค๋์ ์ทจ์ํด์ ์์ฝ์ง๋ง, ๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์. ๊ธฐ๋ํ๊ณ ์์๊ฒ์. (It's a shame I have to cancel today, but let's definitely meet at the next opportunity. I'll be looking forward to it.)
J. Practice a full back-and-forth: you cancel, your partner responds graciously.
<summary>Sample Answer
A(you): ์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์, ์ค๋ ๋ชธ์ด ์ ์ข์์์. ์ฝ์์ ๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? B(friend): ๊ด์ฐฎ์์! ์ผ๋ฅธ ๋์์. ๋ค์ ์ฃผ์ ๋ด์. A: ์ดํดํด์ค์ ๊ณ ๋ง์์. ๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์. (A: I'm sorry, but I'm not feeling well today. Would it be okay to postpone? B: It's okay! Get better soon. See you next week. A: Thank you for understanding. Next time it's on me.)
Sentence Starters
Starter | Use |
์ฃ์กํ๋ฐ์ | Apology opener |
๊ฐ์๊ธฐ ์ผ์ด ์๊ฒจ์์ | Something came up |
~๋ ๋ฐ๋์ | Because (unexpected) |
์ทจ์ํ ์ ์์๊น์? | Can we cancel? |
๋ฏธ๋ค๋ ๋ ๊น์? | Can we postpone? |
๊ด์ฐฎ์ผ์๋ฉด | If it's okay with you |
๋ค์์ ์ ๊ฐ ์ด๊ฒ์ | Next time on me |
์ดํดํด์ค์ ๊ณ ๋ง์์ | Thanks for understanding |
๋ค์ ๊ธฐํ์ ๊ผญ ๋ด์ | See you next chance |
๊ทธ๋ฐ ์ผ๋ ์์ฃ | Those things happen |
Speaking Challenge
Role-play both sides: (1) cancel a plan as the one who can't make it, using the full four-part formula, (2) then respond as the one who was canceled on, showing warmth and grace. Repeat with three different reasons: work, health, and family.
์ธ๊ฐ ๊ด๊ณ๋ ์ฝ์์ ์งํค๋ ๊ฒ๋งํผ, ์ทจ์ํ ๋ ์ด๋ป๊ฒ ํ๋๋๋ก๋ ๋ณด์ฌ์. โจ
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