10 Interjections + Examples in English conversation

What are interjections? Interjections are words and sounds used to express emotion. There are hundreds of them and they are very common in everyday English conversations. Learning from conversations is a great way to learn English more naturally. That's why all the lessons in my everyday English speaking courses are based on conversations. This way you can learn English phrases in context and you'll know what to say when you're in a similar situation. Click on the link under the video to learn more about the everyday English speaking courses. You can also try some free sample lessons. And if you like them, sign up to get the full course. Okay, now let's look at interjections and examples in short English conversations. Wow! Use wow to express surprise. For example, my son got a full scholarship to Harvard. Wow, good for him. What's he gonna study? Depending on the intonation, wow can express positive surprise or negative surprise. Listen to the difference. I got a promotion at work. Wow, congratulations! My husband was just fired from his job. Wow, I'm sorry to hear that. Ouch and ow! We say these to express pain in the moment when you hurt yourself. Ow! What happened? I banged my knee on the corner of the table. Ew, ick, yuck, and ugh. Use these interjections to express disgust. For example, while cleaning the house, I found a dead rat under the bed. Ew! Aha! Use this interjection when you make a sudden discovery or realization. For example, I'm having a problem with my printer. Could you take a look? It doesn't look like there's a paper jam. What happens when you try to print? I get an error message that says cannot find printer. Aha! That's the problem. You don't have the printer software installed. We use this to tell somebody to be quiet. The movie's about to start. Oops and whoops. Use these when you make a mistake or to react to someone else's mistake. For example, Oops, I just spilled my soda all over the table. I'll get some paper towels to clean it up. I borrowed a book from my teacher and then left it on the bus. Whoops! Was she mad? Woohoo! Yay! Hooray! Use these interjections to express happiness and excitement. For example, Were you able to get tickets to the football game? Yes, I got the last two before they sold out. Woohoo! I can't wait! Duh! Whoop-dee-doo! La-dee-da! Use these to express sarcasm. They should only be used with very close friends because they would be offensive and inappropriate in a business context or a more formal social context. Duh is used in reaction to an extremely obvious statement. For example, Hey, did you know you can share pictures on Facebook? Duh! Whoop-dee-doo is used when you want to say something is not as great as it seems. It's like, who cares? For example, I won $20 in the lottery. Whoop-dee-doo! $20 is not a lot, right? La-dee-da is also used to express I don't really care in reaction to somebody else trying to sound impressive or show off. For example, My boyfriend bought me a Ferrari. Well, la-dee-da is used to sarcastically dismiss or disagree with what the other person says. For example, the Red Sox are going to win the World Series this year. In your dreams! Aww! We say aww in reaction to something cute or adorable. For example, here's a picture of my daughter. She's two years old. Aww, what a cutie! We say um and uh to pause while you think of what to say next. How many students are there at your university? Um, I'm not sure. I think around 2,000, but I'll have to check the website. We should try to avoid using um or uh too frequently, but if you just need a moment to pause and think, you can use them to fill space a little bit until you say the next thing you want to say. So now you know some interjections for expressing emotion when you speak English. There are even more, and I'll put a link to a list of interjections under this video. Learning these and using them correctly will help your spoken English sound more natural, more like a native speaker, and you'll understand better when native speakers use them and you're listening. And for more conversation-based lessons, come join my everyday English speaking courses so that you can improve your speaking quickly and easily. I'm curious, what are some interjections in your native language? Are some of them similar or different to the ones we have in English? Let me know. It will be interesting to find out. Thanks for joining me, and I'll talk to you next time.