Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[SAMUEL_LYNN]

Dear English language masters,I desperately need your help.I am teaching Grade 3 in a junior high school in China.Quite often I met torturesome problems.For example,the testers seem to think "That's all right/OK" equels to "All right/OK" by providing 'All right/OK' as the correct response to questions like 'Sorry,I am late.The traffic was bad.' and "That's all right/OK" to those like 'Shall we meet outside the gate of the park at seven?'.I tried painfully to work out the problem by all kinds of dictionaries,but only found there are no definitions or usages of "That's all right/OK" but those of 'all right/OK'.Does that really mean 'All right/OK' can be used as the abbreviation of "That's all right/OK.'?

[CP]

No.

"That's all right" and "That's OK" are equivalent to "That's not a problem" or "Don't worry about it," indicating that the person is excused for being late, etc., and there will be no penalty, no one is offended by it, and such.

"All right" and "OK" by themselves, however, are different. They indicate agreement or assent, so are equivalent (depending on the context) to "I agree" or "Yes, let's do that" or "I don't object to that" or "That's fine with me," etc.

If someone says, "I'm sorry I was late. Traffic was terrible!", you would never answer, "I agree," so you would not just say "All right" or "OK" in response. You would say something like, "That's all right, " "That's OK," or "No problem, we haven't started yet," etc.

If someone says, "Let's have a picnic," you might say, "Sure," "OK," or "All right" in response, if you wanted to agree to it. You might also say, "That's all right," but if you did, it would mean, "No, thanks."

I hope that doesn't make it more confusing. Good luck.
_________________
You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[SAMUEL_LYNN]

Dear CP,thank you from the bottom of my heart.Now I am sure I am right and can tell my students the truth.I've been teaching Junior English for 14 years and I clearly remember that they testers ever used "That's all right/OK" as a response to "Thank you.".They asserted it was British English.Is that inappropriate or wrong?