diff --git a/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py b/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py
index b4490578a70916..c6467bb7d7f7d1 100644
--- a/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py
+++ b/src/transformers/tokenization_utils_base.py
@@ -1966,10 +1966,9 @@ def get_chat_template(self, chat_template: Optional[str] = None, tools: Optional
             # priority: `chat_template` argument > `tokenizer.chat_template`
             if self.chat_template is not None:
                 chat_template = self.chat_template
-
             else:
                 raise ValueError(
-                    "Cannot use apply_chat_template() because tokenizer.chat_template is not set and no template "
+                    "Cannot use chat template functions because tokenizer.chat_template is not set and no template "
                     "argument was passed! For information about writing templates and setting the "
                     "tokenizer.chat_template attribute, please see the documentation at "
                     "https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/main/en/chat_templating"