Hey everyone, so in today's lesson we are going to take a look at some
alternative phrases to say "I'm sorry," and in the first part of the lesson we're going
to take a look at different ways that you can say this and then we'll look a
bit more specifically at some informal and formal ways of saying it as well.
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So before we start learning some alternative phrases it's important to note and to think
about the culture of Britain, so in the UK we do have a culture of politeness, we very much like
to apologize and you've probably seen examples of this in movies and TV series that you watch.
For example, if someone bumps into you if you're walking in the street or on the train you will
probably apologize to that person, so they might apologize to you for bumping into you
but we have this culture of politeness and what we tend to do is just apologize for everything,
even when it's not our fault.
So if you've made a mistake it's important to own up to that mistake
and all you can say is "I made a mistake" or "My mistake."
This way you are owning up to the fact that you made a mistake and you are apologizing for it.
More simply you could even say "I apologize" or "my apologies."
So if you've made a mistake and you really want to emphasize how sorry you are,
you could say "I'm ever so sorry," so this is really showing that you deeply
regret what happened or you deeply apologize for what has happened.
You could also say "I want to apologize to..." if you want to apologize to someone, so to a person,
or you could say "I want to apologize for (something)"
So if there's a particular thing that you want to apologize for, then you would say
"I apologize for being late," for example. And if you want to apologize to a person you
would say "I want to apologize to you," or you could say "I want to apologize
to my friend because I made a mistake." Another great phrase that you can use
when you want to own up to something, you could say "I owe you an apology."
So that's showing someone that you've made a mistake and that you're owning up to it
and that you feel that it's necessary to say sorry to them and to apologize.
One that you can use maybe when you're having a discussion with someone about
a disagreement or something that happened and you see that you were wrong in that situation,
you can simply say "I was wrong," and again this is another way of saying that you are sorry.
One that sounds a little bit more dramatic is "I hope you can forgive me," so
this is kind of putting it on the other person and saying "I am sorry but I hope you can forgive me,
I hope we can move on from this," so you might have heard this more in TV series and movies maybe
when someone has broken up with someone or when someone has maybe cheated on the other person,
or maybe something not as serious as that as well. Maybe someone made a mistake with
a friend and they are feeling guilty or they are feeling bad about it,
they might say to them "I hope you can forgive me."
And you could simply say "Forgive me." So this sometimes can sound a bit
desperate so be careful when to use it, you don't want to use this one all the time,
because it kind of makes people think that you've done something really wrong that they must forgive
you for and by saying forgive me it sounds a bit desperate, so don't use this one too much.
One that you can probably use in the workplace maybe if you've made a mistake,
you know you lost sight of something and you're speaking to your boss about it you could say "It
won't happen again," so this is confirming that you acknowledge that you made a mistake
and you are telling them that it won't happen again, you won't make the same mistake again.
Now when you want to take ownership in a situation that you have made a mistake,
maybe a group of you are being reprimanded or told off
for something and you want to own up that it was your fault, you can say "It's my fault."
So you are taking responsibility for your actions and for what has happened.
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Okay so now we're going to take a look at some more formal phrases or expressions that you can
use instead of saying "I'm sorry," and most of these would probably be used more in the workplace
or with people that you're not really that familiar with.
So you wouldn't use these with friends but you would use it when you want to be
a bit more professional or more polite with people that you don't really know that well.
So the first one is "I take full responsibility." "I take full
responsibility for my behavior," you could say. So again this is taking ownership of the fact that
you've made a mistake that something is your fault and you are taking full responsibility.
Again, if you've really made a mistake you might say
"It was wrong of me." So you know you're kind of reflecting now you've seen that
maybe you made a mistake and you are owning up to the fact that you were wrong in this case.
If you're in a situation where you've made a mistake but you should have seen it coming or
you should have thought in that moment to avoid it happening you could say "It was careless of me."
So if you are careless it means that you're not taking care in a situation,
so maybe you weren't really thinking in that moment and you made a mistake, whereas
if you had thought about it -if you were more careful- then you wouldn't be in this situation.
So the next one is very formal. It's "I sincerely apologize."
So you probably might write this, rather than say it like you could say it
maybe if you're in the workplace and you've made a mistake and you really want to show
how sincere you are, how much you mean you are sorry, you would say "I sincerely apologize."
You might also see this written in letters or in emails, for example,
maybe if someone has made a mistake, maybe a company that you've been working with
has made a mistake and they would want to show you how much they are sorry
that they made this mistake, so they would use "sincerely" to do that.
Another way to show that you have reflected about what has happened
and that you are extremely sorry you could say "I deeply regret."
So you could say "I deeply regret what happened and i'm ever so sorry."
That's again showing that you're being very sincere, that you really mean it.
If you're enjoying this lesson then why not check out our lesson with 10 Guest Star on
Friends, where you can learn 10 new expressions.
You can click up here or down in the description box below to watch that lesson next.
So now we're going to take a look at some more informal ways to say "I'm sorry,"
so you would probably use these more when small things have happened,
not very serious problems and probably when you are with your friends.
Okay so the first one is a little bit funny if you make a mistake
in that moment you might say "Oops!" So for example you might drop something
and when you do that you'd say "Oops" or you might bump into someone or you might drop
something you're holding for someone and you would say "Oops, I'm sorry."
And this is quite a cute one, it's very quick it's very easy and it does sound quite funny.
You could even make this sound a little bit cuter and say "Oopsie!" so again if you're being a
bit clumsy you might say "Oopsie, silly me." So you're kind of laughing at the situation,
looking at it in a light-hearted way and kind of making fun of yourself in a way as well.
One that I think maybe is used more in the United States of America and we've picked
up more as well in Britain is "My bad," so if you've made a mistake instead of saying
my mistake or my apologies in a very informal situation you could say "My bad," so it's another
way of owning up to a situation and admitting that you've made a mistake but in a very informal way.
Another informal way of admitting to a mistake is to say "I messed up."
So instead of saying my bad you could say "I messed up" and you would probably
use this where there's been some confusion in a situation and you've made a mistake.
So it's a very informal way of saying my mistake.
And finally you could even say "Sorry about that."
So you can see that there's different ways of pronouncing this one which is quite interesting,
so using a True T and that means you pronounce all the T's we wouldn't really
do this because it's too much effort. It would sound like "Sorry about that."
So because you've got quite a lot of T's there, we wouldn't really pronounce all of them so
natives would use the Glottal T, that is when the flow of air is stopped and then released.
So I would say "Sorry about that," so you can hear there you can't actually hear the T's but
there is a sound there where I'm stopping the flow of air and then it's released.
"Sorry about that."
You might even just use one Glottal T, so you could say
"Sorry about that," this is how natives speak and this is a lot more natural when we speak.
So I hope you enjoyed this lesson and you have lots of alternatives now to say "I'm
sorry," and we also did a lesson "Alternatives to Saying Good," which you can check out next,
but what would you like to see next? Let us know down in the comments below
what alternative kind of lessons would you like. And I'll see you guys in the next lesson.