So , when I was a child I was told there are magic words you know in English like thank you
and sorry. But I never knew that sorry had so many different meanings in the English language.
Hi , I am Rima and welcome to today’s lesson; and today’s lesson is all about
the different ways in which you can use the word sorry in the English language.Now generally,
people think sorry is used when you feel bad about something or you want to apologize about
something.But what I’ve discovered is that there are many more ways in which you can
use the word sorry.So, I’m going to take you through some of them.Now the first one
I have is ‘sorry’ being used as ‘pardon me’; like imagine your having a conversation
and the person you’re talking to says something and you feel like you didn't hear him or her
correctly. So you could say something like , “Pardon me, could you please repeat what
you are saying?” or just to make things simple you could say , “Sorry, I did’nt
hear you correctly.”And that’s one way in which you can use the word ‘sorry’
in order to make someone repeat something that they’ve already said before because
you couldn’t hear it correctly.So that’s the first way in which the word ‘sorry’can
be used ; so, ‘pardon me’ can be replaced with ‘sorry’because it’s shorter and
simpler.Moving on , I have for you ‘excuse me’.Now imagine you’ve gone shopping and
you have a lot of shopping bags in your hand; and you’re passing someone and are kind
of nudging the person or bumping into the person ; you know probably touching them with
your shopping bags and obviously that is not considered polite.So , you could say , “Excuse
me” or could say , “Sorry!”; you know , which means ‘I didn’t really mean to
bump into you ;it just happened.So, sorry.’Now , if that person’s a stranger you’re not
even going to have such a long conversation with that person.All you’ll say is “sorry”
and move on.See, ‘sorry’ works and in so many different ways.So yes, you can either
say ‘excuse me’ or you could just say ‘sorry’.Now the next one that I have for
you is obviously apology; now this one you’ve heard many a time. So a lot of people say
‘sorry’ when they’ve done something wrong you know; or they have wronged you in
some way.So, let’s say that I hurt you ; you know by mistake or intentionally and I could
say something like, “I am really sorry I hurt you.”or “I’m really sorry this
happened;please forgive me!”you know if you’ve done something really intense; something
really major and you want to apologize for it; the best way to do it is by using the
word ‘sorry’.Moving on, another way in which I’ve seen people use the word ‘sorry’
is to offer condolences. Now , let’s say that there has been an unfortunate incident
in your life; probably, the death of a loved one and your close friend wants to offer you
condolences so instead of saying you know in a formal manner , “Please accept my condolences
on the death of your grandfather;” which sounds very heavy and formal ; your friend
could probably just say, “I’m really sorry for your loss.”Now, in this case your friend
is apologizing but not apologizing for her mistake ; she is actually expressing apology
or sadness for your loss.So, condolences you know , can be offered by saying, “I am sorry
for your loss.”So , which means that I feel really bad about your loss and please accept
my condolences.So, that’s one way in which you can use the word ‘sorry’.What’s
next? Well,now this one I see a lot of this usage in newspapers and magazines you know;
so ‘sorry’ the word ‘sorry’can also be used to express ‘hopelessness’.Now,
imagine that you think that the state of affairs in your company or the world in general is
very hopeless.So, that can be expressed by saying, “This is a..this is a sorry state
of affairs” or “The world is in a sorry state” which means the word ‘sorry’
here depicts hopelessness, despair, sadness, lack of hope ; you know. So , a sorry state
of affairs actually means a hopeless & negative state of affairs. So that’s one way in which
you can use the word ‘sorry’; you could say like ‘a sorry state of affairs’ or
‘a sorry situation’.Now the next way in which you can use the word sorry; wow now
this is actually a facial expression.Whoever thought that the word ‘sorry’ is a facial
expression?Really , it is.So imagine when someone looks really sad and hopeless; like
he or she has absolutely no hope and is very sad ; you can actually say something like
there is a sorry expression on her face or “I saw the children ; their faces had such
a sorry expression”or “their faces looked so sorry” which means the facial expression
on the faces of the children was very sad , very hopeless which is why ; you used the
word ‘sorry’.Now , who knew ‘sorry’ was such a flexible and useful word? It can
be used in so many different ways!So, yes ‘sorry’ is also a facial expression. So,
you could call it ‘a sorry expression’.Now moving on, I have some more ways in which
the word ‘sorry’ can be used. Now , the word ‘sorry’ can be used to express ‘regret’.You
know , let’s say you know you were in a relationship and it didn’t really work out;
and you feel bad about it. You regret the fact it did not work out.So, you can could
say something like; “Sorry, this did not work”which means I really regret ; I feel
bad about the fact that this did not work out.So , ‘sorry’ can be used to replace
the emotion of regret .Now another way in which I’ve seen a lot of people use the
word ‘sorry’ is to ‘forbid’ or to ‘deny permission’.So you know ,a lot of
moms actually struggle with you know trying to be strict with their kids. Now imagine,
a child asks his mother for ice-cream just that he asks for ice-cream before dinner and
not after dinner.Now,the mom will obviously end up being very strict.So you know , she
could say something like, “I forbid you to eat ice-cream before dinner” or “I’m
not giving you permission to do that” or simply use the word ‘sorry’ and say something
like, “Sorry!No ice-cream before dinner.”Wow! I think that has a lot of power in it;don’t
you think?So the word ‘sorry’ can be used to actually ‘deny permission’ or ‘forbid’
or basically to express something like ‘No way!’. “No way , are you having ice-cream
before dinner!”So you could say , “Sorry, no ice-cream before dinner!”I think that
sounds very, very effective. So that’s one way of using sorry and the last one that I
have for you is ‘pity’ or ‘sympathy’.Now imagine you’re feeling bad about something
that you are seeing or something that’s happened to somebody ; you know so instead
of saying something like “ I pity the poor children who have to live on the streets”
or you know“I am sympathy for the poor children who live on the streets”. Now this sounds
heavy , it sounds formal and though it expresses what you’re feeling it’s not that effective!You
could say something like, “ I feel so sorry for the poor children who have to live on
the streets.” Now the moment you use the word sorry; all your feelings get expressed
in that one word which is ‘sorry’.So yes, ‘sorry’ can be used for ‘pity’ or
‘sympathy’.So , those are the different ways in which the word ‘sorry’ can be
used in the English language and my god, there are so many!I never knew that ‘sorry’
was such a versatile word and if you keep practicing you’re going to actually be able
to use the word ‘sorry’ and enrich your English. So well, in case you want to view
many more such videos ; make sure you subscribe to our channel. It’s time for me Rima to
sign out and I’m gonna catch you very soon with another lesson.