Hello.
My name is Emma, and in today's video, I'm going to teach you some vocabulary and some
grammar.
Today, we are going to talk about the word "regrets".
We're going to find out what it means and how to use it, and how to talk about regrets
in general.
So, let's get started.
So, what is a "regret"?
When we talk about regrets, what we are really talking about is a feeling we have, and it's
a feeling of being sad or disappointed because of something that happened; so, a sadness
or disappointment over something that has happened.
And it's when we regret something, we feel bad or we feel sad or disappointed, often
because of how we behaved or because of what we did in a situation.
So that's kind of confusing, maybe, so I'm going to give you a real-life example to help
you understand this better.
I want you to pay attention to my dress for a second.
I don't know if you can see this, but it's covered in dinosaurs.
I have, like, a stegosaurus, a brontosaurus, a whole bunch of dinosaurs.
So, today, I actually regret wearing this dress.
So, I regret wearing this dress.
So this means I feel a little sad or disappointed that I wore this dress today.
So, I feel bad that I did this action.
Why?
Well, I'm making a video about vocabulary and grammar, and I'm not really dressed that
professionally, so I should have worn something different.
So, let's go back to English for a second.
I regret wearing this dress.
I should have worn something different.
So, notice the grammar here, okay?
We have the word "regret", and in this case, we're using it as a verb, "I regret", and
then we have the action or the behavior we regret.
In this case, for me, it's wearing this dress.
We also have another sentence afterwards, "I should have worn something different."
When we use "should have", what we're talking about is what we wish we had done instead.
So, this is what I did do.
I wore this dress, and now I'm thinking, "Ugh, I shouldn't have worn this dress.
I wish I had done something different."
So, we're going to look at the grammar of both of these sentences in a moment, but I
want you to take a moment and think about, is there something in your life that maybe
you regret?
Okay?
It could be something funny, something big, something small, something serious, but a
lot of us have things we regret in life.
I'll give you one example, and then we'll move on to looking at the grammar.
I have some friends who got tattoos of their ex-boyfriend's name.
When they broke up, my friend regretted her tattoo.
She wished she had done something different because now they're broken up and she has
this tattoo of the guy's name, so that's an example of a regret.
She should have done something different.
She wishes she had done something different.
So, now let's look at some examples.
Hopefully you don't have that situation for you, but let's look at some other examples
of regrets.
Okay, so I talked about how I regret wearing this dress today.
What's another regret that I have?
So, what's something else that I wish I didn't do, but I did do?
Well, last night I was watching Netflix and I stayed up very late.
I stayed up until 2am watching Netflix.
I regret this.
I wish I hadn't done this because now I'm a little bit tired.
So, how can we make this into a sentence?
So here is the real situation.
I really regret - so here we have our verb "regret" - staying up until 2am.
If you are like me, you love sleep, and this is - this can be a very big regret, especially
if you have something important to do the next day.
So, I really regret staying up until 2am.
So notice, after the verb "regret", we have a second verb, "staying up".
Now notice, we have the second verb and it ends in -ing.
So when we use the verb "regret" and we have a verb afterwards, the second verb ends in
-ing.
I really regret staying up until 2am.
So let's make another sentence.
We'll just focus on this for a moment.
I really regret staying up until 2am.
I told you about my friend Chloe who got a tattoo of her ex-boyfriend's name.
So let's make up a sentence about that, and let's pay attention to these two verbs.
Chloe regrets her tattoo.
So let's put a verb after "regrets".
What can we say?
Chloe regrets - let's use the verb "get".
Chloe regrets get her tattoo.
Now if you look up here, remember we need an -ing on the verb after "regret".
So let's do the same thing down here.
Chloe regrets - I need to double up the "t" and add -ing.
Chloe regrets getting her tattoo.
Okay?
So both of these situations, I really regret staying up until 2am, and Chloe regrets getting
her tattoo.
Note that these are real situations.
They're things that we feel bad about.
Now if I want to talk about a wish or what should have happened instead, what I wish
happened, I can use "should have".
So this is not what actually happened, but in my head I think this would have been better.
I should have slept instead.
This is what I wish had happened.
I should have slept instead.
Notice how the grammar of this, we have our word "should", we have our word "have", and
then afterwards we have our verb in the past participle form.
In this case, "slept" is the past participle of "sleep".
I should have slept instead.
So "should have" plus past participle, I'll call that V3 for short.
So now let's make a similar sentence for Chloe.
So we know that Chloe's reality is she regrets getting her tattoo.
What would have been better for Chloe to do?
Well, we can say "she", so we need "should", and notice we don't do anything to "should",
we don't add an "s", it just stays the same, whether you have "I", "her", I'm sorry, "she",
"you", it doesn't matter what the pronoun is, "should" stays the same.
She should, so now we need "have", okay, so she should have.
Now I have a verb here, "think".
What's the past participle of "think"?
The past participle of "think" is "thought".
She should have thought about it more.
So she didn't think about it, that's the problem, this is what she wishes had happened instead,
so the reality and the wish.
So now let's look at some other examples of how we talk about regrets and the grammar
we use when we do that.
Okay, so we've talked about situations where I regret my behaviour, or something I did.
So for example, this dress.
We talked about my friend who got a tattoo, and she regretted it, she wished she hadn't
done it.
So what about times when I am happy with my decision?
How can I say that?
Well, I'll give you an example.
In the past, I used to study archaeology.
I really liked archaeology, but I decided to change careers.
I became an English teacher.
I am really happy I became an English teacher.
So how can I express this?
Well, I can say, "I don't regret changing careers."
This means that I am very happy with my career, I'm happy with my decision.
I don't have any regrets with this.
So look, happy with my decision, and I even made a smiley face because it was a good decision.
So I don't regret my decision.
And again, notice that we use the same grammar as we did before.
After our first verb, "regret", the second verb needs "ing".
I don't regret changing careers.
Okay?
So, there are also times - and this might get a little bit confusing - we might use
a different negative when we're talking about regrets.
So here we use "don't".
Sometimes you'll also notice people use "not".
"Not" and "don't" have very different meanings when we're talking about regret.
So these do not mean the same thing.
Let me explain.
There are times when we don't make a decision, or we don't make the right decision, and we
regret not doing something.
So before I talked about when we regret doing something, there's also times where we regret
not acting or not taking an action.
So that's confusing, so let's look at some examples to help you understand that better.
So here is the real situation.
This is what happened.
"Sam really liked Mary.
He thought she's the perfect woman for me, but Sam was very shy."
So what happened?
"Sam never told Mary he liked her.
He never asked her out on a date."
So 10 years later, Sam still thinks, "Wow, I wonder if Mary would have said yes.
Maybe we would have a perfect family right now if only I had asked her out."
So this is a regret because Sam didn't do this.
He didn't ask Mary out.
So how do we explain Sam's regret at not taking an action?
Well, we can say, "Sam regrets", so again we have our regret verb, "not asking out Mary
for Sam".
So this is an example of when we really wish we had done something, but we didn't.
And notice where "not" is located.
We have our word "regret", we have our second verb "ask", "not" goes between them, okay?
So it's almost like a sandwich.
You got your one hamburger bun here, the meat, and the other hamburger bun, if it helps you
remember it that way.
And notice also, just like in the above, after the first verb "regret", the second verb "ask"
ends in -ing.
"Sam regrets not asking out Mary."
So this is the real situation.
I have another example of a real situation.
"Chelsea regrets", so we have our regret verb, "not moving to England."
Okay, so let's highlight the "not".
So what does this mean?
"Chelsea always wanted to go to England, but she got really nervous and scared about leaving
her family behind, so she decided, 'I'm not going to go', and she regrets it."
It means she feels sad and disappointed.
She wished she had gone, but she didn't, so she didn't go to England.
So we can say, "Chelsea regrets not moving to England."
She wishes she was in England, but she's not.
And again, notice we have "not" between our two verbs, "regret" and "moving", and our
second verb ends in -ing.
So, remember, sometimes when we talk about regrets, we talk about what could have happened
instead.
We talk about the alternative that we think would have been the better decision.
So in this case, for Sam, remember, "Sam regrets not asking out Mary", we could say, "Sam should
have asked Mary out."
So we have our "should have" and we have our verb, the past participle of "asked", so this
is verb.
So did Sam ask Mary out?
No.
But did he wish he did?
Yes.
He regrets not asking her out.
Sam should have asked Mary out.
What about with Chelsea?
What does Chelsea wish?
What does she think about at night?
Chelsea thinks, "I wish I was in England."
So that's her regret, so she can say, "Chelsea shouldn't have moved to England."
Oh, sorry, I just realized I made a mistake here.
"Chelsea should have moved to England."
She didn't, this is the wish, "Chelsea should have moved to England."
But she stayed here.
So we've covered some examples of what happens when we should have taken an action but we
didn't.
Now, we're going to look at one more example to wrap this up.
All right, so let's look at our final example today.
I have a sister, Audra.
Audra loves sweet desserts.
She likes to eat a lot of cake.
So let's make a sentence about something I know Audra really regrets from last week.
So we were at a birthday party and everybody was given a piece of cake.
Audra didn't eat lunch, so she was really hungry, so she ate three slices of cake.
That's a lot of cake.
So how did Audra feel after?
She was not happy, she felt full, she felt uncomfortable, she really regretted eating
the three slices of cake.
So how can we say this?
Audra regrets, and notice I add the "s" because we're talking about Audra, so that's a third
person, it's like "she".
Audra regrets, and I use the verb "eat", what do we need to do to the verb "eat"?
You know, we need to add "ing".
Audra regrets eating three slices of cake.
I will probably regret telling you that, because when Audra finds out, I don't know if she'll
be happy.
So, Audra regrets eating three slices of cake, I regret telling you that information.
So what should have happened instead?
Well, this is what Audra wish...
This is her wish, this is what she wishes happened in the past.
It didn't happen, but this is her wish.
Audra should have...
So let's use the same verb, remember we put it in the past participle, or verb 3, so Audra
should have eaten one slice of cake.
So this is what she wished happened, and this is what actually happened, okay?
So in the comments, I want you to explain something you regret.
Maybe it's staying up late, maybe it's missing the bus, maybe it's something more serious,
like breaking up with someone, maybe you have a really romantic story you'd like to share.
What I want is for you to write in the comments something you regret, and I want you to try
to use the grammar from this lesson, okay?
So I want you to use "regret", verb "ing", and then what you wish happened instead.
So remember, "should have" and the verb in the past participle.
You can also check out our quiz at www.engvid.com.
There you can actually practice the grammar that you've learned in this video more, as
well as the vocabulary.
You can subscribe to my channel, I have a lot of different English videos, and I'm constantly
creating new ones, so don't forget to ring the bell.
If you ring the bell and subscribe, you can actually get the new videos.
I'd also like to invite you to check out my website at www.teacheremma.com.
I have an English club there that is a lot of fun, as well as a lot of English resources.
So thank you for watching, I hope you didn't regret it, and until next time, take care.