Basic English: How to use SORRY & EXCUSE ME

I'm sorry!

Justin... hi, sorry, I have to apologize to Justin Bieber, because I have already made

a mistake.

You might be asking, "What are you talking about, you just started the video?"

Today's video is "sorry vs. excuse me".

And now, I'm living in Canada and they're very - they're world-famous for saying "sorry".

But even Canadians can learn a lesson from this particular lesson, because there's a

time to use "excuse me" and a time to use "sorry".

Let's go to the board and explore it.

So, E. E's singing as well: I'm sorry!

And Justin Bieber is Canadian.

I guess in this song he couldn't say "excuse me" because he already screwed up.

How do we know?

We're going to explain on the board here.

And I've put them in order for a specific reason, because they happen at different times.

We say "excuse me", "excuse me" is a phrase, okay, because it's got more than two words.

It's not a word, it's a phrase, but I broke it down and said, "Well, let's look at excuse".

I know what "me" is, right, pronoun.

But why do we say "excuse me"?

Well, we - excuse is a verb.

It means to judge with forgiveness.

In other words, you're about to see something and when you judge or think about it, you

need to do it with forgiveness in your heart.

Which means you need to give me some space and not to judge me badly or be too - too

hard on me.

Okay?

Also, it means to overlook, it means to not look at something, to go by it.

So, if you overlook something - imagine there's a white wall and there's a little black mark

right there.

Now, you go "The wall is perfectly clean, but there's a little black mark."

You're not going to destroy the wall, you'll just overlook it and say "Okay, I'm just going

to ignore that because it's a small blemish or a small - a small mark and it doesn't destroy

the whole thing."

Or apologize.

So, when you say, "excuse me", you can be apologizing to someone.

In this case, it's a general rule, we can say excuse me is usually said before you have

done something wrong.

Okay?

And to give you examples where this might come in true, or be true, the first one is

to get someone's attention.

Now, in a restaurant, you'll find a lot of Canadians or - not Canadians, Americans, British

people, they'll go "Excuse me, excuse me", because they want to get your attention.

They're directing to get someone to look at them.

They haven't done anything wrong, but they do need your attention.

So "excuse me" comes up there, right?

Remember we talk about forgiveness, overlook, and apologize?

So, overlook me yelling in the restaurant, "excuse me", because I actually need your help.

Or in a store, I need your help.

I don't know your name, your name night be "Susie", but I don't know Susie, so I have

to go "Excuse me", okay?

So, forgive me for calling you like that, but we don't know each other well enough yet.

Interrupt somebody.

Now, imagine I'm working at my desk and you need my attention, right?

So, going back to attention.

But I'm actually working.

I'm not just standing there.

You might say, "Excuse me", because I'm interrupting you, right?

And we go up to here, when we go, I'm apologizing for interrupting you during your work, right?

It's very polite, because in saying that, I'm acknowledging or I know that you're working

and I respect that, but I need your attention.

And the third one we have down here is: ask somebody to move.

Now, I'm apologizing in a way because I am interrupting you, but I need your attention

because you have to move.

Whew.

All three.

So, if you're getting on a bus and someone's sitting there and they have their bag there

and you go, "Excuse me, can I have that seat?"

Okay, excuse me, I need your attention, I don't know your name.

I'm interrupting you because you're sitting down, maybe you're playing a video game, I

don't know.

And I'm asking you to move, please.

Alright?

So, excuse me, could you move over?

I need the chair.

Cool?

Alright.

So, we've got all that.

This is "excuse me".

Now, there are some exceptions to that, where I might say, "I'm sorry to interrupt" when

- sorry, let me come back to you on that one, because I actually want to do that over here

when we say "sorry".

This is an exception that I will come back to.

Let's go over to "sorry", seeing as I started there and I'm sorry I did.

I'll go over to "sorry" to show you how that's different.

"Sorry" is an adjective, so right at the bat we can see that - right off the bat, sorry,

we can see that an adjective is different than a phrase.

So, even in the formation they're different, right?

When we talk about "sorry", it means to feel distress, something is stressing you out.

It means also offer sympathy, which you don't see over here, right?

And it's an apology, so this is where they come together and this is where people have

a problem.

Because we know "sorry" is an apology and "excuse me" can be used to apologize for doing

something, but apologize is a verb and an apology is a noun, okay?

So, we're offering two different things when we use these words, and we want to keep that

in mind.

Now, here's the other difference, besides the structure.

We usually say sorry after you've done something wrong.

Now, keep that in mind.

We use "excuse me" before we've done something, so we're saying we know what we're about to

do isn't comfortable or isn't good, and I want to bring that attention.

I want to be polite and let you know.

But we say "sorry" after we've done it, because it's like "Uh, too late, I've already done it."

So, "excuse me?" doesn't quite work.

You have to say "I'm sorry" because I've done it.

We use "sorry" to show sympathy for unpleasant news.

Let me give you an example.

I'm sorry to hear that your dog died.

I have sympathy for the pain that you're going through.

I feel for you, okay?

Disappointment at what you wish you could have done.

Let me give you an example.

Oh sorry - what you could have done and you could have changed something.

So, I'll give you an example.

You have 100 dollars and you buy comic books.

100 dollars' worth of comic books.

Batman comic books.

You know I love Batman, but I forgive you already, okay?

Don't worry, you don't have to say sorry to me.

But you buy 100 dollars' worth of Batman comic books.

Then you go to the train, you get to the train and the train costs 75 dollars.

I bet you're sorry now that you spent your money.

You wish you could have changed it.

You did the right thing!

Trust me, in 100 years, those Batman comic books will be worth way more money!

But you wish you could have done something - you're sorry that that had happened, okay?

So, what about this one?

Sorry to say you can't do something.

Well oftentimes, someone will say, "Hey, I'm having a party Friday, can you come?"

You go, "I'm sorry, I can't do it.

I've got to work that night.

Wish I could, but I just can't do it, sorry."

Right?

You can't use "excuse me" in this one.

You have to say "I'm sorry", right?

Because you are apologizing in a way.

You're offering up an apology for your inability to attend that function or that invitation.

Now, I like this one.

Describe a bad situation.

I know you're going, "How can you say 'sorry'?

I don't understand."

Well, how about this?

You're a sorry excuse of a man.

You're a bad man.

This is a sorry excuse for an educational facility.

It's a bad school.

So, you can put that "sorry" in a sentence and you're not apologizing.

You're saying what this is is disgusting or bad, mwahaha.

I like it, see?

I'm not just giving you basic English.

I'm giving you English to insult people in a native way.

Now, can you imagine walking up to someone to say, "You're a sorry excuse for man".

You're saying "You're not a man, you're nothing.

You're not even a boy, you're a worm!"

Sorry, E. No, I don't mean - No disrespect, okay?

You understand?

Right?

So, you say, "It's a sorry situation", you're saying there's no excuse for this.

Some people are sorry examples of leaders.

I'll let you do your own math.

Okay.

So, I wanted to come back over here because I said "excuse me" and "sorry" can't be used

for the same.

But sometimes, we use "sorry" to interrupt.

Remember I said we could talk about "excuse me" because it's before you do something,

and I came back and said "oop", because I kind of interrupted myself.

Here's the exception where you say "I'm sorry".

When you say "I'm sorry to interrupt you", it's because - now, let's take a step back,

understand the logic here.

As I say to you, "I'm sorry to interrupt", I've already interrupted you.

Remember, I said you use "sorry" after you've done something?

Well, just me saying "I'm sorry to interrupt you" has interrupted you.

I've already done it.

So, sometimes you hear - because I know some people will go "Well, you can say 'I'm sorry

to interrupt you'".

Yeah, that's an exception because actually you've already interrupted them.

"Excuse me" is like - we say that as a preamble or we're saying pre like "before I interrupt you."

But the fact of the matter is you already have interrupted someone.

So that's why sometimes you hear people say "I'm sorry to interrupt" instead of "Excuse

me to interrupt", because they understand just by saying the words.

If somebody is concentrating and writing and you go "I'm sorry to interrupt".

You're like "Yeah, you just did.

I was busy, what do you want?"

But I'm trying to be polite and here, I'm acknowledging that I've already done it.

Here, I'm saying I'm not about to, or I'm just about to interrupt, but I want to be polite.

I'm not an ignorant or not an annoying person.

Cool?

So, I'm about to - oh, sorry.

I forgot.

Notice how I said "I'm sorry"?

I forgot about the exception over here.

Now, there is an exception for sorry that we - you have to say instead of "excuse me",

you have to say "sorry".

After you pass gas.

And you're probably saying, "What is passing gas?"

Well, if you're thinking - I know what gas is, teacher.

I know it's not petrol.

Gasoline in North America is what I put in my car and I can drive away, but I don't know

why I would have to say "sorry".

Well, this is what happens when you - when you pass gas or you fart, that's the word

we actually use, when you fart or you have bad smell coming from your bum into the air

that other people have to smell.

Then you say, "Excuse me".

What?

You don't say "sorry", you say "excuse me".

I don't know why, because you've already put it in the air and everyone has to smell it.

You go, "Oh my God, excuse me.

Oh, it was unfortunate, I didn't mean for that to come out, oh, bad."

Or, here's my favorite one.

Another one for "excuse me" instead of "sorry" is - I have to give you two.

I'll give you this one right now, when you don't like what you hear, you say "excuse me."

And you're probably going, "Sorry?"

When you say "sorry" in that particular sense, it means I didn't hear what you said correctly.

So sometimes you'll hear people say "sorry?" and they mean "What did you say?"

Well, repeat.

If I go, "Excuse me?"

Both of these things are talking about hearing, but in the first case, "sorry" means "I'm

sorry, I didn't hear that sound you were giving me."

But when I go "Excuse me?"

I don't like what I just heard.

I don't like what you said.

So, if you said, "Hey James, you and E should retire this show."

And I go "Excuse me?

Huh, huh?

Excuse me?"

And you might go "Sorry, didn't mean to say that."

I go "Yeah yeah, mmhmm, that's right."

Anyway.

So, the exceptions are funny because I put them on opposite sides just to tell you that

in this particular case after passing gas, you say "excuse me", you don't say "sorry",

right?

Unless it's really foul or really bad, then you should say sorry, because that's just

rude, okay?

But when you say "excuse me", you don't say "sorry" for "I don't like what I heard", you

say "Excuse me?"

And from the tone of my voice you can tell that I don't like what you just said to me.

Alright?

But when I say "sorry", I actually didn't hear what you said.

Are we cool?

Great.

Now we've done that.

A quick review, just a quick one.

Just remember, "excuse me" comes first, and that's why I put it first.

Before you do something that you're going to be sorry about.

Sorry, there.

And "sorry" comes after you've done that, after you've done something wrong.

If you can keep those in mind, you'll know almost 90% when to use them, and don't forget

the exceptions I just told you about.

When passing gas, you say "Sorry", no, "Excuse me", you say "excuse me", remember?

Because I don't know why we say it afterwards, but we do.

And "excuse me" is used for things you don't like that you hear.

"Excuse me?

What do you mean my Prime Minister isn't a good guy?"

Some people don't think he's a good guy.

Or, "I'm sorry to interrupt", even though because the interruption has already taken

place, okay?

Even though I told you you can use "Excuse me".

Now we're done both of those.

Let's go, because we have to do our homework and maybe more than that, we have to do, I'm

sorry, our quiz.

Okay, I'm back.

Sorry about the wait.

Excuse me as we amble over to the board, which means to walk over to the board.

E and I were having a conversation and let's take a look at it and see how we can use the

two words we were working on, sorry and excuse me, to change this into something a little

bit different.

Okay?

So, first, E says, "Can I have your attention?"

And then James said "I didn't hear what you said."

And E says, "I don't want to disturb you, but could you move your foot?"

James said, "I don't think I like what you said."

E said, "You're stepping on my foot."

And James says, "Oh, I apologize for doing that."

Kind of formal.

So, let's look at what I think the first mistake we have.

The first thing I think we can get rid of is this.

Yes, the whole sentence.

How about the next one?

Yeah, I think we can get rid of the whole sentence.

What about this one?

Okay.

And the next one, you're going, "Oh my God James, you're erasing everything!"

Yeah, because once we use these words, they have so much information loaded in - sorry,

there.

Your foot.

Because I'm asking you a question, I almost forgot that.

There's so much information loaded in the two words we are using, excuse me and sorry,

that whole sentences can be taken - or sentence fragments can be just removed and use those

words alone.

And here, another one we can take - get rid of all of that.

And that.

Whew.

There's almost nothing left, and that's right.

Let's see what happens when we actually put in the corrections for these sentences.

And you're going to have a whole conversation with just a few words like a native speaker.

Alright, ready?

So, "Can I have your attention?"

What do we say when we said - to get someone's attention?

You can just say this, you can just say "Excuse me."

That's it.

"Excuse me."

And say it in a questioning way.

The voice goes up, "excuse me", it's like a question, an invitation.

I've gotta be careful, I don't want to keep popping the cap.

Alright.

So, excuse me for doing that.

Probably destroys your eardrums.

And then James can say this, watch.

He can say this, he can just say this one word, one word.

You can just say this: Sorry?

Yep, that's it.

You're like, "What?"

Yeah, that's all I need to say.

We're having a real conversation now.

Next thing, yeah.

Remember, the offense has already happened in this case, so we're not going to say "Excuse

me, could you move your foot?", but "Sorry, could you move your foot?"

Now, James says - I'm not usually this rude, okay?

Before you guys think it's me.

It's just me writing a story.

Because you know I love E and I would never step on his foot.

First of all, he doesn't have a foot.

He's a worm, so that would be a physical impossibility.

Okay.

But I could say this.

And then finally, at the end of this story, at the end.

Let me just clean up the board a little bit.

Ah, hold on a second, jeez.

Excuse me for spelling this incorrectly.

There we go.

And I need to - alright.

So, look how we've changed this entire story.

We started off with all of this and it can be made down to just this.

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry?"

"Sorry, but could you move your foot?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're stepping on my foot."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

It's like, but all these words!

Well, it's right there.

It's in the tone.

It's what it's loaded with.

With this "excuse me", it's like "Can I have your attention?"

"Excuse me?"

And the other person saying "Sorry?"

I didn't hear what you just said to me.

And then, "Sorry, but could you move your foot?"

Like, I'm sorry to disturb you as you step on me.

And the other guy's like, "Excuse me?

Like what?"

Like, "You're stepping on my foot."

Then, "Oh, I'm sorry" I apologize for that.

Anyway, I apologize for - Oh, having to give you the bonus and almost ending this video

too early.

But, let's look over here.

I'm going to give you some other words for "excuse me" and "sorry" that are typically

used in English, although you'll find that "excuse me" and "sorry" are used more.

Apologize.

Apologize is a verb and it's to say you're sorry for doing something.

I would say that's a little bit more formal that "sorry".

We throw around "sorry".

When you say "apologize", you're taking the time to maybe give a little bit more, more

emphasis to how sorry you feel.

Like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry - I'm sorry I stepped on your foot, but I apologize means I'm very

sorry about what I've done.

Okay?

Pardon is to forgive an offense.

You'll notice I have that as a noun and a verb because a government can pardon a criminal.

So, if a criminal has done something wrong, they can forgive that offense.

We can also use pardon, funny enough, to say when I don't hear something.

If someone says something and I go "Excuse me, pardon?"

It means "What did you say?"

Similar to "sorry", like I didn't hear what you said, pardon?

Can you repeat that?

I beg your pardon, which no one really says these days, but if you did say to someone,

"I beg your pardon?", it's like could you repeat that?

I don't believe you said that!

Okay, regret.

Regret's an interesting one, because it's going to seem similar to apologize and sorry.

You feel sad about something, but there's also another thing that usually goes with

the verb type, when we use it as a verb.

It's about a lost opportunity.

Now, I need you to think about that.

Because to say you're sorry, you wish that bad thing didn't happen.

But when you regret it, it's like that bad thing happened, but also you notice that there

was something lost, a lost opportunity.

Like, I regret not helping my son in the Army.

No, that's not a good sentence.

Let me put it this way: I regret not asking that girl out for a date, because she's a

brilliant woman and she would have made an amazing wife.

So, not only means sorry, I'm sad about it, but it was a lost opportunity to have a great wife.

Or, I regret not writing that book five years ago, because now someone else has written

it and no one wants to read my book.

I'm sorry, not just sorry, I feel sad about it, but I lost a good opportunity.

So, you want to use regret.

It's a nice word that adds a little bit more "oomph", right?

It gives more information to people.

Condolences.

Condolences.

Condolences is an interesting word, because it's not used often, but it has a very strong

meaning in our society, because it means deep sympathy or deeply sorry for.

And it's usually used for death, okay?

So, you're not going to say "My condolences on you not doing well on a test."

Not good enough.

My condolences for stepping on your foot.

No, it doesn't meet the level.

Somebody died or has a serious disease?

My condolences on the death of - I don't like using it this way, but on the death of a parent

or a child.

This "sorry" comes from the bottom of my heart, okay?

So, it's not used often, but it is used - nobody makes a mistake using it, so I don't want

you to use it, okay?

My condolences on your steak not being cooked well?

No.

Doesn't fly.

You clearly don't speak English.

But for death or something serious, absolutely.

Alright?

So now, you've got a formal word like a formal jacket you can put on when necessary.

Okay?

Cool.

Now, what do I want you to do for homework?

I want you to write a letter to somebody that you have wronged.

When you have wronged them, it means you have done something to hurt them.

Yeah, you don't have to show anyone this one.

You can make an imaginary letter, okay?

You can make an imaginary few sentences.

But I want you to do that and I want you to use at least three of the words here.

Example, you could say - I'm not a criminal, but "I regret killing those five people and

eating them", right?

"My condolences to the families of - who had to suffer through what I have done.

But I hope that the government will pardon me because of the apology I have met."

Look, I just used all those.

Boom, there.

I speak English.

And when you speak English, you can do the same thing, right?

I use it as a pardon, as what the government gives, I used regret, sorry for what I did.

My condolences, because people lost their lives, and I apologized instead of saying

"sorry", right?

Anyway.

You'll have to excuse me because we have to draw this lesson to an end.

But what I want to leave you with is the website, www.engvid.com . Go there please.

Do the test, see how well you've actually mastered this lesson.

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And this goes out to Mr. TN.

You know who you are because of my "just/only" video.

You came down and said, "James, could you do me a video on sorry and excuse me?

I get confused" and I hope I cleared up your confusion.

And for any of you out there, if you want me to do a video, pop something down.

Watch the video, leave a message, and I do read them and I'll get back to you, alright?

Anyway, sorry, I've got to go, but have a good one.

See you soon.