How to Apologise in English

So I was on Facebook the other day and I was just looking through my newsfeed when I saw

a post from a friend. And it said 'Thanks so much everyone for the birthday wishes.'

I quickly looked at when it was from, yesterday! I'd missed his birthday. Does that make me

a bad friend? Probably! So I had to apologise immediately. I sent this message 'Dude, I'm

so sorry I forgot your birthday. I'm an absolute idiot. Are you free for drinks this week?'

Thankfully he said yes and it was all ok but I felt like such an idiot. So how did I actually

apologise to my friend? What words did I use? Well, I said 'I'm so sorry I forgot your birthday.'

'I'm so sorry.' That so adds emphasis, it shows just how sorry I was. So if you are

in a situation where you've made a big mistake or it's quite a serious mistake then we use

so to add emphasis. I'm so sorry. Other words we can use there are 'I'm terribly sorry'

'I'm really sorry.' 'I'm very sorry.' 'I'm genuinely sorry.' So you can use any kind

of modifier there to add emphasis to your words. Thankfully it was all ok, my mate forgave

me and we went for a drink and everything was fine. I want to look today guys at how

to apologise in certain situations in English. So we are going to do all that right after this

Welcome Eat Sleep Dreamers to another lesson with me Tom. If you haven't met me, my name

is Tom and I teach fresh modern British English so that you can take your English to the next

level. Now before we get going guys, if you haven't already please become a subscriber

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it. So make sure you hit that notification bell. Fantastic! Ok, so we're going to look

at four other situations where you might need to apologise in English and I'm going to give

you some really useful phrases to help you to do that. This is going to be really useful

guys, so let's get going.

Ok, let's think about when you make a small mistake. What can you say? So, ok so let's

say you spill your friend's drink on the table and it goes everywhere. How are you going

to apologise? Well, I might say something like 'I'm sorry. I'm such an idiot. Let me

clear it up.' So I would say 'I'm sorry' that's the apology. I'd also add a little insult

to myself there. So I'd say 'I'm such an idiot.' Now in British culture we do that quite a

lot. We kind of insult ourselves, maybe just to add emphasis to our apology. Also to show

that we understand that we've been an idiot in this situation. 'I'm so sorry. I'm such

an idiot. Why did I do that.' So it's a way to soften the whole thing and to make the

apology seem more genuine and to recognise that we've behaved in a silly way or in an

idiotic way. Now obviously you don't want to insult yourself too much, but yeah just

saying 'I'm such an idiot' that'll do, that's enough. What about if, let's say you miss

your friend's phone call. They are trying to call you and you miss it. You could call

them back and say 'Sorry about that! I was in the gym.' Sorry about that is quite a nice

way to apologise as well. If you want to be more informal. I mean those are quite informal,

but if you want to be more informal you could say 'my bad'. This is definitely an Americanism

that has come in to British English but yeah again it's just saying it's my fault whatever

the thing is. For example let's say your waiter brings you the wrong drink and you say 'oh

sorry, I didn't order a coca cola.' they would say 'oh my bad! Let me get you your drinks.'

So there they are saying ah it's my fault I recognise that, let me sort that out for

you. So yeah, it's an informal way to say it's my fault, I'm sorry.

What about those social situations where you bump into someone or you make a little mistake

in public what would you say? Well, if I bumped into someone I'd say 'Pardon me' 'Excuse me'

that's quite nice. 'Pardon me' 'Excuse me' or simply 'Sorry'. In British culture we say

sorry all the time, I mean for anything. Even if it's not our fault. If somebody bumps into

me I would say 'Oh sorry.' Sorry for getting in your way which is kind of crazy. If they

have bumped into me and it's their fault I would still apologise, but this is British

culture I don't really understand why but it makes us feel good.

Ah what about if I do something socially awkward? So what if I burped? 'Pardon me!' Alright,

apologies for that one, I'm sorry about that one Eat Sleep Dreamers. But yes, when you

do something socially awkward like that burping or whatever you could say 'Pardon me' or 'Excuse

me' or 'My apologies' as well. My apologies is quite good.

Alright now you remember when I said British people love to apologise, well we love to

apologise for giving bad news. So if we are telling someone something that we know they

are not going to be happy about we are going to apologise first. And we use the phrase

'I'm afraid'. This is the way that we soften the bad news by kind of apologising. I'm afraid.

So for example somebody asks you for a phone charger, you might say 'I'm afraid i don't

have one.' And we are apologising for this bad news, I don't have the phone charger,

I'm afraid I don't have a phone charger. So yeah, the apology comes there. Only today

I was waiting for a train on the London Underground and there was an announcement on the system

and they said 'I'm afraid to say that there is a delay on the Underground today.' So they

are giving us bad news, there's a delay but they soften that by saying I'm afraid. So

it's a way to apologise for bad news. Ok, the final situation is maybe a more formal

situation, maybe more serious. So, most of them that we've looked at today have been

quite informal. What about when we need to be genuinely apologetic and say it in a formal

way? So we've got a few phrases that would suit this perfectly. I'd like to apologise

and then for the action. So I'd like to apologise for my behaviour for example. Or I want to

apologise for my behaviour. So I want to apologise for and then the thing that happens so for

my behaviour, for my late reply, for what happened yesterday. Whatever it might be,

it's for and then the thing. Another nice phrase 'i owe you an apology.' So again it's

saying I'm sorry, I genuinely know that I'm sorry, I owe you an apology. Again we are

using for there so 'I owe you an apology for and then the thing. For my behaviour. I want

to say I'm sorry as well that's another nice phrase. I want to say i'm sorry. Again I want

to say I'm sorry for and then the action. And finally Please accept my apologies. Now

we could add an extra adjective there so 'Please accept my sincerest apologies' or 'Please

accept my deepest apologies.' That just kind of adds emphasis the it and sort of strengthens

it. So please accept my apologies for and then the thing. So please accept my apologies

for being late. So these are all really nice formal ways to apologise. They could be spoken

or they could be written. A lot of these might be in an email of some kind. If you are apologising

in an email you could use all these phrases as well. Have you found that lesson useful

guys? Let me know in the comments below. Let me know if you have had to apologise in English

before. When did you do it? Why did you do it? And what language did you use to do it?

Let me know in the comments below. If you have enjoyed this video guys, please give

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British English. This is Tom, the Chief Dreamer, saying goodbye.