Expressing regret in English | Learn English with Cambridge

I did it my way.

Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then I...

How long have you been there for?

It’s Sunday and I’ve had the week from hell.

Just about everything

that could go wrong has gone wrong this week.

So, in today’s video I’m gonna

show you all the bad choices I’ve made this week

and how to express regret for what I’ve done.

Okay so before we go any further,

I’m just going to explain what a ‘regret’ is.

It’s a feeling of sadness or disappointment over something

that you did or failed to do.

However, before we start please don’t forget to subscribe

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so that you don’t miss out on any of our great videos.

But anywho let’s get on with the video and let me first

of all take you back to where it all started to go wrong.

Babes, are you not putting any cream on?

Cream? No.

The sun’s not that strong anyway.

I regret staying out in the sun.

The most important thing to remember

when using the verb 'to regret'

and a mistake that I often see in my classroom is to remember

that the verb

that comes after regret always takes the 'ing'

form or the gerund for all you language geeks out there.

People will often not pronounce the ‘g’

on the ‘ing’ part of the verb.

‘In’, stayin', regret stayin'.

I regret stayin' out in the sun.

Other forms of this structure

that I could have said in relation to the video are:

I regret not putting on sunscreen.

I regret not listening to my girlfriend.

I’m only coming out if you promise not to laugh.

I promise.

What do you think?

Right, come on we’re going.

Hold on.

Why, what?

Aren’t you going to try it on?

Why?

I’m an adult, I know my body,

I know which size I am.

Come on.

I should have tried it on first.

This is made up of the verb ‘should’,

the verb ‘have’ and the relevant past participle.

Its negative form is constructed

by putting ‘not’ in between ‘should’ and ‘have’.

And that’s normally contracted

in written and spoken English to form a ‘shouldn’t’.

A big pronunciation feature to watch out for here is

that the ‘have’ is often reduced

to just a ‘uh’ sound in spoken English.

That’s the same

in its negative form as well the ‘have’ takes a ‘uh’ sound.

Tried, ‘uh’ tried.

Should ‘uh’ tried,

I should have tried it on first.

Other examples of this structure

that I could have used for the video are:

I should have gone to the changing rooms.

I shouldn’t have ignored my sister.

See look at this we’re stuck here now, we’re cold,

we’ve run out of fuel.

I know, I know.

Aren’t you going to fill up?

Why?

Because we’ve nearly run out.

Everybody knows you get 50 miles after the red light.

If I had listened to Tessa we wouldn’t have broken down.

Oh, what time is it, what time is it... what time?

Oh, no.

See you in the morning.

Aren’t you going to set an alarm?

No, my body clock never fails me.

No. I would have woken up on time

if I'd set an alarm.

So, the dreaded third conditional.

Now this can often be a little bit confusing

so I’m going to take it slow for you guys.

It’s constructed of two clauses.

In the first clause we have ‘if’ plus the past perfect.

Now that's 'had' plus the past participle.

And the second clause is ‘would’,

‘have’ and the past participle.

Now you’ve seen two examples with the third conditional.

And the eagle-eyed viewers of you out there would have noticed

that you can actually invert the two clauses.

That means to change them around.

You can actually switch it

so the ‘would have’ part comes first.

And this doesn’t actually change the meaning of the phrase.

However, the clause

that comes first usually carries a little bit more emphasis.

So, key pronunciation features here include the ‘have’

in the ‘would have’ clause being reduced to just a ‘uh’

like in should have.

Interestingly, as well, the ‘I had’

and the ‘I would’

despite being different structures are actually

contracted in natural speech to produce a ‘I’d’ sound.

And this would be the same for any pronoun you use.

So, ‘you had’ or ‘you would’,

would be pronounced ‘you’d’.

But in the negative forms these aren’t contracted, instead

what is contracted is the ‘had not’ and the ‘would not’.

They’re reduced to ‘hadn’t’ and ‘wouldn’t’.

I’d listened.

If I’d listened to Tessa, ‘uh’, wouldn’t 'uh',

we wouldn’t ‘uh’ broken down.

If I’d listened to Tessa we wouldn’t have broken down.

Other examples of this structure

that I could have used for the video are:

If I had put more petrol in we would have been fine.

We wouldn’t have argued if I hadn’t been so stupid.

Look, look, I love this bit, love...

You did pay the electricity bill, didn’t you?

Um...

What did you just throw?

Electricity bill.

We need to pay that, you know, otherwise they’ll cut us off.

They ain't going to do that, I’ve got human rights.

If only I had paid the electricity bill.

Have you checked the weather forecast?

No, don’t need to do that.

Look, I grew up

in the countryside I know how the weather works, thanks.

I wish I had checked the weather forecast.

Okay so it’s obvious

that these are two different structures.

However, I’ve put them together

because they share similar features.

The main feature they both share,

is that after the phrase you have to use the past perfect.

As previously discussed,

that's ‘had’ plus the relevant past participle which again,

like I explained in the third conditional,

‘I had’ is reduced in natural speech to ‘I’d’.

Okay and a final pronunciation feature is

while ‘I wish’ is pronounced

as it’s read ‘I wish’ there’s no difference there.

‘If only’ has a slight pronunciation issue.

When it’s naturally said

the ‘f’ in ‘if’ actually jumps to the beginning

of only to form a ‘ifonly’.

It’s not ‘if only’ it’s ‘ifonly’, ‘ifonly’.

Again the technical term

for all you language geeks out there is catenation

where one letter sound jumps to the beginning

of the next word.

Paid. I’d paid.

If only I’d paid the electricity bill.

Checked, I checked,

I wish I’d checked the weather forecast.

Other examples of this structure

that I could have used for the videos are:

If only I had washed my clothes the day before.

I wish I hadn’t thrown away the electricity bill.

Okay and finally just to summarise,

here’s a recap of all the expressions covered

in today’s video.

So there you go, five really useful ways to describe wishing

that you did something or wishing you didn’t.

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So there you go, that’s a wrap.

Thanks for taking the time to watch,

it’s been really great to see you guys again

and I’ll see you next time for more language fun.

See you later.