Name: Improve your Vocabulary: Stop saying SORRY!
Uploaded: 2025-07-21T18:27:43.000Z
Duration: 25 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I'm so sorry, it's all my fault, mea culpa, oh my gosh.

To-infinitive

I want to do a video to help you with a word that is so ubiquitous, I gave you a nice vocabulary word there, it's everywhere.

People do it, especially in Canada, like, oops, sorry about that, sorry, sorry, to apologize.

And then we use it to apologize, but the problem is this.

You don't always have to apologize, what?

And sometimes an apology isn't strong enough for what you want to say.

So this lesson is to help you stop saying sorry in the way that people throw it out, and it loses its power, and that's important because it's a great word to use when it's used properly.

But I'm going to teach you how to use it, actually, I'm going to teach you other things to use so you can still use sorry, even though I said stop using it, but you'll have better alternatives to let people know exactly what you want to communicate.

And E's crying, and I just want to clean that up a little bit.

Well, let's start off with, first of all, sorry is a great word, and it means that I recognize that I have done something wrong, and that's very important.

There are people out there who can't say sorry because they feel it's weakness, but really, when you're saying sorry, you've done something wrong, and as a human being, you want to improve.

So it's a good thing to say, hey, I'm sorry, I messed up, I want to learn how to improve.

But sometimes, you don't need to say sorry, you don't need to apologize, it's just you need to excuse yourself because it's not something that's terrible that you've done.

And other times when you say you're sorry, it's because it's really heartfelt, and that word won't really get that message across, and if, whether you're a native speaker or a student learning English, this lesson will help you bridge the gap to communicate much more effectively a powerful idea that if not you've done something wrong, you feel badly that something has happened to someone you like or love.

So, sorry, it's a great word, it means to recognize that I've done something wrong.

You know, a light mistake, yeah, because sometimes, I mean, you're, whoops, I can't do that.

Yeah, the cap wasn't on, I spilled some water.

In about five hours, I'm not even going to touch this, it's going to disappear.

You will not see the water, it will be gone because the sun or the light will dry it up.

When you break something or you drop something, you can say whoops.

Would I say this if I dropped wine on a, red wine on a white carpet?

But also, you know, let's say you drop something by saying whoops, you don't have to say sorry.

The next one is, my bad, you made a mistake.

You know, the capital of Canada is Toronto.

This is not something that you need to apologize because it's a terrible thing, it's just a little deal.

Sure, you can say, sorry I dropped water on your carpet, or sorry I made a mistake in saying that Ottawa was not the, you know, Toronto was the capital of Canada, but nobody really cares that much.

These literally tell the other person it's not a big deal, don't worry about it, but I made a bit of a mistake.

Next, sorry about that is similar to my bad.

Like, sorry about that, because maybe you interrupted someone.

They were talking, I did it, and you came in, oh, sorry about that, I interrupted you, I didn't mean to, please start again.

I'm not trying to be rude, I did it, I wasn't thinking, maybe I was excited, so then I kind of jumped in there, and I say sorry about that because I realized I made a mistake.

Sorry isn't necessary, but we do say sorry about that to say what I just did.

So, you've got three light ones you can use.

Now, let's get into the territory of where sorry actually sits, where you have, you've recognized you've done something wrong, alright?

And it's not just a whoops, I dropped water on a plastic floor that will dry.

Now, when we do this one, I'm going to start with excuse me.

One is a social no-no where you say, oops, sorry.

So, for instance, I'm talking to you about, excuse me, oh, geez, excuse me.

Yeah, it's funny because excuse me sometimes, I mean, it's like, okay, I did something that's socially, like, passing gas is not really socially acceptable when everyone's drinking wine in a circle, and there's a, you say, excuse me, I had beans last night.

Oh, great chili, right on the stomach, excuse me, okay?

You can say sorry, but it's not like you killed anybody, but it gets across, like, I'm sorry, I didn't want to do that.

If you're sitting at a dinner table, and your phone rings, and, you know, a doctor's calling about your wife or something, I don't know, you got an appointment you have to go to, you might get up and go, oh, please, excuse me, I have to leave, I've got an appointment that I have to go to.

Why do you have to say you're sorry, like, I don't, I just want to do this, I don't know how this happened, no, man, it's just, please excuse me, I have another appointment I have to go to.

Yes, I don't really think I did something wrong, but I had something preplanned, and I have to cut my visit with you short.

We also use it in the same thing, to interrupt.

I'm talking, you're talking, and maybe you're saying something that's full of, no, let's not say that, that would be rude, and I don't want to have to apologize here, but maybe, maybe you're saying something, and it's wrong, and it's like you're saying, so, Toronto is like the capital of Canada, yeah, and I go, oh, no, excuse me, that's not quite right.

I'm going to say that to interrupt you before you say something else that's probably even more wrong, right?

I'm like, no, excuse me, I think, actually, Ottawa is the capital, right?

You might go, my bad, dude, my bad, right?

So, when we're going to interrupt a conversation, we say, excuse me, right?

If you're at a restaurant in North America, Australia, dah, dah, dah, dah, you may have a waiter come up and go, excuse me, how was the meal?

Because they're saying, I realize I'm interrupting your meal, but I want to check up on you.

Now, excuse me and pardon me have a similarity, which is going to be here I'll come back to, but when we say pardon me, you're asking for forgiveness.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Improve your Vocabulary: Stop saying SORRY!

phrase

recognize

situation

regret