This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2532, four ways to apologize in English.
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Apologizing when you've done something wrong is a huge part of human connection.
Today we give you the skills to say you're sorry for something you've done and rescue the relationship.
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Hello, Michelle.
How's it going today?
Hi, Lindsay.
It's going well over here.
How are you?
Good.
I'm happy to be on the show, but I have a question for you.
A little getting to know you question here.
Michelle, is it easy for you to apologize when you're wrong?
Good question.
Yeah.
If I know I'm wrong, I will apologize.
Even the other day it was funny because I thought that I had like a tone with Dan and then I felt, and then like we were off doing our own separate things and I felt bad about it.
And later I said, I'm really sorry.
I just wanted to tell you, I know that I sounded this way earlier and I, I'm sorry.
And he said I didn't even notice.
So um, and i, and i also will apologize to my kids, like that's one that you know um, if i, if i feel like i've yelled and that you know or, or something like that, so i would say i'm actually, i would say i'm pretty good at apologizing.
How about you, michelle?
Yeah no, that's good.
Yeah, i would say i generally do feel, because if i don't apologize, if i know i've done something wrong or even spoken with a certain tone, then I'll feel that sense of like.
Oh, it just doesn't feel good in my conscience, you know.
So yeah, I want to clear that conscience and move forward.
Michelle, what are we getting into today?
Are we talking about apologizing today?
Yeah, so we are going to do part two of a series that we started over on the Business English podcast.
So guys, if you haven't yet listened to the Business English podcast, it is a really wonderful podcast as well.
And we were talking about water under the bridge. on that episode.
So that was the first part.
And then we're actually going to have you have another episode dealing with apologies.
Back on Business, English.
So definitely hit follow on that podcast as well as this podcast so you don't miss any of these.
Yeah, and I'm not surprised that we're focusing in three different episodes across our network about apologizing, because it's a major connection skill, Michelle.
Whether it's in the business world or in our social lives.
Here on All Ears, English really important for connection.
Absolutely.
So on that first episode, we talked about some ways to react to an apology, right?
How to receive an apology.
But we wanted to do the other end, the apology part.
And we've spoken about apologies before, but it's been a long time.
So it's definitely time for a refresh because this is such an important topic.
Yeah, it's always.
Oh, I love a good refresh, Michelle.
Love a good refresh.
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All right.
So let's get into it, Michelle.
All right.
So today we're going to talk about more significant offenses, right?
Not something like accidentally going in front of someone in line, more relationship-based, important apologies.
So this is a real stuff.
Yeah, this is real life here.
Exactly.
So how do you do it?
So there are certain components.
There's the actual apology.
Often there's some sort of hope for forgiveness.
Um, maybe an emphasis depending on how the offense, how bad the offense was.
Um, so there's.
You know it.
Really, it really depends on what it was, but we're going to go through and give you um some examples here.
Okay.
All right.
So again, first one, I wanted to apologize for blank, right?
Now this is pretty neutral.
It's very common.
Um, It's interesting.
It's curious that we're saying wanted in the past tense, even though right now I want to apologize.
Right.
Why do we why do we do that?
Of course, we could say I want to apologize for two.
Right, Michelle?
Yeah.
The wanted put some distance there.
Right.
So, you know, it's a little less direct, I would say. it's a little less direct.
I would also say it implies that I've been thinking about this, doing this apology.
Exactly.
For a while.
I was going to say that too.
Right.
Like it kind of adds a nature of, um, genuineness to your apology, I think.
Right.
Right.
Because you wanted to, you've been wanting to in the past.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But you can totally say I want to apologize for X And that sounds.
It sounds a little more formal to me.
Um, but it's fine too.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or if you don't want to, actually you know.
You could also say I know you're probably, you're still probably upset about blank.
I'm so sorry.
Yeah.
Right.
So explaining what it was.
So I know you're still probably upset about my forgetfulness with the party.
I just wanted to let you know, I'm so sorry.
And I feel really awful about it.
Yeah.
And just to give a quick example for, I wanted to apologize for, I don't think we read this one.
So, or maybe you did.
Did you read that?
I think we read half of it.
Okay.
Let's finish it here.
I wanted to apologize for the note I left you.
I didn't mean for it to sound passive aggressive, but it definitely was.
I'm so sorry.
Right.
So just fill in the blank with your own issue, whatever's going on in your life.
Right.
Nice.
Whatever you did wrong, you put it in the blank.
Yeah.
Just own up to it.
Right.
That's what we have to do in life.
There you go.
Yeah.
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All right, Michelle, moving on.
There's other ways to do it.
I take full responsibility for X and I'm sorry.
So this one's a little more direct, right?
Yeah.
This one is a little bit more direct.
It's you did something completely wrong, right?
Yeah.
So for example, I take full responsibility for my behavior yesterday.
I should not have lost my cool.
Now here, you're not actually saying, I apologize.
I'm sorry.
Do you need to actually say the apology?
I'm curious.
What do you think?
Or is this enough?
No, this is enough.
This is apologizing.
You know, it's just another way of doing it without using those exact words.
Right.
I take full response.
This is, yeah, I don't think you have to say that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what's another one?
I hope you can forgive me for X. So I hope you can forgive me for losing your book.
I'm really sorry.
Or I really am sorry.
Okay.
Yeah.
So as you can see, often there's an apology and then there's almost a second apology.
Right.
And this is only needed if it's really necessary.
We don't want to go wild.
Just I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
And we've talked about that before as well.
Yeah.
The other thing is with apologizing, you should be specific, right?
So what are you sorry for?
I mean, I'm thinking about my kids when we say, oh, like, what is it that you did that, you know?
I think if you're not specific, it sounds like you're, I don't know, you're hiding from it.
It's good to be specific, I think.
No, that's good.
And I feel like that's really good to learn, when you're young too, to articulate what you did wrong, to go a little bit further right, be direct, be genuine, be specific.
I love it, i love it.
And then one of the biggest ways to make your apology seem that you don't really mean it is to say i'm sorry you feel that way, or i'm sorry if you felt that way.
Have you ever heard that, lindsay?
Yeah, this is a tricky one, because essentially what that's doing is it's saying well, that's your problem, you reacted to what i did And I'm sorry that you reacted that way.
But you're not saying I'm sorry, I did that.
Right.
It's a sneaky, sneaky way to apologize without apologizing.
Right.
And that's and I think that people are, you know, wising up to that, you know that that saying I'm sorry you feel that way, or I'm sorry, you felt that way.
People, people know, okay, this is kind of not exactly the apology I'm looking for.
I mean, you know, it really depends on the situation.
But definitely if you, if you want to take full responsibility, if you really do think you were wrong, don't say this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Otherwise, don't even bother apologizing.
Right.
I mean, yeah.
Yeah, I agree with that.
What else, Michelle, do we need to know here?
Yeah well, so again, the best thing I think for apologizing is to take responsibility, to be direct and to be genuine.
And also we didn't give you the episode number for the one over on business English.
Part one was that's business English.
You can find it, episode 502.
And it was called It's Water Under the Bridge, How to Accept an Apology at Work.
So really good one to couple with this one.
And then the third one will be coming up also on Business English.
All right.
Good stuff.
Michelle, do you have any questions here we want to discuss real quick?
Sure.
I mean, Lindsay, what kind of apologies do you think are the best?
Have you ever gotten a really good apology where you could really tell that the person really meant it?
Yeah, I think I have for sure.
I mean I think, just the ones where someone is.
You know they care enough about the relationship and they're humble enough and also introspective and self self-aware enough to look into what they've done, especially when maybe it's not clear that I was hurt, but I was right.
That's a really good appellate when someone has a real laser.
Laser focus on your own, on your emotions.
And they're really smart about that.
That's the kind of apology I like.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That you don't even really have to ask for it.
Right.
That person is able to read you or just they've they've thought about the offense they've committed, they realize it and then they come to you and that you know that does definitely feel like oh, they put some thought into it and hopefully it won't happen again.
Yeah.
Michelle, do you think that it's important to apologize, like right away, or is there a window of time where it's still valid?
Or is it just case by case for you?
I think it's case by case.
I think, um, Yeah, it really depends.
I personally think if it's something larger that happened, you might need some time to cool off.
Yeah.
And to think about it and think, how are you going to apologize?
Do you really feel like you want to apologize?
Like, because in the beginning you might feel, oh, no, I didn't do anything wrong.
And then you realize later on as you're thinking about it, you think, I don't really like that.
Right.
Yeah.
That wasn't my best moment.
But in the moment it's very hard to see things in the moment, especially when something is heated or um yeah yeah yeah no, totally.
Yeah.
It really depends on the situation for little things.
I think it's good to apologize right away, but if it's a bigger thing, I think, taking some some space and coming back and being more genuine and maybe having cause, we need that level of introspection into ourselves of maybe why did we react the way we did.
Right.
And we might not know that right away, because we have the adrenaline pumping and we see, you know, like breathing fire, you know.
Right.
Right.
Yep.
Yeah.
It's like a chemical reaction.
You can't just be mad and and apologize at the same time.
I'm sorry.
Right.
It's not going to.
Yeah, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
Yeah, that's so true.
So now we're going to get into a little tiff, right?
I suppose because I am apologizing to you because you forgot to invite my friends to a dinner, right.
I forgot to invite you to a dinner with our friends.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Well, here we go.
Let's see if I, let's see what we do here.
All right.
So, Michelle, I wanted to talk to you.
I've been feeling really awful for forgetting to invite you.
It wasn't intentional at all.
I wanted to apologize for this mistake.
I really hope you can forgive me.
Oh, thanks, Lindsay.
I appreciate that.
Yes.
Okay.
So what did I do here?
These are long.
I mean this is definitely long, but you know it is possible you would speak for this length of time, especially if I'm sitting there, you know.
Almost like I don't really want to talk to you.
Maybe I'm not giving you great eye contact, whatever it may be.
Right.
So you said I wanted to talk to you, which is, again, we talked about that wanted.
And what I like here is that you said I've been feeling really awful.
It wasn't intentional.
So you're saying that you're showing that you've been thinking about this and giving an explanation.
And then you said I wanted to apologize for this mistake.
And you're asking for forgiveness.
Yeah, it is a long one.
It is a long one.
So clearly, like, you must be very hurt, right?
Or there's a reason that I have to kind of go on and on.
It wouldn't always look like this.
But in some scenarios, it might.
Yeah.
As you said, Michelle, maybe you're not like making eye contact with me.
You're still indicating that you're very upset.
So I have to keep going on and on.
Painful.
Yeah, it's a little painful, but that's okay.
Yeah.
Now let's do a different one.
So here I am apologizing to you for yelling at you when I was hangry.
Oh, you got hangry, Michelle.
Just to remind our listeners what that means.
It's a really fun combination word.
What does it mean? hungry and angry.
So it's when you're so hungry that you start snapping at people.
And I think every single person listening to this episode can identify with that at some point in life, right?
Exactly.
It happens to the best of us.
It does.
It does.
All right, here we go.
Hey, Lindsay, I hope you can forgive me for yelling at you the other day.
It was completely uncalled for.
Oh, okay.
Thanks, Michelle.
I forgive you.
Yeah.
So maybe that one is a little less grave right of a mistake and and so it's, it requires a little less of an apology.
Right right right right, exactly.
Should we do one more?
Yeah, so here i am, apologizing to you for telling a secret that you asked me to keep, uh to it from another friend.
So i told another friend and you wanted that secret to be kept between us.
Right, all right, here we go.
Michelle, I take full responsibility for gossiping.
It was wrong and I should never have done it.
I know you're probably still upset about it.
Yep, still upset.
I know.
I'm so sorry.
And the truth is sometimes you're going to apologize and the person is still going to be upset.
They're not just going to perk up and just change their mind entirely, but...
We have to still have to apologize and just assume that eventually the person will come around, hopefully.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
And, you know, at some point there's only so much we can do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that does happen, unfortunately.
But we do want to feel like, well, we put our best foot forward.
We were genuine.
We did we did what we could.
If we again, this is if you really did something wrong.
Don't apologize for something you didn't do wrong.
Yeah, for sure.
So here I said Michelle, I take full responsibility for X, for the Jaren there, for doing something.
What did I do?
I gossiped.
So for gossiping, right?
And I know you're probably still upset about it, is what I said.
Yeah.
I said, yep, still upset.
And you said, I know.
I'm so sorry.
Yeah, tricky.
Oh, man.
You know, I guess for a takeaway for our listeners today, these are not...
The best moments in life, but it's part of life, isn't it, Michelle?
Yeah, we have to be prepared.
I mean, we try and prepare you for, you know, the happy moments, the sad moments, the angry moments, because we need the language for all of it.
Yep.
It's all about connection, right?
English is for connection.
So this will give you another tool to make sure you maintain the connection or rescue the connection if something has gone wrong.
Right,
So guys, don't forget the third part of this series is going to be over on business English.
So make sure you open your search bar right now, type in business English and hit follow.
Right, Michelle?
Definitely.
All right, Lindsay, thanks for talking about this with me today.
And yeah, it gives us all a lot to think about.
Yes, for sure.
All right, Michelle, you have a good day.
Talk soon.
You too.
Bye.
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