How to Politely Excuse Yourself Learn English Grammar

want to speak real english from your

first lesson

at englishclass101.com

hi everybody my name is alicia in this

lesson

i’m going to talk about some ways to

politely

excuse yourself i’m going to talk about

expressions you can use

when you make a mistake and expressions

that you can use to ask

permission to leave somewhere so let’s

get started

okay the first expression i want to talk

about is

excuse me excuse me excuse me

can be used when you need to ask

for something and you have to interrupt

someone else

it can also be used when you need to

apologize for something small

and we usually use excuse me for

apologies with strangers so for example

if you’re walking down the street and

you

bump someone’s shoulder you might say

excuse me oh excuse me you might hear

some native speakers drop this

e sound it might sound more like excuse

excuse me so this x might sound like an

s sound excuse me instead of excuse me

so you can use this as an apology to say

i’m sorry with strangers or two

strangers

or you can use it when you need to ask

for something

as in this example sentence excuse me

i’m looking for the restroom excuse me

i’m looking for the restroom

again excuse me is used more commonly

with strangers

people that we’re not close to this is a

sentence you might use

in like a department store or a shopping

mall for example

so you don’t know the other person

excuse me this is a nice introduction

um to your question so excuse me or

excuse me

okay let’s compare this with i’m

sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry is better than

i am sorry i am sorry sounds very stiff

and unnatural i’m sorry or just

sorry so i’m sorry sounds a little bit

more formal a little bit more polite

than just sorry so we use sorry

when we make a mistake and we use it

when we’re close to the other person or

we use it maybe

with strangers sometimes for a very

small

problem so again in like a shopping

situation

maybe you touch the person next to you

or you do some small motion that’s maybe

uh like a mistake or it’s some small

motion that might bother the other

person

some people might say sorry sorry is

more casual than

excuse me in this situation oh sorry

so that sounds a little bit more

friendly there

excuse me sounds a little bit more

polite

so i’m sorry or sorry in this example

sentence

i’ve used i’m so sorry i’m so

sorry so we tend to use so sorry

a lot as an emphasis word you could say

i’m

very sorry i’m very sorry to me sounds a

little bit

more formal than i’m so sorry so

sounds a little more casual so for

example

i’m so sorry i forgot to send you the

file

so here this is a mistake and we use i’m

sorry here

instead of excuse me because in this

case i forgot to send you the file

it’s like the speaker has some

relationship with the listener

it’s not a stranger in this case here

this is probably a stranger

in this case the speaker has some

relationship

so this i’m sorry and i’m so sorry

is quite natural okay so

let’s compare this then to this sorry

a key here is my question mark this

question mark

punctuation point because

i’m sorry and sorry have different

meanings

so you can hear the intonation is

different

when i want to apologize i made a

mistake

i say i’m sorry or just sorry

when i have a question though i say

sorry

my intonation goes up so we use this

sorry when we didn’t hear something

another person said or when we don’t

understand

that thing that they just said so in a

situation like this

sorry i couldn’t hear you

so sorry is similar to what

but we use sorry to mean like maybe oh

sorry i was being noisy

i couldn’t hear you or maybe sorry

i i couldn’t understand and that might

be a problem for you

so sorry to me feels a little bit softer

than just

what if someone like says something and

you can’t hear them so

sorry so please note i’m sorry

and sorry have different intonations so

we don’t use i’m sorry

with an apology we use this if we didn’t

hear something another person said

okay now let’s go on to a couple of

permission related questions

i have for both of these two

options in the sentence or two options

in the question and they are

can i and may i

so these are both used in situations

where

we need to ask someone else in these

cases i was thinking

a teacher or perhaps a colleague

were asking permission to leave a

location

this is one that’s very common for

students

so we can say can i use

the restroom can i use the restroom or

can i go to the restroom is also okay

can i go to the restroom

also may i use the restroom

may i use the restroom or may i go to

the restroom

so in every day at least american

english

speech both can i and may i are

acceptable

some teachers however are very very

strict

about the words that they use and they

prefer students use

may i the reason for this is

historically

may i has been used to ask for

permission

can i is used to talk about abilities

so this is the historical difference

between these words

but today in today’s english we use both

of them

to ask for permission so can i go to the

restroom

or can i use the restroom are both okay

so we can change that to may i go to the

restroom

may i use the restroom both of those are

fine

but just every once in a while i

remember this from my school days

my teacher would sometimes say

in response to a student that said can i

use the restroom

the student said can i use the restroom

the teacher responded

i don’t know can you so it’s kind of a

joke like is it possible for you to res

to use the restroom can you use the

restroom

so this sort of joke this kind of strict

english grammar joke

it’s not very funny but it’s referring

cannes historical use uh as like a

an ability related word so

in most cases it’s not a problem most

teachers and

most people in your life are not going

to use this

sort of joke but if you’re worried or if

you want to avoid this

you can use may i so the same thing goes

for this sentence the same thing is true

here

can i or may i leave early so

this is something you can use at work if

you like

like can i leave or class as well can i

leave early today or can i leave early

tomorrow

and you should share a reason for this a

reason for

excusing yourself for leaving the

situation

so again may i is more uh historically

accurate in terms of asking for

permission

can i is related more to abilities but

they are both

used today so for example

i would say if i have an appointment may

i leave early tomorrow

i have a dentist’s appointment so

you can include some time point here may

i leave early today may i leave early

tomorrow

i’m not feeling well if you use that one

may i leave early today make sure it’s

like and you’re using um a feeling like

you’re feeling

sick make sure it’s the same day like

may i leave early tomorrow i’m not

feeling well

that sounds very strange like you’re

planning on being sick

the next day that doesn’t work so please

use this i recommend using this

with your upcoming appointments and on

the same day if you’re not feeling well

you could

you could use this expression may i

leave early today i’m not

feeling well okay let’s continue then

to the next pair the next pair actually

all of these are a little more

formal and not as commonly used in

everyday speech

the first one is pardon me pardon me

so pardon me is like excuse me but

pardon me is not used at least in

american english

very often in everyday speech we don’t

use pardon

it sounds very formal in american

english

so we don’t use it unless we want to

sound very polite

for some reason even in business we

don’t really use this so much we use

excuse me more often in american english

so pardon me can be used again

if you meet us like a stranger and

there’s a small

problem like you brush against them or

you

maybe accidentally push your body into a

person on the elevator

you could say oh pardon me you can also

use this

to interrupt someone as i talked about

here like you’re looking for

information pardon me i’m looking for

the restroom

so again it does sound quite formal we

don’t use this so much in american

english

but this is how it is sometimes used the

same point then

applies here for this pardon pardon

as a question so as a question it means

this as a question

sorry what what did you say so pardon

i didn’t catch that what was that i

couldn’t hear you

so again your intonation should go up

when you say this pardon it’s different

from pardon me

pardon me so pardon it’s a question an

example of how we use this

is pardon i don’t understand so again

let’s compare this to the pronunciation

of pardon me

which we use to interrupt someone pardon

do you know where the nearest

supermarket is

so again we’re asking for information

here probably

from a stranger so we use pardon me or

excuse me to do that

all right let’s go on to the last pair

these use the word forgive forgive

so to forgive someone means to like

accept their apology so they did

something wrong

and you know they did something wrong

they say they’re

sorry and you say okay i understand

it’s okay no problem that’s to forgive

someone

so forgive me forgive me

we use this expression after usually a

big mistake and we use it usually with

people we are very close to so this

could be

um like your mother father grandmother

grandfather

your close family members you could use

it with your partner your spouse husband

wife

whatever um you can use this for

yeah big mistakes that maybe have some

strong

effect on your relationship you might

use this in some cases

for a serious work-related problem um

so just keep in mind this is a fairly

formal expression we use