How to Politely Excuse Yourself Learn English Grammar
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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
me
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
to
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
me
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
more in serious mistake situations
for example please forgive me
i won’t do it again please forgive me i
won’t do it again
so maybe you spent a lot of money
on like a new boat or something and
your partner didn’t know about it and it
was a huge problem
uh so you might say please forgive me i
won’t do it again
i’ll sell the boat so you’ll you’ll show
you want you need to show
you’re going to take some action to fix
the problem
if you use this expression please
forgive me so i’m so sorry
um and then express usually some way
some plan that you have
to fix the problem you caused so forgive
me
again usually used in serious kind of
heavy situations
okay let’s move on to the last one this
last one
i included here because you might hear
it if you
attend for example a dinner party or
other
type of event where someone is hosting
a group of people like at their home or
at an event
space so it is forgive my rudeness
forgive my rudeness
so rudeness this means like bad behavior
uh it doesn’t really mean like actually
bad behavior
it means like uh they’re not being a
very good
host in the situation so this is
actually kind of a mild phrase this is
used for example when you arrive at a
party when you arrive at someone’s home
and the host greets you and you’re
talking for a long time
maybe in front of the door and the host
might realize this
and say oh forgive my rudeness
would you like something to drink like
please come inside like it was rude of
me
uh or it was bad behavior bad host
behavior
to talk to you just here at the door for
a long time so
please forgive my rudeness so this is it
sounds quite formal
this is somewhat of a formal phrase but
it’s something that like a party host
would use
um for a nice dinner for example so you
might hear this
you might hear this in media as well too
forgive my rudeness
so it’s it’s actually kind of a friendly
phrase it shows you care about the other
person
and you usually do something like offer
them a drink or offer them to come
inside
offer to take their coat you usually do
something
to show that you care about the other
person and you want them to
enjoy their time so forgive my rudeness
okay so this is just i think the most
basic
set of expressions that we use to excuse
ourselves or to apologize
you might hear some variations but i
think that these are
pretty good for most situations just to
recap
them in summary these are the phrases
and the words that we use
if we make a mistake so they are sorry
or i’m sorry with that downward
intonation i’m sorry
we can use pardon me pardon me
or just pardon as well as okay we can
use excuse me
and we can use forgive me again in more
serious situations
in most cases i use i’m sorry i’m sorry
or just
sorry so that one is most common i feel
in everyday life
followed by excuse me i think so these
are mistake expressions
and we also talked about these two
patterns you can use to
leave a room like to leave a classroom
or perhaps to leave
part of your workplace so i hope that
this is helpful for
you if you have any questions or
comments please feel free to let us know
in the comment section of this video
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