Spoken English

How can you make apologies and blame other people in conversational English? Look at the examples, read the explanations and try the exercises. By ADRIAN DOFF

Laying blame and making apologies

MEDIUM PLUS Exercise 1

Which expressions mean you’re sorry (S) and which ones mean you are not sorry (N)? Tick the correct boxes.

S N

A. It’s nothing to do with me.

B. It was all my fault.

C. You have only yourself to blame.

D. Don’t look at me.

E. It was really awful of me.

When things go wrong, we sometimes apologize or blame ourselves; sometimes we blame other people. In the following, we shall look at ways to do both of these in conversational English.

Saying you’re sorry

The easiest way to apologize in English is simply to say Sorry or I’m sorry. To make it stronger, you can say I’m so sorry or I’m terribly sorry:

(after running into someone) Oh, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking.

If you run into someone or spill something, you could say Oops!:

Oops, sorry! After the word sorry, you can continue with “about” + noun or with a clause: I’m really sorry about last night. I’m sorry I shouted at you. In more formal English, you can say I apologize (for) or I would

like to apologize. To make this even stronger, you could say I do apologize (for):

I do apologize for arriving late for our meeting yesterday. You may also want to say that you feel bad about something you did. To do this, you can use the words terrible or awful:

I’m so sorry I forgot your birthday. I feel terrible about it.

I’m sorry I shouted at you. It was really awful of me.

Whose fault?

If something goes wrong, you may want to say who is responsible. There are two main ways to do this: 1. using the noun fault, (all) my fault, your fault:

I’m sorry about the accident. It was all my fault. Don’t worry! It wasn’t your fault.

2. using the verb blame or the phrase to blame:

Don’t blame me! I was here on time.

She wasn’t to blame. The other driver wasn’t looking.

Other ways of saying that something wasn’t your fault: Don’t look at me! (= Don’t blame me!)

Don’t look at me! I wasn’t even there. It was nothing to do with me.

(a window is open and everything’s wet) It was nothing to do with me. I didn’t open it.

No sympathy

If you think the other person is to blame, you might not feel much sympathy for that person. To express this, you can say It’s

your own fault or You have (only) yourself to blame:

“I failed my English exam.” — “Well, it’s your own fault. You should have worked harder.”

You can talk about other people in a similar way:

“His girlfriend has left him.” — “Well, he has only himself to blame. He was always so horrible to her.”

You may also say Hard luck! This can mean you feel sympathy for a person:

“We lost the match.” — “Oh, hard luck! I’m sure you did your best.”

Or it can show a lack of sympathy:

(arriving late for a meal) “Is there any food left?” — “Hard luck! We’ve eaten it all. You should have been here earlier.”

Exercise 2

Complete the sentences (A–E) with words from the list.

apologize | blame | fault | look | luck