6 Minute English / The right way to say sorry

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Neil Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Neil.

And I m Beth.

There are many ways of saying sorry in English, and they all have a slightly different meaning. If you tell me you re ill, and I say, Oh, I'm sorry , that means: I sympathise, and I hope you get better soon.

If you step on my toes by mistake, and say, I m so sorry , you mean: oops that was my fault and I didn't mean to do it.

And if you don t really feel sorry, you might be sarcastic, Oh, I m soooo sorry! meaning exactly the opposite that you re not sorry at all.

Saying sorry for something you ve done in English can be quite confusing, and to make things worse, the British are world champions at apologising. In this programme we'll discuss ways of saying sorry, and as usual we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

Sorry! but I'm going to have to stop you there, Beth, because first I have a question to ask. We know that the British love to say sorry. In fact a recent survey found that some Brits apologise up to twenty times a day. So according to the same survey, how many times per day does the average Brit say sorry? Is it:

a) four times per day?

b) six times per day? or,