6 Newt English from BBCLearningEnglish.com

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 so 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 20 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 a day, b six times a day or c eight times a day?

I'm going to guess it's six times a day.

Okay, Beth, I'll reveal the answer later in the programme.

Since the British are famous for apologising, it's no surprise that Louise Mullaney started

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