IELTS Speaking for Success - 🥺 Apologies and forgiveness (Part 3) + Transcript

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

2026 New Year Sale: https://successwithielts.com/sale Do people in your country often apologize? Why do some people find it hard to apologize? Do you think children should be taught to apologize from a young age? Do people in your country like to say "sorry"? Do you think people should apologize for anything wrong they do? Why do some people refuse to say "sorry" to others? Are women better than men at recognizing emotions? Tune in and have a great day! - Book a class with Rory here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://successwithielts.com/rory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Our course on Phrasal Verbs: https://successwithielts.com/podcourses Transcript: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2025 Podcourses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello and welcome into ILD speaking part three. Apologizing, apologies, hmm, what a lovely topic. What do you think, the listener? Rory, are you ready to talk about apologising? I was trying to think of a joke there to do with sorry, but I can't. So yes, I am ready. Sorry I didn't have a joke. There we go.

Do people in your country often apologize? Yeah, just out of common courtesy. say everyone occasionally gets in people's way and you need to make up for it, even if it's a relatively minor thing just to acknowledge the inconvenience. Why do some people find it hard to apologize? Well, I suppose they might not see they've done something wrong. And they might be right, come to think of it. Alternatively, they may not have realized what they did was like a serious faux pa and they properly messed something up.

And of course some people are just extremely stubborn and want to avoid the consequences of their actions. Do you think children should be taught to apologize from a young age? As long as they mean it and it's not something perfunctory or they feel they have to do it even when they've done nothing wrong, absolutely. It's just good manners. It shows you respect people and recognize you did something wrong,

even if it was by accident. Do people in your country like to say sorry? I'm not sure they like it, but they certainly don't have a problem saying it for minor things, like being a little bit late or getting something wrong. For something really inexcusable, they definitely won't like it, but it's part of making up for what you've done. Do you think people should apologize for anything wrong they do? Well, I think that depends, really.

If it's like a minor infraction and no one was harmed as a result, then you probably could just let yourself off the hook and not worry about it too much, since it might make you look a bit overly apologetic or oversensitive. Why does some people refuse to say sorry to others? Other than the reasons I suggested before, I suppose they could feel like they're taking more than their share of the blame, so if they're the only one owning up to things or taking responsibility, then it might feel disproportionate and they wouldn't want to do it.

Are women better than men at recognising emotions? On average, I'd probably not. I mean, we're all human, so our capacity to understand each other is, well, it needs to be equally distributed so that we can survive. That's a bit like saying, I don't know, men somehow lack a key component of the human experience, or women are overly sensitive. And I don't think that's true.

At least there's no evidence of this. As you know, we now release all of our premium, content for free and it's available for one month. After one month, it goes into our super secret archive. To sign up for the archive, click the link in the description below. See you soon. Yay, thank you, Roy for your answers. So we apologize.

We apologize to other people. We make an apology or we make apologies. And Rory told us that just out of common courtesy. It's like etiquette, right? Like manners. Good manners, yes. Polite behavior, polite actions, remarks. So courtesy. So people usually apologize out of courtesy, like because they have good manners. At least people should have the courtesy to say sorry if they've done something wrong. And a very good phrase or verb is to make up for it. So when you do something wrong, you mess it up, you need to make up for it.

Like to make peace, to make friends again. Make up for it. Another phrase of verb would be out of. Is that a phrase of verb? No, it's not. It's just a, um, it's just a collocation. Dispropositions. Yeah, but out of in combination means because of, or due to,

due to common courtesy for the reasons of, out of spite. And people apologize to acknowledge the incommission. convenience. Like, acknowledge, they admit something. They say that yes. I did something wrong. I acknowledge, accept my behavior, which was not very nice. C1 actually, acknowledge. Really? Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah, nice. Bant 8.5. So yeah, like, usually people acknowledge the inconvenience of their actions. Sometimes it's difficult to apologize because it's difficult to acknowledge that a person has done something wrong. It's difficult to admit that they've done something wrong. Or people may not have realized that they did something wrong.

Yeah, like a common issue. Or you said like a faux par. Yes, a faux par is like a breach of manners or a breach of manners or a breach. of etiquette. It's from French. And the reason I know this is because I had to teach this to several students recently actually. Yeah like faux par make a faux par. Forpa means words or behavior that are a social mistake, not polite. And like people make such a mistake and they don't realize that this is anything like wrong. So they're not aware that they've done something wrong. something up. So you do something wrong or you mess it up. So it's difficult to apologize when

you messed it up. So some people don't acknowledge their errors. Maybe they properly messed something up. Yeah, properly like big time. And some people are extremely stubborn. Right? Like me for example. I'm super stubborn. Stubborn. Stubborn is disapproval. negative, like a stubborn person is determined to do what they want and refuse to do anything else. Yes, that sounds like you, Maria. Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely me. I'm the definition of stubbornness. I'm so stubborn, I'll never admit that I was wrong.

But actually now I'm working on it and I can say like, yes, that's me, I'm horrible. I messed it up. I'm sorry. So you don't avoid the consequences, then that's a good collocation, surely. Yeah, I accept the consequences, which is like nice progress. But I don't realize that I make a serious faux par. But when I do realize it, I apologize. Children should be taught how to apologize at primary school.

For example, like use a passive voice. They should be taught. they should learn how to apologize and you've used some word like perfunctory perfunctory of what's that it's like performative you just do it because you feel like you should

perfunctory wow that's got to be a C1 come on well it doesn't say no well if it doesn't say then it's a C2 it's C5 oh my god perfunctory

done quickly without taking care or interest. Like, his smile was perfunctory. It was like, you know, a fake. It was quick. It's just good manners, right? So children should be taught good manners. And children should be taught how to show respect. So, like, apologizing shows that you respect other people.

And they should be taught to recognize their wrong actions. So if they recognise it, then they understand it. Yeah. Could you give us another example with perfunctory? For saying sorry? Yeah, like apologising or some other contexts. Well, some people just give perfunctory answers to things

just because they can't be bothered to have an in-depth conversation. It's like when someone asks like, hi, and you say, how are you? And people are like, yeah, I'm fine. Everything is fine. And usually people don't have any problems saying sorry for minor things. We have like little things that we do wrong like minor things and major things, something like more serious. So if a person is late or if a person is running late, so they usually say sorry. Or people say sorry for getting something wrong to get something wrong.

Or to mess something up. But there are certain things which are inexcusable. Yeah, so something is inexcusable. There is no excuse for this and you cannot accept someone's apology. It's too bad. Inexcusable. Too bad to be accepted. For example, his drunken speech was inexcusable.

So he got drunk, he made a horrible speech and it was. too bad to be accepted so that was inexcusable. Or you can say like it's inexcusable that young children like were left at home alone and people usually say sorry to make up for what they've done. So you need make up phrase of verb to kind of make peace and present perfect for what they've done. And if you make up for something it means that you well, you apologized for it and you made it better. Yeah.

And again, de Liszano, we make an apology. We apologize to somebody, right? We kind of accept an apology. So if I apologize to you and you kind of say, yes, okay, it's okay, so you accept my apologies. And we apologize for doing something. So people usually apologize for being late, for making a rude, for making a rude, comment. And people apologize to their friends. Apologize to your parents. And another question, like, people should apologize for anything wrong. Like, well, yeah, but again, it's kind of,

if it's a minor thing, like a little thing or a serious thing. So people shouldn't go over the top apologizing for like everything. And Rory used an interesting issue. And Rory used an interesting to let yourself off the hook. Yes. Usually you let someone off the hook. If you let someone off the hook, then you tell them everything is okay, and there's nothing to worry about. If you let yourself off the hook, then you say,

it's okay, I don't need to apologize, it's fine. Let someone off the hook is an idea to allow someone to escape from a difficult situation. Like, her apology gets her off the hook. So kind of like she apologized and was free to go. Kind of escaped a difficult situation. Rory, could you give us another example, please? Maybe about a different topic.

Well, it's usually related to this idea of apologizing or feeling bad about something. So, for example, I skipped yoga on Friday, but I let myself off the hook by telling myself I was too tired to go. Yeah, and people shouldn't make apologies for every day. so it doesn't look a bit overly apologetic. So apologetic, dear listener, is an adjective. So to vary your super vocabulary, you need to use synonyms. And here, we're using a C2 word.

Is it overly apologetic, C2? No, no, no, it's just like apologetic is C2. Hmm, yay. But overly apologetic is like too apologetic. Yeah. super cool. So overly means like too much, like over the top. Apologetic is an adjective from Apologize. So we say people apologize for something. People make an apology for something and people are or people could be overly apologetic. Showing that you feel sorry about having caused

someone problems. So for example, she was so apologetic about forgetting his birthday. Or like people could be overly apologetic for everything. A minor phopa. Right. Or he was apologetic for breaking her phone, her heart. The two worst things you can do. Yeah, yeah, break someone's phone and then their heart. Or first they're heart and then the phone.

People could be oversensitive. So if you are over sensitive, you get upset too easily and people kind of can hurt you. Some people refuse to say sorry to others. Well, because they are stubborn. They're stubborn, right? Remember, they don't acknowledge their mistakes. So they don't own up to things.

Ooh, that's another one. If you own up to something, you accept responsibility and say it was your fault. Yeah. So it's pretty much like acknowledge your mistakes, right? Accept your mistakes or own up to something. And Rory, what level is this? Is it C2? Yes.

C2. I got the listener on the podcast. Own up to something C2 by 9. So instead of saying that people don't accept their mistakes, you can say people, some people refuse to own up to what they've done. done or they refuse to own up to stealing something or to doing something. Pretty much admit that you have done something wrong. But here it's important that a person has done something bad, something wrong and they don't admit it, they don't agree that it was wrong and they've done it.

So they don't own up to it or they don't own up to doing something or saying something bad. bad. So they don't take responsibility for it. Nays. Rory could give us another example with own up to something. Uh, well, it's important to own up to things when you make a mistake, I suppose. Especially it's a serious one. And finally we get a sexist question again about women and men, who is better at recognizing emotions? I know, where are these questions coming from? Like who is better at running a business? Women or men? And you can say just on average,

like all people can recognize emotions, right? And we can say that women are usually overly sensitive, like most women. Like not everybody, but most women could be overly sensitive, like too sensitive. Speak for yourself, I don't agree. But men are usually more like logical, practical, but still they can recognize emotions.

So you can say like, everyone can recognize everything. Or you can kind of say that, well, it's a common stereotype that men... Men are cold, emotionless and fun feeling. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you know. Yeah, but women are all about feelings and emotions and, you know. But no, actually some men are sensitive and they can recognize emotions even better than women. Radio listener, thank you very much for listening. Lots of C2 vocabulary for you, phrases of verbs and different synonyms.

We had a lot of really good vocabulary to do. I'm proud of this episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. We'll get back to you in our next episode. Okay? Bye.

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Do people in your country often apologize? Yeah, just out of common courtesy, everyone occasionally gets in people's way and you need to make up for it, even if it's a relatively minor thing, just to acknowledge the inconvenience. Why do some people find it hard to apologise? Well, I suppose they might not see they've done something wrong. And they might be right, come to think of it. Alternatively, they may not have realised what they did

was like a serious faux pa and they properly messed something up. And of course, some people are just extremely stubborn and want to avoid the consequences of their actions. Do you think children should be taught to apologize from a young age? As long as they mean it and it's not something perfunctory or they feel they have to do it, even when they've done nothing wrong, absolutely. It's just good manners. It shows you respect people and recognize you did something wrong, even if it was by accident.

Do people in your country like to say sorry? I'm not sure they like it, but they certainly don't have a problem. saying it for minor things, like being a little bit late or getting something wrong. For something really inexcusable, they definitely won't like it, but it's part of making up for what you've done. Do you think people should apologize for anything wrong they do? Well, I think that depends, really. If it's like a minor infraction and no one was harmed as a result, then you probably could just let yourself off the hook and not worry about it too

much, since it might make you look a bit overly apologetic or oversensitive. Why does some people refuse to say sorry to others? Other than the reasons I suggested before, I suppose they could feel like they're taking more than their share of the blame, so if they're the only one owning up to things or taking responsibility, then it might feel disproportionate and they wouldn't want to do it. Are women better than men at recognizing emotions? On average, I'd probably not.

I mean, we're all human, so our completely. to understand each other is, well, it needs to be equally distributed so that we can survive. That's a bit like saying, I don't know, men somehow lack a key component of the human experience or women are overly sensitive. And I don't think that's true. At least there's no evidence of this.