SORRY! Why Canadians say “sorry” so much

English with Ronnie · EnglishLessons4U with engVid June 26, 2025
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English with Ronnie · EnglishLessons4U with engVid

@engvidronnie

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English lessons in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, slang, spelling, and more! Visit www.englishwithronnie.com for online private lessons!

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The average Canadian says “sorry” 24 times a day. Why do Canadians use the word “sorry” so much, and in so many situations? I’ll show you how “sorry” in Canada can be used for: • Apologizing for bumping or interrupting someone • Asking someone to repeat themselves (“Sorry?”) • Getting attention politely (“Sorry, where’s the bus stop?”) • Making a small complaint more polite (“Sorry, my soup is cold.”) • Defusing a tense moment or showing sympathy After watching this video, you’ll know when to say “sorry,” how to pronounce it like a Canadian, and how it helps keep conversations friendly and polite. Give it a try and start sounding more Canadian! Or don’t give it a try and you can sound like you’re from the USA! Also, I don’t actually know how many times a day the average Canadian says sorry... but it’s a lot. https://www.engvid.com/sorry-why-canadians-say-sorry-so-much/ Book a $20 trial class with me on my website: https://www.EnglishWithRonnie.com More videos like this: My apology video... https://youtu.be/NfiI_bcwpMM Learn the BEST Canadian slang https://youtu.be/QgIqu_8gn3s In this lesson: 0:00 Why do Canadians say "sorry" all the time??? 0:17 pronounce "sorry" like a Canadian 1:05 why Canadians say "sorry" so much 3:55 sorry for clarification 5:43 sorry for excuse me 5:56 sorry for social awkwardness 6:14 sorry for invading personal space 6:46 sorry for interrupting a conversation 7:18 sorry for getting attention 7:52 sorry to complain 8:45 sorry to talk about bad situations 9:15 so-rry for sarcasm 9:55 sorry, I can't help you TRANSCRIPT: Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Hi. I'm Canadian. Did you know that? Two things I'm going to let you know right away that I'm Canadian. The first one being my accent. The way that Canadians say "sorry", one of our favourite words, and I didn't know this was a thing. We say "sore", like ow, ow, ow, that's sore, sorry, whereas our friends in America say "sari". That's going to depend on what state they're from in America, too, but there is quite the regional differentiation between Canadian "sorry" and American "sari". Are you wearing some native clothes from India over there? Is it a sari? No, it's "sori". And Canadians are famous for saying this. Apparently, apparently we say this nine times a day, and Olag, this lesson is for you because you're the one that told me about this. Thank you. How are you doing? How are you doing? Why do we say it? There are circumstances when we definitely shouldn't say it. We should say other words, like "pardon" or "excuse me", but Canadians have this thing of saying "sori". So, oh, sorry, oh, sorry, it's hot in here, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Why? Why do we say it? We say it because we're super polite. That's... Yeah, apparently Canadians are known to be polite. Maybe that's because we're saying "sori" all the time. But when you look at the roots of it, it's more to defuse conflict. What does that mean? So... And this happens to me a lot because I'm kind of a person that likes to walk quickly and get things done. If I'm at a supermarket or, god forbid, I'm in a mall-I hate those things-and I'm walking and there's someone in front of me that is in my way, I usually... Usually? I usually... I usually go, "Hey, man, I'm sorry." I usually will just walk because people annoy me. But the funny thing is that if I'm walking this way and I hit the person, not intentionally, the other person will apologize to me and say sorry, and I'm like, "It's your fault for sure." But it was my fault. So, I don't know, defuse conflict. So usually the person who didn't do anything wrong says sorry. Oh, this is crazy. So you're on a crowded bus or a crowded subway and you have a backpack, and your backpack hits the other person. I've done this, everyone's done this. The other person who got hit by the backpack will apologize to your backpack. "Oh, sorry, backpack." It's wrong. It's wrong. It should be the person that hit you should say, "Oh, I'm sorry." But we do. We both do. Sorry, sorry. Everyone's so sorry about everything. It's just horrible how sorry we are. There's a law passed, not getting into the details of it, but there was some... Something in some law somewhere saying that sorry does not actually mean that you are at fault for it. It's just acknowledging, which our country is famous for. "Oh, I'm sorry that happened." You're just acknowledging that it happened. You're not saying like, "Oh, I did it, it's my fault", but it's a way to diffuse the situation and say, "Yeah, sorry." So you've got to watch out for this one. This is a first kind of incident where I noticed this. So, I have a lot of students that obviously I'm teaching them English, and they would say things when they didn't understand, like, "Pardon", I'm like, "Oh, that sounds weird. Why are they saying that?" or "What?" […]

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