Episode 0164

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Hello everyone and welcome back to English Pod. My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and today we have a very special lesson for everyone. It's it's a new level for us.

Right, it's an advanced media lesson and we are going to be listening to an apology. Well, it's an apology letter but we're going to actually have someone talk it out.

Right. So what's happening here is someone is reading a letter they've written and they're trying to apologize for something and we don't really know what this something is but I want everyone to really listen here to the words that are being used and to the ways in which we can say sorry because as they say, uh there are a thousand ways to say I'm sorry.

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All right, we're back so the guy seemed to be pretty sad.

Yeah, this is a very intense, uh well, it's not a dialogue, it's a monologue. One person is reading it. So it's a very intense monologue.

Very romantic.

Yeah, romantic but also an air of melancholy.

Yeah, that's true. It's he's kind of like apologizing at the same time expressing love and all these feelings. So it was very interesting.

But why don't we uh take a look at a couple of phrases? Now in advanced media, we're not going to analyze the entire dialogue or as we do in the other levels actually pick out items for language takeaway or fluency builder.

So in advanced media, we're only going to pick out a couple of words and phrases and just talk about it and talk about the topic in general.

Exactly, and so one of the first phrases that we decided to talk about here is this phrase 'I failed you' because this is really the theme of the letter.

Right. So if you fail someone, it means that you let that person down.

Okay, so you fail someone. I failed you or you can say he failed me.

So when I really needed that person the most, that person didn't come through or let me down or failed me.

All right, so let's give an example maybe. Um I needed my brother to pick me up because I don't have a car and my brother was supposed to pick me up at 4:00 and he forgot. He didn't come. He really failed me.

All right. He failed you.

Yeah. I was disappointed.

Well, this isn't that's not as serious as what happened here in this in this letter, I think, right?

I think so. But we can talk about what did happen. I think I have a theory and I'm I know you have a theory so we can talk about that in a minute. But before that, we have some other phrases about forgiveness and disappointment.

Right. Well, he also said, you mean the world to me and now I come to you asking for forgiveness.

Okay, so we've got a positive and a negative. So the positive here is you mean the world to me. You mean the world to me. This means you are so important to me. You're one of the most important people in my life. You're you're worth as you're worth the entire world in my opinion.

Yeah, it's a very poetic way of saying you're very important.

Yeah.

And then he says, and now I come asking for your forgiveness.

Okay, so this implies that he did something wrong. I come asking for forgiveness. So in English, we ask for forgiveness.

You can also beg for forgiveness. So please forgive me.

Please forgive me.

But You can't you can't demand forgiveness.

I demand you for no, that doesn't quite work.

All right. What else do we have?

We've got the world again here. He says, he the guy who's reading he says, you know, I wanted to be the comfort for your soul. So this is very again poetic. When the world was too much to handle.

Wow. Too much to handle is a really important English phrase and I'm sure you've heard it before but we could talk about a little bit here.

Right. So he says when everything else was too much to handle. So everything was so difficult or it was overwhelming.

Right, so you could say even in the office, man, all this work I have to do. It's too much to handle.

Right, right. So too much to handle.

You could also say a child is too much to handle. I think they said this about my brother. He was very difficult growing up.

He's too hard. He's too he's too difficult to handle.

All right. Well, what about in the part where he says, you place comfort where there was fear.

Confidence where there was doubt.

So this structure is interesting because you placed something where there used to be something else.

So you're replacing something. You're changing something for something else. Right? It's an exchange. So you could say you placed comfort where there was fear. You placed happiness where there was where there was sadness.

So it's always like kind of opposites, right?

Exactly. Light where there was dark.

Right, exactly. So that's an interesting format of of saying something. You did something where there used to be something else.

All right, and uh what about this word to jeopardize?

All right, this is a good one. I always think of the TV game show Jeopardy. Um but that's a noun. This here is a verb, to jeopardize and that means to put something in danger or to risk losing something.

Okay, so to jeopardize your health if you're doing something dangerous.

So smoking jeopardizes one's health.

You're putting your health at risk.

Or I don't want to jeopardize my savings by investing everything I have in stocks. That means I would prefer to do something safer.

Mm. So, you don't you don't like to jeopardize your your well-being.

I like to play it safe as we say.

All right, very good. And uh last but not least, this almost the last phrase when he says, even though distance separated us, just being was enough. What does he mean when he says just being was enough?

All right, this is very romantic. Intensely romantic. He says, even though um we were far apart, just being, so just existing, just breathing was enough. So just knowing that she's in the world was enough for him to feel happy.

So that's what he he means with just being was enough.

Right, so being is existing. It's it's being alive.

Uh-huh. Okay, very good. I think we should listen to this uh apology letter one more time and we'll be back.

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All right, so what do you think he did that he's apologizing in this way? Because I don't think they were a couple, right? Because he mentions friendship a couple of times.

Yes, with a butt. You don't write a letter like this to someone who you want to stay friends with. You write a letter to this to someone who you have some kind of romantic or intense feeling for, right?

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

So to me, this seems like a letter that was written to someone who was a great friend and uh he's afraid of losing that because he cares even more for her.

Right. But yeah, I guess but do you think he's he's confessing his love in a certain way here?

I think in some ways he's confessing a love. You can love your friends. That's okay. Um but more than that, he's just he's apologizing for something that he thinks has completely destroyed their friendship. And that is where I'm very confused because I have no idea what he did.

Well, maybe um he did something that let her down, maybe he became jealous of her new boyfriend or something like that.

Yeah, or maybe it's something caddy like he was supposed to do something with her and ended up doing something with other people and left her out or embarrassed her in front of people.

It's hard to say.

Have you ever written an apology letter?

Yeah, I have.

I've written a few apology letters. I have a very strong sense of guilt.

Really?

I was raised Catholic.

So in an apology, is it do you usually plan out what you want to say or is it just like you just splurge your feelings onto the paper?

Well, you know me. My personality is very planned and organized and so normally I have points. So I say um if this is the problem, there's three parts. I have an answer for each part and at the very end, I have the heartfelt apology.

Uh, wow. So like an essay. I guess it's a little yeah, it's a little bit more organized.

If I were to write something like this, I would just like start writing and whatever comes out. So it would probably make less sense than your letter.

Well, I just try to stay on focus, stay on point and address the matter at hand because otherwise then you get into other stuff then you can make people more angry.

Right. But it is really important to write an apology letter. Now, some of the words and phrases and the vocabulary used here can be used in circumstances that are not only romantic, right? You can be used in a in a professional way as well, right?

That's true. In in a professional sense, you want to be careful not to get too personal. So in a professional sense, it's good to say that you know, you're sorry for any mixups or for misunderstandings, but in the future you will try to make things better or improve. But in friendships and in families and in romantic relationships, apology letters are very very important because I'm a big believer in mending bridges. I know a lot of people who we say in English, you know, to burn a bridge, that means to destroy a relationship and and never go back. Um, but I like to mend bridges to make sure that people who I was friends with don't, you know, if we have a fight, don't just hate me forever. Right that even if there's a disagreement that they understand my perspective or that I understand theirs.

Yeah, that's true. I think that's important. What about apology emails? Do you agree with those?

I think that they are a necessity of the 21st century. I mean, I live far away from most of my friends and family and so it's important for me to be able to communicate in any way. But um and sometimes I mean, I'm very shy with some people so sometimes it's hard for me to talk on the phone because I get stuck and then I don't I can't think of what I wanted to say. And so if if a letter helps in that way to to get you past your um your fear or your anxiety then by all means an email is just just as much.

I actually received a letter, a handwritten letter through an email.

How did that happen?

So the person they scanned it. They scanned the letter.

Oh, wow.

So it was still like it still had a very intimate and personal sense. But obviously since the mail takes so long and everything, they just scanned it and then they sent it to my email. That's nice.

So that I think that's a good idea. Maybe you you can try that one.

I'll try that one. I don't agree with the the one-line email. I'm sorry, forgive me.

Yeah, yeah, that that's not good.

As my parents always used to say when I was growing up and I'd get them fights with my little brother. The only apologies that we accept are the ones that are from the heart.

So I used to have to apologize again and again and again until I actually meant it. And so I think that this is a very true kind of idea that that well, maybe not in business and work where you have to be cordial. With friends and real relationships with people who you care about. Obviously real apologies are very important.

Of course. So this is an interesting topic and we recommend that you if you have any other questions or doubts or maybe you want some other explanation for this letter, you can come to Englishpod.com, leave it in the comments section and we'll be there. So until next time.

Bye.

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