Expressions to Use After an Argument

Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha.

In this lesson, I'm going to talk about expressions you can use after an argument. By argument, I mean a fight, so a fight means a heated discussion that you have with someone else, an argument.

Let's get started!

Okay, the first expression you can use after an argument is very simple, of course, “I'm sorry.”

“I'm sorry.”

So, if you made a mistake or if you think the argument was really strong, really intense and you feel bad, you can say I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

To be more specific like “I'm sorry,” is quite general, just your general feeling, “I am sorry,” if you want to be more specific like why are you sorry like what's the reason you are sorry, you can use one of these expressions.

First:

“I'm sorry about what I said.”

So, this “what” in this sentence is like saying the things which or the thing which I said but we don't say the thing which I said or the things which I said. We instead use this “what,” what.

“I'm sorry about what I said.”

So maybe I said something yesterday or I said something in the argument and I feel bad about that.

“I'm sorry about what I said,” so past tense here.

“I'm sorry about what I said.”

Also, “I'm sorry I yelled”

Or, “I'm sorry I shouted at you,” maybe.

So, if your voice became very loud and you feel bad about that, use this past tense “yelled” or “shouted.”

“I'm sorry I yelled at you.”

“I'm sorry I shouted at you.”

I have (at you) in parentheses here because maybe you didn't shout directly at the person. Maybe you were shouting just in the room, you were upset or maybe you had a loud voice in your discussion, but you weren't talking directly to someone. It was just like in general. You can remove that.

“I'm sorry I yelled.”

“I'm sorry I shouted.”

That's okay too.

If you're shouting at a person directly, you can use this “at you.”

“I'm sorry I yelled at you.”

“I'm sorry I shouted at you.”

They mean the same thing.

Some of you might ask, like what about “scream”?

So “scream” is a bit different from yell and shout. We usually use “scream” to talk about like really high-pitched sounds and you might hear this more in, like horror movies, scary movies. When someone is really scared, they use this really high-pitched sound that's more like a scream. We usually use that for a scream. Of course, in some very intense arguments, people may scream too, so it's kind of up to the situation. I feel like in lots of cases though, it's usually yelling or shouting.

Okay, so let's move on to the next three here.

The next three are excuses, excuses. So they're giving a reason for your past behavior, so please use these very carefully. If you give an excuse for something, it might not seem sincere all the time.

So, with that in mind, let's take a look.

The first one:

“I've been under a lot of pressure lately.”

So, this uses “I have been” and you'll notice this in a couple of- or in the other examples for this section too.

So, “I've been under a lot of pressure” means in my life, recently, lots of things have been causing me stress. So, “under a lot of pressure” usually means, like work or school-related stress. So, it doesn't mean, like physical, like pressure like in a room with, like high pressure. It means like the stresses of life are really high right now, and we use “under a lot of pressure.” So, you can imagine the stress in life is on top of us. We use “I've been under a lot of pressure” to say that.

“Lately” means in these days, these recent days.

So at native speed, this sounds like:

“I've been under a lot of pressure lately.”

So, “I'm sorry, I've been under a lot of pressure lately.”

“I'm sorry, I shouted at you.”

So, something like that might be a pretty reasonable and normal apology.

Another excuse you could give is this one:

“I haven't been sleeping well lately.”

So, you'll notice this again uses this present perfect and we're using the continuous form here, “I haven't been sleeping well lately.” So, this means from some point in the past to the argument or maybe to the conversation now, the speaker has not had the experience of good sleep. So, this could affect the person's mood. This is the idea here.

“I haven't been sleeping well lately.”

“I'm sorry I shouted.”

So, this is a reason why someone's mood might be affected and they might do things they don't usually do, perhaps.

And the final one is:

“I've had a lot on my mind lately.”

So, again, “I've had,” I have had. We've seen this present perfect pattern for all of these to mean something has been happening recently. So, “I've had a lot on my mind lately,” this means I have been thinking about many different things, usually serious things. So maybe I'm thinking about work lately or I'm thinking about school or my family or my relationships or money or something. So, “a lot on my mind” means I'm thinking seriously about many things lately.

So, this is slightly different from “I've been under a lot of pressure.” This expression is like maybe there's outside pressure, there's outside stress, like maybe my boss is telling me something or someone in my family is telling me something. In this case, it's like the speaker is thinking about many different things. It could have- there could be some pressure too, but they're slightly different.

So, “I've had a lot on my mind lately. I'm sorry.”

So, these are a few excuses, some reasons you can give if you shouted or you did something you feel bad about.

Okay, so let's go to this next expression:

“I didn't mean to take it out on you.”

So, this expression might come after an excuse, so like, “I've been under a lot of pressure lately, I didn't mean to take it out on you.” So, what does this mean? “I didn't mean to (something, something, something)” means my plan was not to do this, so “I didn't mean to (something, something, something). So, my plan was not to do this. I did not want to do that thing.

So, “take it out on you,” what does that mean? So, “take (something) out on (someone). This expression means, like to relieve some kind of pressure or to relieve some kind of, like unhappy feeling by using another person. So, usually, at the end of this expression is a person, like take it out on him or take it out on her, So, usually, there's some kind of anger or there's like a sadness or a depressed feeling that we have inside and when we release it, we do it on someone, to someone and we say, “take it out on that person.”

So, generally, this is a bad thing like we don't usually want to release our negative emotions on a person. So, maybe we yell or we shout or we scream and so, when we do this, we might say something like, “I didn't mean to take it out on you.”

So, the “it” in this case, “take it out on you,” the “it” is this condition.

So for example:

“I've been under a lot of pressure lately. I didn't mean to take it out on you.”

So, “it” means like this condition where I'm under a lot of pressure, so I'm feeling really, really stressed out, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to release all of my stressed feelings on you. So, that's what this means, “I didn't mean to take it out on you, I'm sorry.”

Another expression, very helpful:

“I was wrong.”

For many people, this is very difficult to say, but I think it's a very useful phrase and it's good to feel comfortable admitting this too.

“I was wrong.”

And in some cases:

“You were right.”

So, maybe, like someone spends too much money and the other person says, like, “Ah, I should be able to spend as much money as I want” in the argument. And then after the argument, that person says “No, I was wrong. You were right. I should be more careful with my money.”

So, “I was wrong.”

“I was wrong.”

This means in the argument, I made the wrong decision or I said the wrong thing.

“I was wrong. You were right.”

You were correct, so you had the best opinion, in other words.

“I was wrong. You were right.”

So, this is a good one to know, a good one to practice, that is sometimes difficult for people to admit, for sure.

Okay, let's take a look at this expression.

“Let's agree to disagree.”

This might seem confusing, but it's fairly simple. So, first “let's agree,” let's agree.

So, “let's agree” means let's have the same opinion or let's come to the same conclusion, let's agree. So, let's agree to what? “To disagree.” So, this means let's accept we have different opinions and that's okay, so let's just let it go. It's not a problem. Let's just accept that we have, like this different view about this situation.

“Let's agree to disagree.”

It's okay, let's not fight anymore. So that's a useful one to use too.

To express some regret similar to this one I talked about, “I'm sorry I yelled” or “I'm sorry I shouted at you,” you can say:

“I shouldn't have said that.”

So, this “shouldn't” is the reduced “should not.”

“Should not have said that.” That means I said something in the argument and now I feel bad about it. I wish I had not said that thing. So, “I shouldn't have said that.” So, “that” is a bad thing in the past.

“So, I shouldn't have said that, I'm sorry.”

Another one:

“I hope you can forgive me.”

So, forgive, to forgive someone means like to accept their apology, to accept their apology. Some people use the expression like “I can forgive, but I won't forget.” Some people like to use that expression or some people choose to use that expression sometimes, which means I will accept your apology now, but I won't forget our argument. Like this argument will be remembered, I'm going to remember this situation though. So yes, I accept your apology, but I'm going to remember this in our relationship going forward. So, that's a very serious phrase.

So, “I hope you can forgive me.”

“I hope” means like I want you to like it would be good for me if you would forgive me.

“I hope you can forgive me.”

To kind of repair your relationship with the other person a little bit, you can use an expression like one of these:

“Can I make it up to you?”

To “make it up to (someone)” means to fix a past error, to fix a past error, and we say “make it up to you,” to you. “Can I make it up” means can I fix this past error by doing something for you? So, more specifically, you can say something like let me make it up to you, let me fix this past situation, this past thing that I did to you.

“I'll” (I will), I'll [verb phrase]. So, I'll buy you lunch or I'll throw you a belated birthday party. “Belated” means late. We use it for birthdays. So, I'll throw you a belated birthday party or I'll buy you lunch.

So, you're doing something to try to fix the past problem.

“Let me make it up to you.”

You might also hear, “Let me make it up to you by [noun phrase], like let me make it up to you by buying you lunch or by throwing you a belated birthday party. That is also okay. So, make it up to someone. “Let me make it up to you” means let me fix the problem by doing some action.

Okay, finally, to confirm that your relationship is fixed, it has been repaired, you can use:

“Are we okay?

“Are we okay?”

So, “Are we okay?” doesn't mean physically like your body, the health of your body. This means, is our relationship okay? Are we okay?

Or “Are we cool?”

“Are we cool?”

So, this means, is our relationship okay? So, “cool” is used with closer friends.

Another thing you can do is just ask “Friends?” as a question.

So, you might have seen this in TV and movies a bit.

“Friends?

So does that- like this means, are we still friends? Are we still okay? Is our relationship still a friendly relationship? So, “Friends?” And you might, like, offer your hand to shake someone's hand in that case. It all kind of depends on how serious the argument was.

So, these are some expressions that you can use after an argument to apologize or to repair a relationship. So, I hope that it was helpful for you. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye!

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