手把手教你学口语29

Let’s take an example. What’s the difference between “I regret to tell you that your father died” and “I regret telling you that your father died”? Well, “I regret to tell”, “I regret to say” are used to inform someone of bad news in a polite way.

Before you tell someone bad news, it’s polite to warn the person that he is about to get some bad news by telling him you feel sorry about it. “regret to” must be followed by a verb which means “say”, for example, “tell”, “inform”, “announce”, “report”. Verbs that do not have this meaning cannot be used. On the other hand, “regret doing something” means you wish you had not done something.

So, “I regret telling you that your father died” means you wish you have not told someone his father died. Maybe, because after hearing the bad news, he tried to kill himself. Or maybe because it was a mistake and his father had not actually died.

Let’s look at another example. “I regret to inform you that the basketball game has been cancelled.” In this sentence, I’m telling someone some bad news. The bad news is that there will be no basketball game tonight. Here’s another example. “I regret eating so much.” This sentence means that I ate too much in the past, and now, I wish I had not eaten so much.

So, if you have to tell someone bad news, say “I regret to tell you…” But if you wish you had not done something, say “I regret doing it.” And if you are glad that you did something, say “I don’t regret doing it.”

This has been today’s daily tip. Tune¹ in tomorrow for another tip on learning² English.

1 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

2 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。