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GENERAL ENGLISH · GENERAL ISSUES · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

REGRETS

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1 Warm up

In pairs, discuss the questions below.

1. What do you regret now?

2. Are they the same regrets as you had when you were younger?

3. What do you think people regret the most when they are older?

4. Do you agree with the saying "don’t cry over spilled milk"?

5. Is it possible to live your life without any regrets?

6. What do you wish you had done differently this year?

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2 Vocabulary 1

Replace the underlined parts of the sentences below with the words in the box. Then, in groups,
answer the questions.

confess cry out to diminish down dwell on former

gets helping hand latter prime sort out take stock of

1. How often do you stop and evaluate how you are doing?

2. If you had a choice between a trip or a new phone, would you take the first or the second?
/

3. How do you organize your English study notes?

4. What type of news makes you feel bad? /

5. At what age is our mind at its best state?

6. Who do you call when you need help? /

7. Do you always admit your mistakes?

8. When you make a mistake, do you quickly forget about it or think about it a lot?

9. Do your mistakes when speaking English decrease your confidence?

3 Reading

Read the blog post about regrets. Match the subheadings to the parts of the blog post. There is one
extra subheading.

• a) Keep the right connections

• b) Forget about everyone else

• c) Learn and forget about it

• d) Try not to make too many mistakes

• e) Don’t be afraid to ask for a hand

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What Do You Regret the Most?

I’ve arrived at that stage when you start looking back and taking stock of your life, including achievements,
failures and regrets, which is what I want to talk about today. I’ve got the most varied regrets, but
I realized they can be sorted out into main groups, which hopefully will make for useful advice for
younger people out there..

1.

One of the big ones is worrying too much about others, both regarding what they think of me and what I think of
them. Regarding the former, I guess I was overly concerned with my image and let the opinions of others influence
how I saw myself. In terms of the latter, I would compare myself too much to other people I admired, especially in
terms of achievements. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to be inspired by your role models, but you shouldn’t
let that get you down.

I’ll give you an example – as a teenager, I was obsessed with volleyball. I would play every day and dream of
making the national team. Most of all, I had great fun playing it! There was an older player who was the star of
the team, and I really looked up to him. But then I allowed myself to take what could have been a really good
relationship and turn it into something nasty – jealousy. I ended up quitting the sport altogether because I knew
I would never be as good as that player. How sad is that?

2.

Another main regret, somehow related to the first one, is the amount of time I wasted on bad relationships. A
healthy network of friends and relatives is essential for anyone’s happiness, but we spend too much time and
effort trying to fix relationships that aren’t going anywhere. Experience has taught me that it’s often better to call
it a day so that each one can go their separate ways.

For instance, a while ago I found online a very good friend that I had had at university, but we had drifted apart
afterwards. I was so happy to see him again that I failed to see the obvious: that we were no longer the people
we were back then, and the people we had become would not really be friends. So, I insisted on bringing the
friendship back to its prime, which of course didn’t happen and we sort of spoiled that good thing we had had.

3.

Then there’s not asking for help when needed. Quite often, I’d stubbornly refuse to reach out to a colleague or
friend for assistance out of pride, shyness, or just fear of showing weakness. Then I’d waste hours trying to do
whatever task it was on my own, only to admit defeat and beg for a helping hand afterwards. I would have saved
so much time and learned so much more had I just cried out for help from the get-go.

A simple example: last week, my boss gave me a task which I had no idea how to do. Rather than confess my lack
of knowledge to her there and then, or even ask for discreet help from a colleague, I spent hours hopelessly trying
different alternatives and failing miserably in all of them. In the end, it took a colleague to see my despair and step
in and save the day, which of course, he would have been happy to do had I asked in the first place.

4.

Mistakes are also a big regret. Not so much the mistakes themselves: I’ve learned much more from them than
from anything I’ve done right. If anything, I should have made more mistakes! What I regret is dwelling on them:
rather than learning my lesson and moving on, I would punish myself to no end. What good could that possibly
do? I’ll tell you – none! It just, again, wasted valuable time and diminished my self-confidence. So, the bottom line
is to make plenty of mistakes, but learn from them and move on.

So, that’s about it: my big life lessons are not to worry too much about what other people think, not to insist on
bad relationships, not to hesitate to ask for a hand, and not to dwell on mistakes.

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4 Reading 2

Complete the text with a word or short phrase from the blog post.

1. The writer has separated his many regrets into a number of .

2. He compared the of people he looked up to to his own.

3. He felt towards another volleyball player.

4. He has learned from that sometimes you need to end a relationship.

5. He the memories of a good relationship trying to fix it.

6. He often didn’t ask for help because he was too proud or shy to, or because he didn’t want to
display .

7. At work, he preferred to try to do something without help than show a .

8. His was reduced because he didn’t forgive himself.

5 Vocabulary 2

Complete the underlined expressions with one word. Find the expression in the blogpost to check.
Then discuss the meaning of each expression in pairs and answer the questions.

1. Can you think of someone you were very good friends with, but then you two drifted
?

2. Who did you really up to when you were a child?

3. Is there a similar phrase to ‘Don’t get wrong’ in your language?

4. Do you always know what you are going to do the get-go, or do you sometimes
improvise?

5. What is the bottom when it comes to regrets?

6. When you can’t do something, is it better to keep trying or it a day?

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6 Video
Watch the video and tick the topics they talk about.

friends studies

family politics

self-esteem career

theater bullying

fashion sports

dance food

dreams marriage

shopping moving city

drugs . fear

trust languages

How do people’s regrets change over the years?

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7 Grammar

Read the grammar box and complete the sentences with the correct form of the verbs in brackets.
Then watch the video again to check.

Grammar Box: Expressing regret

We can talk about regrets in different ways:

1) Wish / if only + past perfect

I wish I hadn’t said that.

If only I had listened to you.

2) Third conditional (if + past perfect / would + have + past participle)

If I had known, I wouldn’t have done that.

3) should + have + past participle

I shouldn’t have told you anything.

4) regret + gerund or regret that...

I regret buying these sneakers.

1. I wish I that mean, mean girl! (never / meet)

2. I do wish I still in ice-skating class. (be)

3. I regret more time with my oldest brother before he went to college.

(not spend)

4. I regret myself too seriously when I was in high school. (take)

5. I should that musical with her. (see)

6. I have many regrets, but I am where I am because of them, so I

anything. (not change)

7. I regret college. (not finish)

8. I wish I when I was younger how wonderful I was. (know)

9. Not keeping in touch with people I probably should in touch with.

(keep)

10. I do regret that I I’d be a good parent. (not think)

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8 Speaking

Imagine you are interviewing an elderly person. Prepare questions about regrets for them. Then
roleplay the interview in pairs. The other students should pretend they are 100 years old!

9 Extension activity 1

Follow the instructions below to play Taboo.

• Form pairs.
• One student chooses a card below and explains the underlined word without using any of the
words below it (or the word itself).
• The other student has two guesses, then it is their turn to choose a word.

10 Extension activity 2

Record people in your classroom talking about their regrets. Make a video and show it to the class.

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