How to Express Condolences
2022-10-21
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1Recently, my mother, Ellen died. She lived a very good life.
2She raised three daughters. She loved art, writing, and travel.
3I miss my mom.
4So, for this week's Everyday Grammar, I want to share how we can express sympathies, or condolences, when someone experienced the death of their loved one.
5In American custom, we want to say that we care.
6We try to bring them comfort in their time of grief and sadness.
7We want to be gentle, considerate, and respectful while expressing sympathy.
8But how do we do this in American English?
9When someone dies, we usually use the phrasal verb pass away.
10This phrase combines the verb pass with the adverb away.
11We use this expression to talk about death in a more gentle and respectful way.
12When we want to show our sympathy or understanding for the loss of someone, we can use these simple expressions:
13I am sorry for your loss.
14I was heartbroken by this sad news.
15To be heartbroken means that we feel sad or hopeless, almost like our heart hurts when something bad happens.
16This sentence is in the passive voice.
17But we can change the sentence into the active voice by saying:
18This sad news breaks my heart.
19We also use these shorter expressions to describe our sadness:
20My heartfelt condolences.
21My deepest sympathies.
22And we can add verbs and subjects to turn the expressions into complete sentences such as:
23Please accept my heartfelt condolences (or my deepest sympathies) for your (or your family's) loss.
24Here, we turn the expression into a respectful command by using the phrase please accept.
25To miss someone means that you feel sad and wish that they were still with you.
26We use this verb when they are still alive, but we might not be able to see them as often as we would like.
27But we also use this verb to say that we miss someone if they have passed away:
28He/She/They will be missed.
29This sentence is in the passive voice and the future tense.
30In order to show that we currently miss someone, we can use the active voice saying:
31I miss her a lot.
32She misses her dad every day.
33Sometimes, we share happy thoughts about someone who has passed away. For example:
34I will never forget when she danced in Rio de Janeiro to her favorite songs.
35They will never forget what he did for them.
36Sometimes the feeling of loss is so great, that we do not always know what to say.
37For those times, we do have expressions that we can use, such as:
38I am so sorry, but I am at a loss for words.
39Words cannot express my sadness for your loss.
40Words cannot express my deepest sympathies.
41In today's report, we learned some ways to express our condolences and sympathies to those experiencing the loss of a loved one.
42We learned short expressions to share such as my heartfelt condolences and my deepest sympathies.
43We talked about ways to express how we miss someone.
44We even looked at a few expressions that we can share when we feel that there are no words to describe the feeling of loss.
45I would like to close this report by thanking our readers and listeners over the past few weeks.
46Writing to us or leaving a comment has really meant a lot to me over the past month. I appreciate it so much!
47Thank you, and I'm Faith Pirlo.
1Recently, my mother, Ellen died. She lived a very good life. She raised three daughters. She loved art, writing, and travel. 2I miss my mom. So, for this week's Everyday Grammar, I want to share how we can express sympathies, or condolences, when someone experienced the death of their loved one. 3In American custom, we want to say that we care. We try to bring them comfort in their time of grief and sadness. We want to be gentle, considerate, and respectful while expressing sympathy. 4But how do we do this in American English? 5Showing our support 6When someone dies, we usually use the phrasal verb pass away. This phrase combines the verb pass with the adverb away. We use this expression to talk about death in a more gentle and respectful way. 7When we want to show our sympathy or understanding for the loss of someone, we can use these simple expressions: 8I am sorry for your loss. 9I was heartbroken by this sad news. 10To be heartbroken means that we feel sad or hopeless, almost like our heart hurts when something bad happens. This sentence is in the passive voice. But we can change the sentence into the active voice by saying: 11This sad news breaks my heart. 12We also use these shorter expressions to describe our sadness: 13My heartfelt condolences. 14My deepest sympathies. 15And we can add verbs and subjects to turn the expressions into complete sentences such as: 16Please accept my heartfelt condolences (or my deepest sympathies) for your (or your family's) loss. 17Here, we turn the expression into a respectful command by using the phrase please accept. 18Missing someone 19To miss someone means that you feel sad and wish that they were still with you. 20We use this verb when they are still alive, but we might not be able to see them as often as we would like. But we also use this verb to say that we miss someone if they have passed away: 21He/She/They will be missed. 22This sentence is in the passive voice and the future tense. In order to show that we currently miss someone, we can use the active voice saying: 23I miss her a lot. 24She misses her dad every day. 25Sometimes, we share happy thoughts about someone who has passed away. For example: 26I will never forget when she danced in Rio de Janeiro to her favorite songs. 27They will never forget what he did for them. 28When there are no words 29Sometimes the feeling of loss is so great, that we do not always know what to say. For those times, we do have expressions that we can use, such as: 30I am so sorry, but I am at a loss for words. 31Words cannot express my sadness for your loss. 32Words cannot express my deepest sympathies. 33Closing thoughts 34In today's report, we learned some ways to express our condolences and sympathies to those experiencing the loss of a loved one. 35We learned short expressions to share such as my heartfelt condolences and my deepest sympathies. We talked about ways to express how we miss someone. We even looked at a few expressions that we can share when we feel that there are no words to describe the feeling of loss. 36I would like to close this report by thanking our readers and listeners over the past few weeks. Writing to us or leaving a comment has really meant a lot to me over the past month. I appreciate it so much! 37Thank you, and I'm Faith Pirlo. 38Faith Pirlo wrote this lesson for VOA Learning English. 39_______________________________________________________________________ 40Words in This Story 41condolence - n. a feeling or expression of sympathy and sadness especially when someone is suffering because of the death of a family member, a friend, etc. 42comfort -n. a state of feeling less worried or upset after a time of trouble or pain 43grief - n. deep sadness, especially at the death of someone 44phrase - n. a group of two or more words that express a single idea but do not usually form a complete sentence 45passive voice - n. a way of writing or speaking that uses passive verbs where the subject receives the action of a verb. 46active voice - n. a way of writing of speaking that uses active verbs where the subject performs the action of the verb. 47appreciate - v. to enjoy and recognize the full worth of something 48______________________________________________________________________ 49What do you think of this story? We want to hear from you. Write to us at learningenglish@voanews.com or leave us a comment below. 50We have a new comment system. Here is how it works: 51Each time you return to comment on the Learning English site, you can use your account and see your comments and replies to them. Our comment policy is here.