German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently caused protests with the call for a five-day lockdown over the Easter holiday to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

She reacted to the opposition by apologizing to members of the German parliament: "The mistake is my mistake alone. I ask both the public and you… for forgiveness. "

In an apology, someone takes responsibility for making a mistake.

Today, we will look at how we use the verb "apologize" with prepositions and gerunds.

The most common sentence structure we find with the word "apologize" is: "apologize for (verb+ing) ."

For example, after an argument with a friend, you might say:

I apologize for being angry last night. Will you forgive me?

It is easy to change this sentence to talk about something you did not do by simply adding the word "not."

I apologize for not coming to your party last weekend. My relatives came to visit.

The -ing form of a verb is called a gerund. It acts like a noun.