It's never a nice situation.

When that happens, you need to tell your boss or tell your teacher why you're late.

You need to give them an excuse.

You need to give them a reason for being late.

In this English lesson, I'll teach you about ten common reasons why people are late and what you say in English when you're in that situation.

If you drive to work or if you drive to school, sometimes there's a lot of other cars and trucks on the road, and traffic slows down and it makes you late.

If you were in that situation, you would say to your boss or say to your teacher, "I was stuck in traffic."

Or you might just say, "Traffic."

"Why were you late, Bob?" -"Traffic."

"Traffic was awful."

Or you might say a sentence like this.

You might say, "I was in a traffic jam."

A traffic jam is when traffic actually stops on the road and you can't make any progress.

So if you're late for work because there were a lot of other vehicles on the road driving very slowly, you might say, "I was stuck in traffic."

You might just say, "Traffic."

Or you might say, "I was in a traffic jam."

Maybe you don't have your own vehicle.

Maybe you take the bus or you take the train to work or school.

And sometimes when you are running late, you miss the bus or you miss the train.

And that's exactly the excuse you would give.

When you arrived at work or when you arrived at school, you would say, "I'm late because I missed my bus."

Or "I'm late because I missed my train."

Maybe you just didn't get to the bus stop or to the train station on time and you saw your bus pulling away or your train pulling away and you had to take the next one.

So then when you get to work or when you get to school, you would say, "Hey, sorry, I missed my bus."

Or, "Hey, sorry, I missed my train."

In order to be somewhere on time in the morning, you need to get up on time.

And there's a number of different things that can happen to you in the morning where you don't get up on time.

Here's a few things you might have to explain to your boss or your teacher.

You might simply say, "I slept in."

You might say, "I overslept."

That's the same as sleeping in.

You might say, my alarm didn't go off.

Or my alarm clock didn't go off.

Or you might say, "Sorry, I forgot to set my alarm."

So there's a variety of reasons why you might be late in the morning related to when you got out of bed.

And those are four different ways you could describe whatever happened to you.

Sometimes you're late because you had to go back home because you forgot something.

Sometimes you rush out the door, and then you get to your car, or you get to the bus stop, and you realize that you forgot something important, and then you have to go back and get it.

And so when you finally do arrive at work or school, you might say, "Sorry, I forgot my keys and I had to go back home and get them."

Or "Sorry I forgot my wallet and I had to run back home to grab my wallet."

So I'm not sure if you're a forgetful person.

I am sometimes a forgetful person, and sometimes I'm a little bit late for work because I forget something important.

Usually it's my phone or sometimes even my wedding ring or Fitbit, and I quickly turn around and go home and get it.

So sometimes you're late because you simply forgot something.

So if you are someone that drives a car to work or school, there's more than just traffic jams that can cause problems for you.

Sometimes you have car problems.

And so when you get to work or school, you might have to say something like this: "Sorry I'm late, my car wouldn't start this morning."

Maybe you turned the key and the engine just wouldn't turn on.

You might say, "Sorry I ran out of gas on the way to work."

Or "Sorry my car broke down on the way to work."

Or "Sorry my car got a flat tire on the way to work."

So cars are usually reliable, but sometimes they aren't.

And sometimes it makes you late.

Another thing that can make you late is simply the weather.

Especially here in Canada sometimes in the winter, the weather is really bad.

And so you might have to give excuses like the following:

You might just say something like, "Sorry I'm late, the roads were really bad."

This would mean there was a lot of snow and ice on the roads, and they were kind of slippery.

You might just say, "Sorry I'm late, the roads were treacherous."

Or, "Sorry I'm late, the weather was really bad."

And this doesn't have to just relate to driving.

I'm sure there are times where it's raining so hard, it's very difficult just to walk across the city.

Maybe your umbrella keeps blowing and trying to escape from your hand, and that just makes you late for work.

So sometimes when you're late, it's because of the weather.

And those are some of the excuses you could give.

Another reason you might be late for work is simply because you were doing something illegal, not anything major.

Maybe you were just speeding.

If you are driving to work and the cops pull you over, you might get a speeding ticket.

And then when you get to work, you might have to tell your boss or you might have to tell your teacher if you're late for school, why you are late.

So you would say, "Sorry I got pulled over" or "Sorry I got a speeding ticket."

or "Sorry I got a ticket on the way to work."

I'm sure then your boss or teacher will be curious as to what exactly happened, but this could be another reason for being late.

Maybe you were speeding and the cops pulled you over and you got a speeding ticket.

This next situation is one that has actually happened to me, and it's when a road or street that you normally take on your way to work or school is closed.

There was a time a few years ago where I was driving to work and the road I normally take all of the sudden was closed and I had to go a different way.

So if this was to happen to you when you arrive at work or school, you would say, "Sorry I'm late, the road was closed."

Or, "Sorry I'm late, Smith street was closed."

Or you might even just say, "The road I normally take was closed. I had to take a detour."

A detour is a situation where you have to take a different road or street in order to get somewhere.

So sometimes things are outside of your control.

Sometimes a road or street is closed and that makes you late.

So earlier I talked about how sometimes you're late because you forget something and you have to go back and get it.

But sometimes you're also late because you can't find something in the morning.

Sometimes you're on your way out the door and you can't find your keys or you can't find your wallet, or you can't find your phone.

So then when you get to the place where you're going, you might have to give an excuse and you might say something like this: "Sorry I'm late, I couldn't find my keys."

"Sorry I'm late, I couldn't find my phone."

"Sorry I'm late, I couldn't find my wallet."

Hopefully it was just one of those things.

It's a really bad day when you can't find all three.

But anyways, sometimes you're late because as you're trying to leave, you simply can't find something important that you need to take with you.

So hopefully this next one has never happened to you and will never happen to you.

But sometimes you get in a car accident.

Sometimes you're driving to work or school and you accidentally bump into someone or maybe someone hits you.

And then of course you're going to be late for work or school.

When you arrive, you would just simply say this: "Sorry I'm late, I was in a car accident."

Or you might say, "Sorry I'm late, I had a car accident."

Those are, for me at least, the two most common ways you would describe that situation.

So again, hopefully this never happens to you, but sometimes when you get to work or school, you have to say, "Sorry I'm late, I was in a car accident or I had a car accident."

Well, hey, thank you so much for watching this English lesson about the excuses you can give when you're late for work or school or even something else.

Sometimes life just happens, doesn't it?

And you end up being late.

At least now, if you needed to describe why you were late in English, you know how.

Hey, if this is your first time here, don't forget to click that red subscribe button over there.

Give me a thumbs up if this English lesson helped you learn a little bit more English, and if you have some time, leave a comment or stick around and watch another English lesson. Bye.