Sorry in Spanish: Perdón, Lo Siento, Disculpa and When to Use Each

The three core words for sorry in Spanish

If you only remember three phrases for saying sorry in Spanish, make them perdón, lo siento, and disculpa. Between them they cover the vast majority of everyday moments where an English speaker would say sorry or excuse me. The trouble is that they are not interchangeable, and swapping one for another can make you sound oddly formal, strangely dramatic, or a little cold, depending on which way you slip.

Here is the plain version of what separates them. Perdón is your quick reflex sorry, the word that jumps out when you bump someone or need to cut in. Lo siento carries real feeling, so it fits regret, sympathy, and heavier moments where you actually mean it. Disculpa, and its polite twin disculpe, is mostly about getting attention or excusing a small imposition, closer to excuse me than to a deep apology. Get those three straight and you already sound far more natural than a learner who says lo siento for everything.

It helps to picture them on a scale. On one end sits a tiny, throwaway sorry for a small physical bump. On the other end sits a serious apology for hurting someone or breaking a promise. Perdón lives near the light end and stretches toward the middle. Disculpa and disculpe sit near the light end too, but lean toward politeness and asking. Lo siento owns the heavier end, where genuine emotion is involved. Most of the skill of apologizing in Spanish is just learning where each moment falls on that scale and reaching for the phrase that matches.

One more thing worth saying up front. Spanish varies a lot by country, and so do apologies. A Mexican speaker, an Argentine, and a Spaniard will all understand these three words, but the flavor and frequency shift from place to place. Everything below works widely across the Spanish-speaking world, and where a regional habit matters, it is called out. You will pick up the local color once you are actually talking with people, which is exactly why practicing out loud beats memorizing a list.

Perdón: the quick, all-purpose sorry

Perdón (pehr-DOHN) is the word you will reach for most often, and it is the closest single match to a casual English sorry. Its literal root is the idea of pardon, and you can think of it as a compact, ready-to-go apology that fits countless small moments without any fuss. It works whether you are speaking to a friend or a stranger, which is part of why it is so handy: it does not force you to decide how formal to be in the split second after you step on a foot.

Reach for perdón in these everyday situations:

• Bumping into someone. You brush past a person on the street or knock a shoulder in a doorway. A quick perdón covers it.
• Interrupting. You need to break into a conversation or ask a question. Perdón, ¿tienes un minuto? means Sorry, do you have a minute?
• Not hearing something. Someone speaks and you missed it. A rising ¿perdón? works exactly like a questioning Sorry? in English, asking them to repeat.
• Small slips. You mispronounce a name or grab the wrong item. Perdón smooths it over instantly.

That last use, the questioning ¿perdón?, is worth practicing on its own because it comes up constantly for beginners. When you do not catch what someone said, a short ¿perdón? with your voice going up at the end is polite and completely natural. It is friendlier than the blunt ¿qué? (what?), which can sound abrupt to a stranger. Many learners overuse ¿qué? simply because it is the first word they learned, and switching to ¿perdón? or ¿cómo? (how? in the sense of come again?) instantly softens how you come across.

You can also stretch perdón toward heavier apologies by adding words. Perdón por llegar tarde means Sorry for arriving late. Perdón por lo de ayer means Sorry about yesterday. When you attach por plus a reason, perdón becomes a real apology rather than just a reflex, and it stays a touch lighter and more casual than the same idea built on lo siento. That flexibility is why it earns the all-purpose label: light on its own, and heavier when you add to it.

Lo siento: the heartfelt sorry

Lo siento (loh see-EN-toh) is the phrase to use when you genuinely mean it. Literally it means I feel it, and that literal sense is the key to using it well. Because it is built on the verb sentir, to feel, it carries actual emotion in a way that perdón does not. That makes it perfect for regret and sympathy, and slightly too heavy for a minor bump, where it can sound almost theatrical.

Use lo siento when there is real feeling behind the words:

• After a genuine mistake. You forgot a friend's birthday or let someone down. Lo siento, se me olvidó means I'm sorry, I forgot.
• Offering sympathy. Someone shares bad news. Lo siento mucho is the standard way to say I'm so sorry to hear that.
• Condolences. At a loss or a death, lo siento mucho or mi más sentido pésame (my deepest condolences) is what you say.
• Delivering bad news. As a way to soften something hard, lo siento, pero... means I'm sorry, but...

Because it carries weight, lo siento takes intensifiers naturally. Lo siento mucho is I'm very sorry. Lo siento muchísimo pushes it further, closer to I'm so incredibly sorry. Lo siento de verdad means I'm truly sorry, useful when you need the other person to know you are sincere and not just going through the motions. For sympathy you might hear cuánto lo siento, roughly how sorry I am, which sounds warm and caring.

There is a common pitfall here worth flagging early. Because English speakers say sorry for everything, beginners often say lo siento for everything too, including tiny bumps and interruptions. To a native ear that can sound overly dramatic, as if you were apologizing for a small accident the way you would apologize for a real wrong. For the little stuff, use perdón or disculpa and save lo siento for when your feelings are actually involved. That single adjustment does more than almost anything else to make your apologies sound native.

Disculpa and disculpe: excuse me and polite sorry

Disculpa (dees-KOOL-pah) and its formal partner disculpe (dees-KOOL-peh) sit closest to the English excuse me. They come from the verb disculpar, to excuse, and their main job is to politely get someone's attention or to excuse a small imposition rather than to apologize for a real wrong. If you want to flag down a waiter, ask a stranger for directions, or squeeze a question into someone's day, this is your phrase.

The two forms differ only in formality, and this is your first real taste of the formal-informal split that runs through all Spanish apologies:

• Disculpa is informal, matching the tú form. Use it with friends, family, classmates, and people around your own age.
• Disculpe is formal, matching the usted form. Use it with strangers, older people, officials, shopkeepers, and anyone you want to treat with respect.

In practice, disculpe is your safe default with a stranger. If you walk up to someone you do not know and say disculpe, ¿dónde está el baño? (excuse me, where is the bathroom?), you sound polite and considerate. Using the casual disculpa with an older stranger is not offensive exactly, but it can read as a little too familiar. Sounding slightly too polite is almost never a problem, while sounding too casual sometimes is, so lean toward disculpe when you are unsure.

Like the others, disculpa and disculpe can grow into fuller apologies. Disculpa la molestia means Sorry for the bother. Disculpe la tardanza means Excuse the delay, useful when you arrive late to something formal. You will also hear the noun form in set phrases like mil disculpas, literally a thousand apologies, which is a warm, slightly emphatic way to say sorry for a hassle you caused. In some countries, especially Mexico, disculpe is the everyday go-to for getting attention, while in others perdón or perdone takes that role, and both are perfectly understood everywhere.

Perdóname and perdona: asking to be forgiven

Sometimes sorry is not enough and you want to actively ask for forgiveness. That is where perdóname (pehr-DOH-nah-meh) and its informal short form perdona come in. These are built on the verb perdonar, to forgive, with the object me attached, so perdóname literally means forgive me. It is more personal and more emotional than a plain sorry, because you are directly asking the other person to release you from blame.

The command forms follow the same formality split you have already met:

• Perdona is the informal command, for friends and family. It can be light, like a softer version of perdón, or heartfelt, depending on tone.
• Perdóname adds the me and turns up the emotion, closer to please forgive me, still informal.
• Perdone and perdóneme are the formal versions, for strangers and people you address as usted.

You would use perdóname in moments that carry real weight. After hurting a partner's feelings, perdóname, no quería decir eso means Forgive me, I didn't mean to say that. When you have let someone down badly, perdóname, sé que la fastidié means Forgive me, I know I messed up. Because it asks for something from the other person, it belongs to sincere apologies, not to quick reflexes. Saying perdóname after stepping on a foot would sound strangely intense.

Interestingly, the short perdona and perdone also serve a lighter, everyday function that surprises many learners. In Spain especially, perdona is a very common way to get someone's attention, much like disculpa. Perdona, ¿tienes hora? means Excuse me, do you have the time? So the family of perdonar words stretches from a casual attention-getter all the way up to a deep, emotional plea for forgiveness, with tone and context telling you which one is happening.

Con permiso: making your way through

Not every polite phrase is an apology, and con permiso (kohn pehr-MEE-soh) is a perfect example that learners constantly overlook. It literally means with permission, and it is what you say when you need to move through a space or past people rather than to apologize for a wrong. Think of it as the Spanish for the excuse me you use to get by, as opposed to the excuse me you use to say sorry.

Reach for con permiso in these moments:

• Getting past people. Squeezing off a crowded bus or through a packed room, con permiso asks them to make way.
• Leaving a table or gathering. Excusing yourself to step away, con permiso is the courteous signal.
• Reaching across or by someone. When you have to invade a bit of their space to grab something, it softens the intrusion.
• Entering a room. In some regions, con permiso politely announces that you are coming in.

You will often hear it shortened to just permiso, and both are polite. A nice detail is the common reply: when you say con permiso, people frequently answer pase or adelante, both meaning go ahead or come through. Learning that little exchange makes crowded spaces far less stressful, because you have a ready phrase for the constant small negotiations of moving among people. It is one of those pieces of everyday Spanish that no textbook drills but every traveler needs within their first hour off the plane.

The distinction between con permiso and perdón in tight spaces is subtle but real. Con permiso is what you say before you pass, asking politely for room. Perdón is what you say after you have already bumped someone, apologizing for the contact. Fluent speakers flow between them naturally: con permiso as they approach, and a quick perdón if they clip a shoulder anyway. Getting that rhythm right is a small thing that makes you sound genuinely at home in the language.

Formal vs informal apologies

You have now seen the formal-informal split appear again and again, so it is worth pulling it together in one place, because it shapes every apology you make. Spanish distinguishes between the informal tú, for people you are close to or equal with, and the formal usted, for people you want to show respect to. Your apology words shift to match, and choosing wrong can make you sound either stiff or overly familiar.

Here is how the main phrases line up across the two registers:

Notice that perdón, lo siento, and con permiso do not change form. That is part of what makes them so useful for beginners: you can lean on them heavily while you are still getting comfortable with the tú and usted distinction, and you will never pick the wrong register. The words that do change, the disculpar and perdonar commands, are the ones to watch. When in doubt with a stranger, use the formal ending, since a little extra courtesy rarely lands wrong.

Formality is not only about the ending of a word, though. It also lives in how much you add around the core phrase. A formal apology tends to be fuller and more explicit: disculpe usted la molestia, no fue mi intención (excuse me for the trouble, it was not my intention) sounds respectful and complete. An informal one can be clipped: a simple perdona between friends does the whole job. Reading the situation for how much apology it calls for is a skill you build by listening to real speakers, and it matters as much as picking the right word. If you are still building comfort with the two registers, our guide on Spanish for beginners lays out the tú and usted distinction from the ground up.

Degrees of apology, from light to deep

Apologies come in sizes, and matching the size to the situation is what separates a natural speaker from a robotic one. Say too little for a serious wrong and you sound careless. Pile on heavy phrases for a tiny bump and you sound melodramatic. Here is a ladder from the lightest, quickest sorry up to a full, sincere apology, so you can grab the rung that fits.

Level 1, the reflex. For a bump, an interruption, or a missed word. A single perdón or disculpa is all you need. No explanation, no feeling, just a quick social smoothing. This is most of your daily apologizing.

Level 2, the small courtesy. For a minor imposition you want to acknowledge, like being a bit late or asking a favor. Perdón por la tardanza (sorry for the lateness) or disculpa la molestia (sorry for the bother) adds a reason without much weight. Light, but no longer a pure reflex.

Level 3, genuine regret. For an actual mistake with feeling behind it. Now you move to lo siento, often intensified: lo siento mucho (I'm very sorry). You mean it, and the phrase shows it. This is where you stop using the quick words and let real emotion in.

Level 4, taking responsibility. For a real wrong where you own the blame. Stack the pieces: lo siento muchísimo, fue mi culpa (I'm so sorry, it was my fault). Adding fue mi culpa (it was my fault) or me equivoqué (I made a mistake) shows you are not dodging responsibility, which matters a great deal in a sincere apology.

Level 5, asking forgiveness. For the heaviest moments, where a relationship is on the line. Here you reach for perdóname (forgive me) and pile on sincerity: perdóname, de verdad lo siento, no volverá a pasar (forgive me, I truly am sorry, it won't happen again). The phrase no volverá a pasar (it won't happen again) is a natural closer that promises change.

Here is how the building blocks stack, so you can mix them to hit the right level:

The beauty of these blocks is that they combine freely. Need a strong, sincere apology for a serious slip? Lo siento muchísimo, me equivoqué, no volverá a pasar. Just acknowledging a small hassle? A bare perdón. Once you can feel where a moment sits on this ladder, you will never again say the wrong-sized sorry, which is a surprisingly common way that otherwise good speakers give themselves away.

Real situations and dialogues

Phrases stick better when you see them in motion, so here are short dialogues for the situations you will actually meet. Read each one out loud, both parts, because saying an apology and hearing the reply is how you build the reflex to produce it live. If you want a wider set of everyday exchanges to practice, our guide to Spanish conversation is a good next step.

Bumping into someone on the street

A tiny physical accident, the most common apology of all. Keep it light and quick.

You: ¡Ay, perdón! (Oh, sorry!)
Them: No pasa nada. (No worries.)

Notice there is no lo siento anywhere here. A bump does not call for feeling, just a fast perdón and a fast reply. Reaching for lo siento would make a nothing moment feel weighty.

Getting a waiter's attention

Here you are not apologizing at all, just being polite, so disculpe is the tool. A stranger doing you a service earns the formal form.

You: Disculpe, ¿me trae la cuenta, por favor? (Excuse me, could you bring me the check, please?)
Waiter: Claro, enseguida. (Of course, right away.)

Arriving late to meet a friend

A small imposition with a bit of feeling. You want more than a reflex but not a heavy apology, so a warmed-up perdón fits.

You: Perdón por llegar tarde, se me hizo tardísimo. (Sorry for being late, I ran really late.)
Friend: Tranquilo, acabo de llegar yo también. (Relax, I just got here too.)

Apologizing for a real mistake

Now the stakes are higher. You hurt a friend by forgetting something important, and you need genuine regret plus responsibility.

You: Lo siento muchísimo, se me olvidó por completo. Fue mi culpa. (I'm so sorry, I completely forgot. It was my fault.)
Friend: Está bien, pero avísame la próxima vez. (It's okay, but let me know next time.)

A deep, personal apology

The heaviest kind, where a relationship needs repair. Here you ask for forgiveness and promise change.

You: Perdóname, de verdad. Sé que te fallé y no volverá a pasar. (Forgive me, truly. I know I let you down and it won't happen again.)
Them: Te perdono, pero necesito que hablemos. (I forgive you, but we need to talk.)

Squeezing off a crowded bus

Movement, not apology, so con permiso leads and a quick perdón covers any accidental contact.

You: Con permiso, con permiso... perdón. (Excuse me, excuse me... sorry.)
Passenger: Pase, pase. (Go ahead, go ahead.)

Offering condolences

Pure sympathy, where only lo siento will do, intensified to show you care.

You: Lo siento mucho, mi más sentido pésame. (I'm so sorry, my deepest condolences.)
Them: Gracias, te lo agradezco. (Thank you, I appreciate it.)

How to respond to an apology

Half of handling apologies in Spanish is knowing what to say when someone apologizes to you. Freeze up here and you leave an awkward silence, so it pays to have a few ready replies. Just like giving an apology, receiving one has degrees, from a breezy brush-off for a small thing to a warm reassurance for something serious.

For everyday, minor apologies, these are your bread-and-butter replies:

• No pasa nada. Literally nothing happens, meaning it's nothing or no worries. The single most common response, and it fits almost any small apology.
• No te preocupes. Don't worry. Warm and reassuring, good when the person seems a little concerned. The formal version is no se preocupe.
• Tranquilo / tranquila. Relax, it's fine. Casual and friendly, matched to the gender of the person you are speaking to.
• Está bien. It's okay. Simple and neutral, works everywhere.
• No hay problema. No problem. Straightforward and easy to remember.

For heavier apologies, where someone is genuinely sorry about something real, a light brush-off can feel dismissive. Reach for warmer replies:

• Te perdono. I forgive you. Direct and meaningful, the natural answer to perdóname.
• No fue tu culpa. It wasn't your fault. Comforting when they are blaming themselves too much.
• No te sientas mal. Don't feel bad. Kind and personal.
• Todos cometemos errores. We all make mistakes. Generous and forgiving.

The skill is matching your reply to the weight of the apology, exactly as you match the apology to the situation. If a friend says a quick perdón for a bump, answering with a solemn te perdono would be strange, almost comic. If someone pours out a heartfelt perdóname and you toss back a flat no pasa nada, it can feel like you are shrugging off their feelings. Read the size of what they gave you and hand back something of similar weight. That mirroring is what makes an exchange feel warm and human rather than mechanical.

Full reference table

Here is everything in one place to bookmark and return to. Keep it handy while you practice, and glance at it before a trip or a conversation where you know apologies will come up. Say each phrase out loud as you read, since a word you have never spoken is far harder to summon than one your mouth already knows.

Do not try to memorize all of it at once. Start with the top row of each group, the plain perdón, lo siento, disculpe, con permiso, and no pasa nada, and get those automatic first. The rest are refinements you layer on as you meet the situations that call for them. A handful of well-drilled phrases you can actually say beats a long list you only recognize, which is the whole difference between knowing about Spanish and speaking it.

Common mistakes learners make

A few predictable errors show up again and again with apologies, and knowing them in advance lets you skip straight past them. None of these will get you into trouble, but each one quietly marks you as a learner, and fixing them is quick.

1. Using lo siento for everything. The biggest one. Because English uses sorry for bumps, interruptions, and real regret alike, beginners map all of it onto lo siento. For the small stuff, switch to perdón or disculpa and save lo siento for genuine feeling. This single fix does the most to make you sound natural.
2. Confusing lo siento and me siento. Lo siento means I'm sorry; me siento means I feel. Say me siento when you meant to apologize and you have told someone you feel, leaving them waiting for the rest of the sentence.
3. Being too casual with strangers. Using disculpa or perdona with an older stranger when disculpe or perdone is expected. It is not offensive, but the formal form shows respect and is the safer default.
4. Forgetting con permiso. Learners apologize with perdón when they should be asking to pass with con permiso. Using con permiso before you move and perdón only if you actually bump someone sounds far more fluent.
5. Skipping responsibility in real apologies. A bare lo siento for a genuine wrong can feel thin. Adding fue mi culpa or me equivoqué shows you own it, which matters when the apology is serious.
6. Freezing when someone apologizes to you. Not knowing the replies leaves an awkward gap. Having no pasa nada ready means you never get caught silent.

The thread through all of these is the same lesson: Spanish splits the work of sorry across several phrases, and fluency is knowing which one each moment wants. You get there not by memorizing harder but by using them out loud until the right word arrives without thinking. To keep building the broader speaking habit these phrases live inside, our guide on how to speak Spanish pulls the pieces together, and Spanish greetings pairs naturally with apologies as the other half of everyday politeness.

Practicing apologies out loud with SPAIKING

Reading about how to say sorry in Spanish gets you the map. It does not get you the reflex, and a reflex is exactly what an apology needs, because these phrases fire in split seconds. You bump someone and the word is either already on your tongue or it is not. No amount of silent studying builds that, only saying the phrases out loud, many times, in something close to real conditions. That is the gap SPAIKING is built to close.

Here is how it fits what you have just read. After going through this guide, you open SPAIKING and have a spoken conversation with an AI partner, deliberately walking into the situations where apologies come up: arriving late, making a mistake, squeezing past, getting attention. Because the AI actually talks back, you get the real pressure a page can never give you, an unexpected reply you have to understand and answer on the spot. That pressure is what moves lo siento mucho, fue mi culpa from a phrase you recognize to one you can produce without pausing to think.

The parts that make it work for something as reflexive as apologizing:

• You practice out loud. Apologies are spoken, fast, and physical, so you have to train your mouth, not just your eyes. Every turn is a real rep of saying the phrase.
• It corrects your pronunciation. Getting disculpe or perdóname to sound right matters, and live correction tells you what your own ear forgives.
• It is always available and judgment-free. You can fumble an apology ten times and the AI just keeps going, which is what finally gets nervous learners to speak instead of rehearsing silently.
• It builds the register instinct. Practicing with the formal and informal forms in context trains you to reach for disculpe versus disculpa automatically, the way natives do.

Think of this guide as the knowledge and SPAIKING as the practice that turns it into speech. You now know which word fits which moment, how formal to be, how to scale from a light perdón to a full perdóname, and how to answer when the apology comes to you. Say all of it out loud enough times and it stops being a lookup and becomes a reflex. You can start on the pricing page and begin turning these phrases into real conversation today.