ENGLISH → MEXICAN SPANISH

Sorry I’m late.

Perdón por llegar tarde.

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MEANING & CONTEXT

The words, and when to use them

“Perdón por llegar tarde.” means “Sorry I’m late.” in Mexican Spanish. Use perdón por plus an infinitive to apologize for a specific action.

Situation: Apologizing

Register: Neutral. Gender form: neutral.

In a conversation

Perdón por llegar tarde. Había mucho tráfico.
Sorry I’m late. There was a lot of traffic.

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Topics

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Apologizing Boundaries and Disagreements Clearing Up Misunderstandings Conversation

Difficulty

Poquito’s learning difficulty bands reflect length, vocabulary, grammar and idiom. These are editorial estimates, not CEFR levels.

Easy

Filters

Usefulness

Essential, High and Normal describe the practical value of learning a phrase. Usefulness is independent of difficulty.

Essential

Conversation builder

Expressions marked as helpful for opening or extending a conversation.

Yes

Situation specific

Separate broadly reusable expressions from phrases tied to particular situations.

Your favorites and memorization

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Why this difficulty rating?

Length 9 points: 4 spoken Spanish words.
Vocabulary 4 points: Editorial estimate based on vocabulary needed for the situation.
Grammar 6 points: Editorial estimate based on the sentence pattern, verb forms and pronouns.
Idiom 0 points: Meaning is direct in the named situation.
Reuse -2 points: 1 vocabulary families appear in at least four earlier cards.

Keep the conversation going

Explore related topic →

Sorry for interrupting.Perdón por interrumpir.
“Perdón por interrumpir.” means “Sorry for interrupting.” in Mexican Spanish. Say this before asking a question or speaking over an ongoing conversation.
EasyHighEnglish first →Spanish first →
I didn’t mean to.No fue mi intención.
“No fue mi intención.” means “I didn’t mean to.” in Mexican Spanish. Use this after acknowledging something you did that upset someone.
EasyHighEnglish first →Spanish first →
My bad.Fue culpa mía.
“Fue culpa mía.” means “My bad.” in Mexican Spanish. Acknowledge responsibility for an error. Culpa is feminine regardless of who is at fault.
ModerateHighEnglish first →Spanish first →
Sorry about the mix-up.Perdón por la confusión.
“Perdón por la confusión.” means “Sorry about the mix-up.” in Mexican Spanish. Use this after a misunderstanding or a mix-up over details.
EasyHighEnglish first →Spanish first →
I’m sorry.Lo siento.
“Lo siento.” means “I’m sorry.” in Mexican Spanish. This expression belongs to Conversation. Share personal information.
BeginnerEssentialEnglish first →Spanish first →
I don’t think so.Creo que no.
“Creo que no.” means “I don’t think so.” in Mexican Spanish. This expression belongs to Conversation. Respond / explain.
BeginnerHighEnglish first →Spanish first →

Technical Specs

Formality and register

How a phrase addresses someone: Neutral, Familiar (tú), or Formal (usted). Politeness also depends on wording and context; tú can be polite.

Neutral

Conversation role

What the phrase does in a conversation. A phrase can have several standardized roles, such as asking, answering or sharing information.

Apologize

Situations

The specific setting recorded by the editorial review. Not every phrase has a named situation.

Apologizing

Gender forms

Explore the grammatical gender forms recorded for each phrase. Grammatical gender is different from the speaker’s identity.

neutral

Who or what gender refers to

Find whether gender wording relates to the speaker, listener, noun or object.

Not recorded

Learning collections

The fixed introductory collection and editorial Core or Expansion placements.

Core

Vocabulary families

Browse recorded word families shared by phrases. These editorial family labels may not be dictionary headwords.

perdon llegar tarde

Vocabulary familiarity

Everyday, less common and specialized vocabulary, considered separately from grammatical difficulty.

Everyday

Reusability

Editorial score for how broadly an expression can be reused; higher scores indicate more reuse.

Coverage gap value

Editorial estimate of how much the phrase adds to the collection’s practical coverage.

Ambiguity risk

Editorial score for how strongly meaning can depend on context; higher values indicate more ambiguity.

Confusion risk

Editorial estimate of the chance of confusing the expression with another; higher values indicate more risk.

Spanish word count

Explore shorter and longer expressions using the recorded Spanish word count.

4–6

Usefulness score

The detailed editorial usefulness score, distinct from the three usefulness labels.

Difficulty score

Scores run from 5 to 100. These ten-point ranges show the finer distribution within difficulty bands.

21–30

Vocabulary contribution

Recorded number of vocabulary-family contributions; it is not a learner’s vocabulary size.

1–3

Review dates

When the recorded editorial review was performed.

2026-11-11

Editorial quality

Recorded review status and quality classification.

Reviewed for Spanish (Mexico)

Source batches

Editorial import batches where source information is recorded.

Not recorded

Review methods

How the recorded editorial ratings were assigned. These are assessments rather than measured learning outcomes.

Editorial estimate for Mexican Spanish using phrase length, vocabulary, structure and context.

Difficulty rubric versions

The version of the editorial difficulty rubric used for a phrase.

Introductory speakers

The speaker roles recorded for the fixed introductory dialogue.

Not recorded

Length difficulty factor