La vuelta al cole ha llegado a Second Language
4 claves para llevarla con éxito La vuelta al cole ha llegado a Second Language, pero también a todos los colegios y empresas. Es por ello, que a muchos nos cuesta entrar en la rutina con buen pie y de buenas maneras. Sabemos que hay mucho trabajo por hacer, quizás...
Festivities in English
Christmas is coming and many people’s thoughts are turning to parties and celebrations. For non-Brits working in England, I thought it might be useful to give a run-down of what awaits you in the next few weeks. The Office Do First, there’s a good chance that your...
Festive English
Christmas Christmas is fast approaching and, as if you didn’t have enough on your plate at work, you now have to remember all that once-a-year vocabulary you need to be nice to your English-speaking contacts. If you’re not sure about the differences between a bank...
JUST for you
WHAT HAPPENS WITH «JUST»? JUST is one of those useful words that fills the gaps you need for thinking while you’re speaking. Native speakers use it often in a range of common expressions because its meanings are flexible, highly useful and normally invoke the Latin...
Breaking bad news
Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news and it’s even worse if you have to do it in a foreign language. It’s best to do a bit of advance planning: think about what you’re going to say and how to say it in English. Apologise It’s best to get the bad news out of the...
Dealing with delays
If you’ve been near an airport this summer there’s a good chance that you’ve come across the English word ‘DELAYED’ at some point. Delays seem to be a fact of personal and professional life these days, but this is dangerous territory if you have to do business with...Saying the Months in English
What the February…? In my previous blog, I recognised how hard it is to pronounce the days of the week in mydysfunctional language. This time, we’re dealing with the months, so there are twelve of thebastards, but the good news is that not all of them bite… Badly...
Blue Mondays
A History of the Days of the Week in English (And how to pronounce them) When it came to calendar stuff, Germanic people generally copied the Romans, who named their days of the week after gods or planets. The traditional first day was given the name of the most...