We say “sorry” even when it’s clearly your fault.

Someone bumps into us. “Oh, sorry!” We apologise to inanimate objects. We apologise for existing. (I once apologised to a filing cabinet I walked into. It did not apologise back.)

It’s the sound British English makes before getting to the point.

You don’t need to take it personally, and you definitely don’t need to apologise back.

Quick win: When your British colleague says, “Sorry, but could I maybe add something?“, they’re not sorry. They just want to speak. Let them.

PS The average British person says sorry roughly eight times before lunch. Nobody involved has done anything wrong.

There’s a quirk I secretly love in my clients’ English. Capitalising every Noun in an email.

Meeting. Deadline. Attachment. They all want a capital letter in your head, whether English allows it or not.

German grammar is stubborn about this, and your fingers just do it, even after ten years here.

It’s proof your brain runs two grammar systems side by side, switching mid-sentence, without you noticing.

You don’t need to hunt down every capital letter before you hit send. Nobody reading your email in English has ever mistaken it for carelessness.

It’s not bad English. It’s bilingual autocorrect, and it’s German that’s winning.

Fewer people care about “fewer” than you’d think.

Somewhere, a supermarket checkout sign says “10 items or less.” Somewhere else, a small part of your brain silently fixes it to “fewer” and says nothing. You’ve done this more times than you’d admit. Nobody has ever thanked you for it.

Here’s the actual rule, now that it’s on your mind. Use “fewer” for things you can count… fewer emails, fewer meetings, fewer excuses. Use “less” for things you can’t… less stress, less time, less patience for checkout signs.

The truth is, even people who grew up speaking English mix this up constantly, out loud, without flinching.

The sign has been wrong for decades, and nobody’s taken it down.

PS Native speakers get this wrong constantly. They just do it with more confidence than you.

Have you ever noticed that understanding English and speaking it feel completely different?

That’s because they are. And for a lot of professionals, that gap is quietly frustrating.

Reading and listening help you take language in. You process it, you understand it. Speaking goes the other way. You have to find words, build sentences, deliver them while someone waits.

A lot of professionals practise one and wonder why the other isn’t improving.

(Both skills matter. They just don’t build each other automatically.)

If your spoken English feels stuck, look at your week. How much of your practice is taking English in? How much is using it?

Quick win: Next time you read or listen to something in English, say one sentence out loud about it afterwards. One sentence. That’s output.

💬 Which comes more naturally to you, understanding English or speaking it?

PS You’ve been studying the menu for twenty years. At some point, you have to order.

You knew the word. It was there.

But when the moment came, it didn’t show up fast enough.

I see this often in my sessions. You know the vocabulary. You understand the sentence. Then a small delay appears while your brain checks everything before you speak.

I call it the half-second gap.

I still catch myself doing it in German after many, many years here.

Many professionals think this means they need more vocabulary. Usually, they don’t. The words are already there. The challenge is getting to them when the pressure is on.

That’s why I created the Access Score.

It shows you how quickly your English comes out when you need it. The test takes three minutes, and you don’t need to enter your email.

You’re among the first people to try it.

Take the test and see your score. The result may show you something you didn’t expect.

Try your Access Score →

PS Fluency doesn’t come from knowing more words. It comes from the Kontrolleur taking a day off.