von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 9, 2026 | Sparks |
Why gobstopper and jawbreaker are both still correct Someone uses a different word from yours. And for a second, you wonder if yours has gone out of date. Last week in Hamburg, I was talking to a young man from Britain about school. We got onto sweets. I said...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 8, 2026 | Sparks |
Actually? It’s doing you a favour. Actually?It’s not a filler word.It’s a parachute for the three seconds your brain needed to think. I lean on it more than I’d like to admit. I once rewatched a recording of my own training session and lost...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 7, 2026 | Sparks |
Nervous in English? You speed up. Nervous in English?You don’t slow down.You speed up, as if you’re trying to outrun your own sentence. It happens to me too, just in my second language. Ask anyone who’s heard me answer a surprise question in German...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 4, 2026 | Sparks |
„He’s in the home office.“ “Where is he?” someone asked after a colleague missed a call. “He’s in the home office,” came the reply. Everyone understood he was working remotely. But in English, “home office” usually sounds like a room in your house. It...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 3, 2026 | Sparks |
That accent? It’s not a problem, it’s a clue. That accent?It is not a problem.It is a clue. It tells you where someone is from. Mine gives me away in about four words, usually before I’ve finished introducing myself. (Someone once asked if I was from...
