Here’s another word that does not have a plural in English. ‘Furniture’ means ‘Möbel’. If you want to say ‘Möbelstück’ (a single item of furniture), then you have to call it ‘a piece of furniture’.
Examples:
He bought some new furniture yesterday.
She only had enough money for one piece of furniture and so she bought a bed.
We need a few bits of furniture for our new apartment.
It’s always good to know some surprising facts when starting a conversation with a customer or colleague! What about starting with something like the following next time?:
Did you know that it’s illegal to be drunk in a pub in England? And that it’s not allowed to drive cows through streets between 10 am and 7 pm?
You’ll find some other crazy English laws in The Telegraph’s informative slideshow. They should lead to some good discussions!
I sometimes get email messages which show lots of other email addresses on the ‘To’ line. This means that a lot of strangers have access to my email address, too. I don’t like it.
So remember to put addresses on the ‘Bcc‘ line if you are sending out email messages to people outside your organisation. It’s much more businesslike.
PS ‘Bcc’ stands for ‘blind carbon copy’. If you’d like to learn how to do it, take a look here.
“No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important.”
Mary Kay Ash
Now that’s a great piece of advice, isn’t it? However, how can we do it?
I’ve found an nice article in the Huffington Post giving us seven ideas on how to make people feel important. Yes, of course, accepting people the way they are and never critising or condemning them. Let’s practise those first before moving on to the other ideas. 🙂
Did you know that over 300 languages are spoken in London? I can quite believe it because when I’m there and need to ask for directions, it’s always difficult to find a real Londoner! More often than not I’ve stopped a foreigner!
People who work with me know that I love London. I find it a fascinating city. Actually, it’s one of my favourites.
If you want to learn more about the city, watch the BBC’s short video clip here. And yes, it’s the place to go if you need a bowler hat or want to try out those wonderful doubledecker buses.
