by Christine Burgmer | Sep 2, 2026 | Sparks of English |
Tone matters Grammar gets attention. Tone gets the reaction. You can write a perfectly correct email and still sound cold, sharp or slightly fed up. You can also make a small grammar mistake and still sound perfectly fine, because the tone does the heavy lifting....
by Christine Burgmer | Sep 1, 2026 | Sparks of English |
Your email endings You’ve written the email. Now comes the strange part. You’re suddenly questioning your entire personality because of the sign-off. “Best” works.“Kind regards” works.“Thanks” works. It’s reassuring, but also frustrating. You’ve just spent...
by Christine Burgmer | Aug 31, 2026 | Sparks of English |
English at work is people trying to solve a problem together A participant in a workshop once told me she felt like there was a red pen following her sentences, circling anything imperfect before she’d even finished the thought. That tight, watched feeling sits...
by Christine Burgmer | Aug 28, 2026 | Sparks of English |
“Let’s make a pause” A manager once said this to her team mid-meeting. Everyone understood her instantly. Nobody blinked, nobody corrected her. The meeting just paused. That’s the odd thing about phrases translated straight from German. They...
by Christine Burgmer | Aug 27, 2026 | Sparks of English |
You don’t sound rude. You sound German. If I could tell every English learner just one thing, it’s this. You don’t sound rude. You sound German. And that’s fine. A client asked me last week whether her directness in English came across as...
by Christine Burgmer | Aug 26, 2026 | Sparks of English |
The sentence you practise in your head … will never sound exactly the same out loud. Many German-speaking professionals rehearse sentences silently before they speak. They want the perfect version before they say anything. But conversations don’t wait for...
