von Christine Burgmer | Okt. 1, 2026 | Sparks |
Overtake or take over? The German word that flips in English In a handover meeting, a colleague said, „I’ll overtake the project from Monday.“ Everyone nodded. Everyone understood. Übernehmen is über plus nehmen. Over plus take. English uses the same...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 30, 2026 | Sparks |
Nobody is holding a red pen Someone asked me recently what my work feels like after 25 years. The honest answer is that it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like conversations. A lot of people arrive at a first session braced for the red pen. They sit down...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 29, 2026 | Sparks |
Steal the technique, not the accent You watch a TED talk (I love them!) and think, I could never sound like that. So you work on the wrong thing. The voice, the polish, the ease that seems to come with growing up speaking English. What makes a talk easy to follow is...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 28, 2026 | Sparks |
Dear all, and what most people write instead You’ve written „Dear all“ hundreds of times. Nobody has ever complained, and nobody ever will. It’s correct. It’s also a little more formal than you probably feel about the eight people who are...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 25, 2026 | Sparks |
Nobody else knew what „ballpark“ meant either The hardest person to follow in an international meeting is often the one who grew up speaking English. They say „let’s park that“ or „give me a ballpark figure“. Everyone else...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 24, 2026 | Sparks |
Understanding isn’t the same as speaking You understood every word of the presentation. Then someone asked you a question. The answer was completely clear in your head. Something else came out of your mouth, slower and smaller, and you spent the afternoon...
