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...
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 2, 2026 | Sparks |
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....
von Christine Burgmer | Sep. 1, 2026 | Sparks |
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...
von Christine Burgmer | Aug. 31, 2026 | Sparks |
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...
