Fewer people care about “fewer” than you’d think.

Somewhere, a supermarket checkout sign says “10 items or less.” Somewhere else, a small part of your brain silently fixes it to “fewer” and says nothing. You’ve done this more times than you’d admit. Nobody has ever thanked you for it.

Here’s the actual rule, now that it’s on your mind. Use “fewer” for things you can count… fewer emails, fewer meetings, fewer excuses. Use “less” for things you can’t… less stress, less time, less patience for checkout signs.

The truth is, even people who grew up speaking English mix this up constantly, out loud, without flinching.

The sign has been wrong for decades, and nobody’s taken it down.

PS Native speakers get this wrong constantly. They just do it with more confidence than you.

Have you ever noticed that understanding English and speaking it feel completely different?

That’s because they are. And for a lot of professionals, that gap is quietly frustrating.

Reading and listening help you take language in. You process it, you understand it. Speaking goes the other way. You have to find words, build sentences, deliver them while someone waits.

A lot of professionals practise one and wonder why the other isn’t improving.

(Both skills matter. They just don’t build each other automatically.)

If your spoken English feels stuck, look at your week. How much of your practice is taking English in? How much is using it?

Quick win: Next time you read or listen to something in English, say one sentence out loud about it afterwards. One sentence. That’s output.

💬 Which comes more naturally to you, understanding English or speaking it?

PS You’ve been studying the menu for twenty years. At some point, you have to order.

You knew the word. It was there.

But when the moment came, it didn’t show up fast enough.

I see this often in my sessions. You know the vocabulary. You understand the sentence. Then a small delay appears while your brain checks everything before you speak.

I call it the half-second gap.

I still catch myself doing it in German after many, many years here.

Many professionals think this means they need more vocabulary. Usually, they don’t. The words are already there. The challenge is getting to them when the pressure is on.

That’s why I created the Access Score.

It shows you how quickly your English comes out when you need it. The test takes three minutes, and you don’t need to enter your email.

You’re among the first people to try it.

Take the test and see your score. The result may show you something you didn’t expect.

Try your Access Score →

PS Fluency doesn’t come from knowing more words. It comes from the Kontrolleur taking a day off.

You write an English sentence, and it feels stiff. Heavy. You can’t quite say why. Often it’s the passive, and German nudges you straight into it.

“A decision was made.” “The report was finished.” “Mistakes were made.” All correct, but slow and oddly faceless. Nobody’s actually doing anything.

Here’s a test I came across, and it’s weirdly useful. Add “by zombies” after the verb. If it fits, the sentence is passive.

“The report was finished by zombies.” Fits. So make it active, and a real person steps back in: “We finished the report.“

Active isn’t a rule, and the passive has its place. But most of the time active is clearer and quicker because it says who did what.

Quick win: Read your next English email and drop “by zombies” into a heavy sentence. If it fits, try rewriting it with a real person at the front.

💬 Which are you, team passive or team active?

In English meetings, you might feel like the tortoise. Everyone else races ahead while you’re a step behind, still searching for the word.

You’ve probably decided that slow means losing.

But look again at the old story. The tortoise was slow the whole way. Slowness was never his problem. He won because he didn’t stop. The hare lost not because he was slow, but because at some point he sat down.

Being slower in English than in your own language isn’t a flaw. It’s the pace of doing something difficult in real time. The only thing that holds you back is stopping.

Quick win: Next time you feel too slow in English, don’t stop. Finish the sentence at your own pace. Steady gets there. Silent doesn’t.

💬 Where do you feel slowest in English?