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At the end of every calendar year, popular English dictionaries each pick a “Word of the Year”. In 2019, Oxford’s was “climate emergency”, and Cambridge’s was “upcycling”. Merriam-Webster, a dictionary based in the US, picked “they”. Why “they”? As you learned in English class, “they” is usually used as a plural pronoun, for example: >  …

You’ve registered for your fitness class. How will you exercise your brain in 2020? Why not learn a language? Studies show that when you learn a language, you help your brain to become more flexible and form better connections between its different parts. Research has found this is true for learners at any age. All …

Shoppers in the USA and around the world are looking for great deals today. But how and where did Black Friday start? The magazine Mental Floss explains (CEFR B1-C2).

Our clients often ask us about grammar books. Which one is best and why? We use different books depending on the client’s needs, but here are a few that are popular. Cornelsen’s Übungsgrammatik Englisch Grammatik – kein Problem (A2-B1) is one resource we use. For beginners, choose the A1-A2 edition. I like these books because the explanations …

The New York Times says both yes and no. A writer tested the language app Duolingo for over 500 days. What did he find? A language app can help you start to learn a language, but won’t help you become fluent. Specifically, he wrote: 1) If a language doesn’t use a Latin alphabet, an app …

It’s great to take some paid time off from work and enjoy the summertime, but what is that time called? British English and American English have different terms for the same concept. For people using British English, annual leave is called “holiday(s)”.  American English calls yearly paid time off “vacation”.  The differences don’t stop at …

Here are the answers to last week’s question: Do you know the correct English translations for these German words? bekommen:  to get  (to become = werden) die Billion:  trillion der Chef:  the boss die Hochschule:  the college/university (high school (American)/grammar school (British) = das Gymnasium) die Rente:  pension/retirement (rent = die Miete) der See:  the …

German and English have many false friends. Test yourself. Do you know the correct translations of these German words? bekommen die Billion der Chef die Hochschule die Rente der See Check your answers here next week.

For fun, sometimes our German clients enjoy testing our German with Zungenbrecher. In English these are called tongue twisters. Here are a few of the most famous English tongue twisters for you to try. 1. She sells seashells by the seashore. 2. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers …