When I was in my first semester in college, the professor in the English class I was taking, commented on my writing. He looked at my paper, then looked at me and told me that I would probably not get an A in his class. My sentences were “awkward,” according to him, because they didn’t […]
Do you feel your English is still not good enough?
The power of community – a weekend in NYC
How to speak up – even in “imperfect” English
My last flight from Europe back to the US went so smoothly that I was almost suspicious. “Could anything still go wrong?” I asked myself when the plane landed at the San Francisco airport. My husband and I spent the last five weeks in Europe, splitting our time between our two respective native countries Poland […]
How I started my career as a pronunciation coach
Companies to nonnative speakers: you can’t apply
How to start thinking in English
Six things I didn’t do when I was learning English
There is a difference between learning English as a Second Language (ESL) and learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The former is learning the language while you are in an English speaking country (the US in my case) while the latter means that you study it while you are in your home country or […]
What does it mean to be fluent in English?
Do you consider yourself fluent in English or are you waiting to reach this “perfect” level when you will no longer make any mistakes and speaking English will feel as natural as speaking your native language? What does it mean to be fluent in another language anyway? When I started college in the US, I […]
How to sound clear in English
Last week I had a great conversation with a Bulgarian friend who shared with me that sometimes native speakers didn’t understand what she was saying. One time, for example, she asked someone “Where is Andy?” and she couldn’t understand why the woman she was talking to was so confused. When I told her that the […]