Category Archives: English Tips

Know what the English for “We hear us tomorrow” is? Right! “Talk to you tomorrow” (We see us is also not good. Simply say, See you!)

Correct: “She doesn’t work at Penny.” Not good: “She don’t work at Penny.” he / she / it doesn’t I / you / we / they don’t

Typical German mistake: “What means working today?” Good ways of asking the question: “What does work mean today?” or “What is the meaning of work these days?” You need the helping verb do to ask a question in the present … Continue reading →

Vor 3 Jahren: “We built this three years ago.” A typical mistake is to use “for” because it sounds like the German “vor”, so the sentence: “We built this for three years.” is not correct. We write for before a … Continue reading →

Mistake: I have not to use it. Good way of saying it: I don’t need to use it. We say don’t need to when you have alternatives.

Our cat is the smallest on the street. The preposition (“on”) in this sentence is right. Not so good (it sounds very “German”!) would be Our cat is the smallest from the street.

There was a mistake in my last post! Correct is: “A friend of ours lives in Kassel.” Not right: “A friend of us lives in Kassel.” To describe relationships between people, we either 1) put the possessive determiner before the … Continue reading →

Correct is: “A friend of ours live in Kassel.” Not right: “A friend of us live in Kassel.” To describe relationships between people, we either 1) put the possessive determiner before the other person or 2) put the possessive pronoun … Continue reading →

Good: “We meet next Thursday at 2 PM.” Not good: “We meet us next Thursday at 2 PM.” Good: “I don’t feel safe.” Not good: “I don’t feel me safe.” Feel and meet are not reflexive verbs in English, so … Continue reading →

“That’s normally for kids” means “that is for kids (not adults)” and “That’s normal for kids”? means “that is what kids do”. The grammar difference is that we add “-ly” only for adverbs in English: a careful driver is one … Continue reading →