English fluency
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Breaking the rule is the rule (sometimes)
“Me and him went to the meeting.”“Sounds good.”“Gonna send it over.” You’ve been told these are wrong… yet you hear them constantly. In casual speech, meetings, emails, everywhere. Sometimes breaking the rule is a signal.“Me and him…” isn’t careless: it’s casual.“Sounds good” drops structure, but keeps the meaning fast and natural.“Gonna” isn’t incorrect: it signals…
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Multilingual speakers don’t have a thinking problem
Teaching ESL, I hear this all the time: “I know what I want to say. I just don’t know how to say it.” This is because multilingual speakers don’t struggle to think. They struggle to translate their thinking into what sounds right to someone else. Multilingual speakers are working with multiple options at once. Different…
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Why “do a mistake” sounds wrong
“I did a mistake.” You understand this sentence immediately. Nothing is confusing, but it still sounds off. “Make a mistake” feels natural. “Do a mistake” doesn’t, even though “make” and “do” are similar and both are grammatically possible. The problem isn’t grammar. This is a collocation: words that naturally go together in a language. Not…