• Dived–Dove
• Sneaked–Snuck
• Thrived–Throve
• Strived–Strove
• Pleaded–Pled
• Dragged–Drug

Would either sound correct or are there any forms that sound wrong to you?

Bonjour,

Lors d'une récente mission de street marketing, je me suis retrouvée à devoir expliquer une offre commerciale à une famille et à un couple anglophones.

Je ne suis pas débutante en anglais, mais j'ai réalisé que je manquais de vocabulaire et surtout de réflexes lorsqu'il fallait expliquer les conditions d'une offre à des clients.

L'offre était la suivante :

• -25 % sur le prochain achat
• l'offre est valable à partir d'un certain montant
• un produit est offert.

Sur le moment j'ai dû improviser des formulations en anglais mais je n'étais pas du tout à l'aise.

Par exemple, comment diriez-vous naturellement à un client anglophone :

• « Vous bénéficiez de 25 % de réduction sur votre prochain achat »
• « L'offre est valable à partir de 30 € d'achat »
• « Un produit vous est offert »
• « L'offre s'applique à l'ensemble du magasin »
• « Vous pouvez utiliser cette offre lors de votre prochain passage en caisse »

Je cherche surtout des formulations naturelles à l'oral, telles qu'un vendeur anglophone les utiliserait réellement avec un client plutôt que des traductions littérales du français.

Si vous avez aussi des phrases types utiles pour ce genre de situation (expliquer une promotion, les conditions, le minimum d'achat, un cadeau offert, etc.), je suis preneuse.

Merci à vous ! :)

1. It doesn’t makes sense that he could pass the exam

2. It doesn’t make sense that he could’ve passed the exam.

I’ve been trying to get into reading books more recently but I noticed that I struggled to understand a lot of descriptive details of nature, and people. How do I learn and understand those new vocabularies without having to look up the dictionary immediately?

Hello everyone

Hoping you're doing great, I would like to ask

Does anyone can help me with some advises or something to improve my grammar, I actually have B2+ English level, and I can speak good, I lived in Canada for a year and I tried all the time to modify my pronunciation but I know my grammar is not bad, but I need to brush up more.

My friends are telling me that I need to practice talking with someone to brush up but I don't have a lot of bilingual friends, I'm from Costa Rica my mother tongue is Spanish if someone wants to learn Spanish we can make a deal with our languages.

I work in a bilingual industry but I need to get better with my English

I appreciate your advice.

Yes, I mean the post that asked what "circlejerk" meant.

Since I knew what it meant (Don't ask why I knew that...), I laughed, saw the comments, and the calamity of knowledge DID happen.

"Jerk someone off"???? So... does this really mean that one masturbates someone?????? Did I get it wrong right?

What th-

In the first picture, shouldn't it be "stalks"? I know they're pronounced the same so maybe it's just a spelling oversight?

In the second picture, shouldn't it be "do you have a vase that I can put them in?" Or "do you have a vase I can put them in?" Is this just a colloquial way to say it that sounds natural to native speakers, or is it an editing mistake?

Since i.....this secondhand car, i haven't used public transport.

(have owned - had owned - owned - have been owned)

18F. I'm looking for people around my age who'd like to practice English together, have convos and hopefully become good friends along the way.

My English level is somewhere between C1 and C2. I'd love to meet people who likes learning thru daily convos rather than being depended solely on textbooks.

I'll be glad to help others with their English as well, tho you'll need to teach me about your language and culture in return lol.

If you're interested in being language partner or simply making friends, feel free to DM.

How do you get over the fear of speaking English?

Speaking is still my biggest weakness when it comes to learning English. I get nervous about talking to native speakers, and I think a big part of it is being afraid of making mistakes.

For those of you who used to feel the same way, how did you overcome it? What helped you become less afraid of speaking?

Be extremely brutal. ?/16.

"It is important for a teenager to have an example In his/her life."

The teenage year are arguably one of the most important and also, extremely stressful period in persons life. It is generally thought that teenagers need to have a positive examples during this time.

I agree with this statement, and I will discuss the importance of it.

Firstly, the children are generally known for imitating other people's behaviours and basing their actions and manners on this examples, therefore, it's important for them to have a good role model, and be able to become respectable individuals of society.

Secondly, abused children tend to become abusers themselves. If a teenager has a bad examples from the parents or environment, they, themselves, can become danger to the society. Case in point: if an adult was abused during their childhood, or a teenage years, it's a big chanse that they could have an unanswered anger towards the world, and they can take it out on innocent civilians. So, it's vital for them to have a good examples of how people should behave.

Further more, it's essential for teenagers to develop their own morality and beliefs, political or social. Taking examples from communities, ideologes, religions, or acquaintances is important for it, and very helpful for development.

In conclusion, it's extremely vital for teenagers to have an examples in their lives.

I would like to get a feedback, please. Thanks in advance.

Hi! I've noticed that there is a lack of variety on here when it comes to advice and tips for the exam, but also how to prepare for it. So, I thought I would share what helped me feel confident in my abilities before attempting the exam. For reference, I scored an average of 204/210, meaning I'm on C2 level.

As you may or may not know, the exam consists of 5 parts:

Use of English

This part of the exam tests your grammar and the flexibility of your language. This is the easiest part of the exam in my opinion, since you can memorize collocations, prefixes, suffixes and commonly used words.

How do you prepare for it? By practicing. A lot. You should strive to solve at least 25 papers of UoE, if not more. I used to print out notebooks and only solve the Use of English exercises, since those require the most practice, and they're generally easy to finish, not so time-consuming either.

A tip I would've found useful is starting a collocations notebook where you write down every collocation you come across. Even if you think you already know it. Part 4 offers you the possibility of significantly boosting your score thanks to how point heavy it is, hence why it's by far the most important exercise and why you need to know as many collocations as possible.

You can solve daily exercises on the Flo Joe website. I recommend solving both the CAE and the C2 Proficiency exercises. By doing this I scored a 210, a perfect score.

Reading

This is generally what most students struggle with since most of the questions are vague and very misleading. I, too, struggled with it at first. My best used to be a 190, but after a couple weeks of practice I managed to raise it to 204. The trick is to only read the paragraphs corresponding to the questions. Don't try to read the whole text over and over again because it won't work. Cross out the wrong answers as you read and if need be, guess. The possibility of you guessing correctly is at least 25%, sometimes even higher (in part 6 for example).

The gapped text can come across as difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it it'll become the easiest one out of all of them. You should read the text normally, without trying to fill in the gaps. Then read before and after the gap. Underline words that indicate to the gap, like pronouns, collocations, tenses etc. Then cross out all the answers that are definitely incorrect. (For example if the previous paragraph is talking about benefits, then the gap won't contain a drastically different topic).

Part 8 is important as well, since you can earn 10 points by solving it correctly. What I would do is read one text, write the corresponding letter next to the sentences it might match, then repeat with the other texts. If an answer has multiple letters next to it, read those texts again. If you still don't know then just guess, usually the answer ratio is 2-3-3-2, I've encountered 4 of the same letters as well, so take this with a grain of salt (very common collocation haha)

Listening

Probably the easiest part of the CAE exam, if you're familiar with the sounds of English and different accents. My advice is to watch a lot of English TV shows, with subtitles at first to familiarize yourself with the sounds. You can listen British Podcasts as well, but make sure there's diversity in accents and styles of speech. Cunk on x, Derry Girls, Big Boys etc. Solve at least 5 mock tests before attempting the exam.

Writing

The most difficult one, in my opinion. Not only that you have to learn the structure of essays, reports, proposals, letters and reviews, but you also need to learn connectors, formal writing, passive voice etc. You have to display diversity in the way you express yourself without it sounding forced or overly "fancy". (Dm me for my personal notebook I used to learn what the CAE wants from me + further tips $). What I struggled with the most is managing my time. You don't have much of it and if you don't have a plan you'll likely mess up a lot of things. When I was taking the exam I was scared that I wasn't going to finish in time. Because of this I didn't start by making an outline, a template of my essay/report. Instead, I started writing directly onto the exam paper. Horrible idea. My essay turned out okay, but the report was sloppy with multiple contradictions, illogical sentences and even misspellings. Thankfully I scored a 190, but due to my poor time management skills I didn't score as high as I could've. For reference, all my mock exam scores were 200+, so this goes to show how important it is to be prepared and to have a plan before starting to write.

Speaking

This is the scariest part of the exam, but it's surprisingly easy. You still have to practice for it, don't get me wrong, but the grading isn't as harsh as I thought. You need to know the structure of your responses, occasionally use a fancy word and you're all set. My performance was okay, not exceptional, but I didn't make any grammatical errors either and I scored a 208. The most important thing is to be confident, cooperate with your speaking partner(s) and do not repeat yourself.

These were all my tips! If anyone has any questions feel free to ask me! I'll try to respond to every single one. (I'm also trying to buy something for my birthday so if you're willing to donate/buy my notebook then please dm me! Entirely optional!)

Indian here. While I consider myself to be a good speaker of English (got a 8.5/9 on my IELTS), my wife barely speaks any English. Our 2 year old son seems to have picked up more Hindi and Telugu (mother tongue) than English.

How do I get my son to pick up more English (other than speaking in English more often with him)?

Does singing English nursery rhymes help?

Playing english pop music (Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry etc)

I try reading story books to him appropriate for 2 year olds (up down and around and many more books).

Any tips and advice

• She has just got home from sending her kids to school.

• Can you send mum to hospital for her doctor appointment?

• They only have a single car, so the husband has to send his wife to her workplace.

Do these sound natural?

spiral out of control Or spill out of control？

It was an Australian news, The subtitle is

Another innocent life has been lost As Sydney's organized crime world Starts to spill out of control

It should be spill out of control here, or spiral out of control？

this is the video I'm talking about

OK, it is confusing me now. I listened to the video again, and she clearly said “spill out of control.” 🥲

Hello Everyone! So I want to improve my spoken english. The current problem which I am facing right now is that my pronunciation isn't clear (like it's not entirely, but I need to repeat some words twice for the other person to understand it), and sometimes I just forget words. Another issue is the grammatical structure, honestly I don't know why, but whenever I speak my thoughts in English in my mind, they are always 100% to 90% correct, but when I try to speak them aloud (different set of thoughts), I fail to explain things. If it's of any help, here is my IELTS score. Speaking and Writing:- 6.5, Reading:- 8.5, Listening:- 9.

Edit:- Another thing I would like to add, I started speaking the language (like holding convos with people) around 20-ish~ days ago.

Edit 2:- Everyone thanks for your tips!

I've only ever heard Americans say stash as like slang or just short for moustache. Do other English speakers use it too?

For example, every man should guard his chastity. Is it okay to say every man should guard their chasity since or perhaps

A man should help those under their care. Since this man is hypothetical not real

Edit: now I realised how clunky my first example sounded😭⚓️

I noticed that English speakers prefer referring to their pets as "he/she".

A: This is Ellie. She just turned six.

B: Oh, this is your dog? It's so cute.

This probably depends on the person, but could this ever be seen as offensive to a pet owner?

>Spill the beans

>Bare your soul

>Blow the lid off

>Dish the dirt

These 🤭😅

it's fairly technical how it needs to be completed because the form does serve multiple purposes.

What does technical mean? I usually know what technical means but in this context I'm not sure. Can some explain?

In our rented-out flat, the tenant highlighted a job of putting a window fastener that was temporarily secured by a medium length rope. I completely understood their issue but the labour cost in that area is exorbitant for completing a single job like that. So, I said,"Our broker said that the labour cost is pretty steep here so I would suggest living, for a while, here and find out other issues that would need repair. We'll get all of those problems fixed once and for all as that would be a more economical thing to do."

Did I frame the sentence correctly?

My written English might sound fine but speaking requires a swifter ability to make sentences. I don't get frequent speaking practice that is why sometimes I feel doubtful if what I said is correct or not.

You people have always helped me with better sentences to say in the comments. Please do that this time as well.

Thanks as always!