Learning Czech (or not)

A while ago I received an email from a lady who’s boyfriend was struggling with learning Czech (I think he was American). She asked about my own personal experience and relationship with the Czech language. As I haven’t written a new post here for quite some time (sorry!), I thought I would share the thoughts I had with you too. So here goes…

My Czech learning has been rather passive for the last few years I’m afraid but here’s the brief version of my story.

I met my wife while we were both living in Cambridge and she was living with other Czechs and Slovaks. I had also previously travelled in both Slovakia and the Czech Rep. While travelling I learnt some basic pleasantries; please, thank you, two beers and where’s the toilet! When I met Radka, I quickly learnt colours, numbers, animals and bird names plus a few useful phrases. After three years together and with our first daughter we decided to move to the C.R. Before the big move we took a two week holiday, staying with her father in Prague and I went to a language school in Žižkov for three hours per day for two weeks. I was also self studying after the sessions and sitting in the evenings watching TV with Radka’s dad where I picked up a few more words and practised what I had learnt.

So, cut to moving here (ten years ago now) – we lived with her father for about 3 months while looking for a house to buy. During that time I was again practising with her father, mainly while watching football on the telly. 🙂 I also saw a Czech teacher for face to face lessons but only saw here two or three times because she wasn’t very reliable. Since then I have done a bit of self study at home sometimes using an app called Memrise or by watching TV and noting down new words. I have found that the longer I have been living here the easier it is to remember new words the first or second time I hear them.

All that said, I still don’t understand most of what people say. One to one, I can often get the gist (general meaning) but in group conversations it’s very difficult. I can usually get my point across and say what I want to but often with bad word order and the wrong case endings! I read something recently that said Czech (and I guess other Slavic languages) is one of the hardest to learn as a non-Slavic foreigner.

Anyway, my advice to her boyfriend was to be a bit more proactive than I have been in recent years. Time will help massively and be brave enough to try speaking even badly because people are usually quite happy that you are even trying. Young people will understand your bad Czech better than older people (50 plus) and often have a bit of English to help you understand. Get to the pub, relax and tell friends funny stories using any words you have (I used to say zeleny koberec venku because I could never remember the word for grass!)

Anyway, I just thought you might find that interesting and it’s about time I posted something right? 🙂

December 7, 2020

Goodbye and Good Riddance 2020

Goodbye and good riddance, an English saying meaning that you are glad to be ‘getting rid’ or leaving something behind. No, I’m not talking about a certain Mr. Trump, but the year 2020 in general. It’s a phrase that I think many (all?) people will be saying about this year. But what have we learned in 2020?

Personally, I tried to learn a bit more Czech, better running technique and to have have more patience in general. Unfortunately I let ‘the situation‘ distract me from persevering with my Czech so it’s back to passive learning I’m afraid. It also became a bit of an excuse if I’m honest, for not writing any blog posts or filming any videos. I will try to make up for that next year, starting today.

New words and phrases in English you may have heard this year? Leave yours in the comments below. For one I have to admit I had never heard the verb ‘to furlough‘ before the start of 2020, but it has quickly found its way into the lexicon of the mainstream. People working in the civil service may have been aware of it as it means ‘to give workers temporary but long term time off work’. Outside of the medical profession you would be ‘hard pressed‘ (challenged) to find someone who knew what a ‘corona virus‘ was, I think we are all now acutely aware! The phrase ‘global pandemic‘ is one we hoped we’d never hear in our lifetimes and although the word epidemic was widely used, I don’t think too many people used the word for someone who is a specialist in the science of epidemics, ‘an epidemiologist‘, sometimes referred to as ‘disease detectives‘. Other related phrases such as ‘social distancing‘, to keep one’s distance from another, [[[‘self-isolate‘]]] taking the social distancing to the extreme and ‘denialist‘ someone who denies (to deny) the existence of something (like corona virus), and the acronym (abbreviation using the first letters of each word in a phrase) ‘WFH‘ meaning working from home have all come into our regular chosen vocabulary. Note: not ‘WTF‘ which means something else 🙂 Who would have thought ‘face masks‘ would become a fashionable item and that the hyphenated word ‘single-use‘ would refer to something other than plastic and condoms!

More positively, an ‘e-bike’ is something your parents or grandparents are very likely to be talking about and the word ‘Anglosphere‘ has become more popular as a way of grouping together the countries where English is the first language (UK, US, Canada, Australia. New Zealand, Ireland). ‘Contactless‘ as in your new credit or debit card which do not require inserting into a terminal to pay as opposed to ‘a contact sport‘ such as football, rugby and ice hockey. ‘Influencer‘, a social media term meaning someone who has a lot of influence by way of a large online audience. Another acronym, ‘G.O.A.T.‘ in sporting terms meaning: the greatest of all time found its way into my ears for the first time this year. Think Muhammad Ali, Pelé, Michael Jordan etc. Maybe that has been around for longer and I was just ‘living under a rock‘.

Anyway, here’s to hoping next year will be a little more positive. Let me know your favourite new words from 2020 in the comments below. I’ll be back at Christmas.

January 21, 2020

New Year Update – Free Goal Setting Help – Course Discounts

Howdy folks! (as they say in some parts of the U.S.A.) How y’all doin’? So, as we are two thirds of the way through January already, I thought we should have a little catch up to assess our goals for 2020. Did you make any new year’s resolutions?

If you read my previous post. 2020 Vision. you will know that my three main resolutions were:

Run a sub 40 minute 10km at a specific race in Kladno in November (my current PB is 40.32, what’s yours?)
Improve my Czech language with my new teacher and be able to use and understand all modal verb usage + learn and use 52 new verbs (one a week)
No alcohol for the first two months of the year. (9 days in so far, so good)

Of course, you want to know how I’m getting on right?

Be alcohol free

Well, I’m still alcohol free after three weeks, so I’m well on the way to two months. However the thought of (and sight of on tv) a cold beer is pulling my coat tales on a daily basis. That said, I am enjoying the clarity of going without any alcohol. I’m sleeping better and feel like I have more energy. I’m not usually a big drinker but the regularity of it is good to keep in check. Anyway, I do this most years and it’s no problem to go for long periods without visiting the pub or the green and brown bottle aisle of the supermarket. The downside is that it’s probably not saving me any money as water is more expensive than beer in the Czech Republic!

Improve my Czech

I’ve had a big win already on this one as I have been proactive in finding myself a new Czech language teacher. I say ‘teacher’ but really she’s a language coach and works in a very similar way to me. How is a coach different from a teacher? I’ll try to explain that in a future post, but suffice to say that it’s my preferred way of learning as it puts the onus on me.

Run a sub 40min 10km

Ok, my goal here is to run the time I want in a specific race which isn’t until November, but that gives me 10 months of training to get up to speed. I have started the year strongly and structured my weekly training in a methodical way after reading a great book by Julian Goat

er called The Art of Running Faster. I highly recommend it. For the last three weeks I have incorporated a short hill repetition session and an interval training session as well as cross training (swimming). Added to my usual weekend long run and a few recovery/easy runs in between and I am already feeling like I am stronger and faster.

Your Goals

So what about you? Did you set any new year’s resolutions? Have you got some goals or target for the year? Do you have specific goals for your English? If you would like some help in setting your goals download this. It’s my guide to setting S.M.A.R.T Goals for your English journey.

And Finally…

If you are looking to make some quick improvements in your English and want to do it in a fun, relaxed way, take one of my online courses. They are available at a discounted price of just 499kč until the end of January. Better Your English Now will help you correct up to 30 of the most common mistakes you make and Master the Present Perfect does exactly what it says on the tin!

Ok folks, that’s all for now. Get your S.M.A.R.T. Goals guide here and Enroll in a course here.

Enjoy learning English the smart way and see you next time,

Richard.

January 9, 2020

2020 Vision for Your English

Howdy All! How is 2020 treating you so far? Have you started exercising? Given up smoking and drinking? Saving more money? Using less plastic? Eating healthier food?

Whatever you want to achieve this year, make improving your English one of your habits. Yes, a habit! Improving your English isn’t a goal in itself, it’s a habit to form to continually improve. If you’re not very good at creating new habits, and let’s face it who is?, take a look at this. I have created a free blueprint pdf for you to get into the habit of studying, practicing and improving your English.

Click here for this week’s free cheatsheet – Your English Habit Blueprint

To read more about creating habits have a look at this post from last year.

I know you are itching to find out what my goals are for this year so here’s my shortlist:

Run a sub 40 minute 10km at a specific race in Kladno in November (my current PB is 40.32)
Improve my Czech language with my new teacher and be able to use and understand all modal verb usage + learn and use 52 new verbs (one a week)
No alcohol for the first two months of the year. (9 days in so far, so good)

So what’s your vision for your English this year? Do you have one? A target of where you would like to be by the end of the year? Have you thought about and set some goals. If you want some help in determining your goals you can download this useful goal setting sheet. To read more about why goal setting is important to your English, read this.

So, I’ll keep it short this year as you are a very busy person 🙂 but I’ll be back soon to help you learn English the smart way.

Happy New Year,

Richard.

January 6, 2020

Merry Christmas 2019

Oops! I forgot to post this 🙂

Merry Christmas

First of all, I would like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas. Of course, this time of year is traditionally when we reflect on the last year and as well as happy times we may also feel melancholy and even sadness.

So, as we are coming to the end of the year it’s time ‘to take stock of’ (review and think about) your English journey so far. Here are a few questions I put together to help you figure that out. Spend some time thinking about the answers to these questions. It may be a good idea to print off this email and use the space under each question to answer it. If you want to email me your answers I would be happy to read them and of course that will help me to help you even more. So, here you are…

Did you improve your English this year?

What did you do to get better at English?

Was it a successful year or are you disappointed with your progress?

Could you have done more?

What could you have done differently?

What else could you have done?

… and what else?

Ok, so I am sure this will help you to reflect on your English journey so far. In the new year I will email you again with some free tools to help you start the year ‘on the right foot’. Look out for those. In the meantime, have a great Christmas holiday/December and see you in the new year.

All the best,
Richard.

May 10, 2019May 10, 2019

Present Perfect Problems?

Eight years ago, if you had asked me the question: ‘What is the present perfect tense?’ I wouldn’t have been able to answer you. Now I can tell you it’s a tense in English that tells you that something happened in the past and it is still relevant now. Wow! That was easy 😉 at least, it is after seven years of teaching English!

Go more in depth with my FREE ebook – Easy Guide to the Present Perfect

Of course, I’m not alone in that as a native English speaker I didn’t know what it was. Recently I interviewed my family and friends for my new video course. I asked them a) What is the present perfect tense? and b) When do we use the present perfect? You might be surprised to find out that my father was the only one who was able to answer yes and explain how to use it. He has studied many languages in his life so he has a good understanding of it.

Is the Present Perfect Difficult for Everyone?

For native speakers of the romance languages, the present perfect isn’t so much of a problem as it also exists in French, Spanish etc. But if you are from a Slavic country like the Czech Republic for example then it can be a bit of a struggle. So just what is the present perfect tense? Read on and I’ll give you a basic overview.

What is the present perfect tense?

To boil it down (as we say to get to the main point) it tells you about something that happened in the past and has some consequence now. Something happened and it’s still relevant at this moment in time. You may have noticed that I have used it already in this article. That is because it’s rather difficult to explain without using it. I am using it because the article isn’t completed yet. I haven’t finished writing it yet. How do you recognize it when you are reading? It’s made like this…

How the Present Perfect is made

Pronoun + have/has + verb Past Participle

“I have seen…”

“He hasn’t played…”

In questions

Have/has + pronoun + verb Past Participle

“Have you heard…”

Look at the dialogue below. The first, short conversation uses only the past simple. You can see that person b needs to ask a second question to fully understand what person a is saying. In the second shorter conversation person b doesn’t need to ask another question because person a used the PrP to explain the situation. Person b understands that person a still has a broken leg right now.

Conversation 1.

a) “I broke my leg”

b) “When?”

a) “I did it three years ago but it’s ok now.”

Conversation 2.

a) “I’ve broken my leg!”

b) “Does it hurt?”

When to use the Present Perfect

Well. simply, there are five situations when you want to use the present perfect simple. I’ll tell you what they are here and if you want to go more in depth, I wrote an ebook about it. You can get it for free by going here: Easy Guide to the Present Perfect

Situation 1.

For life experiences – things that you did in your life. I have driven a double decker bus.

Situation 2.

Unfinished time words – When we say this morning, this week or today. I have drunk three cups of coffee today.

Situation 3.

Things with a present result – This is when something happens and you comment on it immediately before the situation changes. I have dropped my keys.

Situation 4.

New information – Think about the way the news is read in English – ‘There has been an accident.’

Situation 5.

Unfinished actions – When the thing we did is repeated and we know we are going to do it again. I have played football since I was a boy.

When you get the Easy Guide to the Present Perfect you will also get an email mini course to help you better understand the tense. The course includes a free video lesson from the full video course (available soon) and an online quiz to test your knowledge at the end of the course.

So what is the present perfect tense? I hope that now you have a little better understanding and perhaps you would like to learn how to use it properly in your speech and writing. If so, you know what to do.

See you next time,

Richard.

March 20, 2019March 28, 2019

Are You Working Hard or Hardly Working?

I thought I’d help you today with something I’ve heard a lot of people make a mistake with; that is when they try to use ‘ hardly ‘ as the adverb of hard.

Hard

Hard means something that is either solid like beams, bricks and concrete or it can mean something that is difficult, challenging or perplexing.

For many years I have been trying to solve the Rubik’s Cube but it’s proving too hard for me.

The confusion comes because we usually make an adverb out of an adjective by adding the letters ly to the end of the adjective eg.

Confident – Confidently

Strong – Strongly

Quick – Quickly

Expectant – Expectantly

Brave – Bravely

Precise = Precisely

Or where the adjective ends in a y we remove the y and and add ily eg.

Needy – Needily

Heavy – Heavily

Hasty – Hastily

Unfortunately ‘hardly’ doesn’t follow this rule. Hardly actually means:

almost not / almost never / almost none

and sometimes we use it to mean:

absolutely not or completely not

I’ll give you a couple of examples:

Almost not (hardly +verb)

I had hardly begun when she burst in through the door.

(it means that I had begun but only just)

Almost never (hardly ever)

‘Hardly ever’ can mean that something almost never happens:

I hardly ever go to the football.

(it means I don’t go very often but I do sometimes)

Almost none (hardly any)

I just went to the fridge there is hardly any milk left

(it means there is some milk left but not very much)

I often hear people say ‘I’ve been hardly working’ – what that really means is that you were almost not working. If I’ve been hardly working it means I was doing a little bit of work but only just enough work to call it work.

Certainly not Absolutely not (hardly +verb)

You go to ask for a pay rise:

“Hi Boss, I would like a pay rise.”

Your boss says:

“Well, you can hardly expect a pay rise because you haven’t been working hard enough.”

So I hope that helps you with the difference between hard and hardly look out for my Monday Minute videos on my Facebook page and YouTube.

If you would like to read more about other common mistakes in English have a look at this article.

All the best, bye for now.

Richard.

March 6, 2019April 25, 2019

What is the Present Perfect Tense?

Go more in depth with my FREE ebook – Easy Guide to the Present Perfect

Is the Present Perfect Difficult for Everyone?

What is the present perfect tense?

How the Present Perfect is made

Pronoun + have/has + verb Past Participle

“I have seen…”

“He hasn’t played…”

In questions

Have/has + pronoun + verb Past Participle

“Have you heard…”

Conversation 1.

a) “I broke my leg”

b) “When?”

a) “I did it three years ago but it’s ok now.”

Conversation 2.

a) “I’ve broken my leg!”

b) “Does it hurt?”

When to use the Present Perfect

Situation 1.

For life experiences – things that you did in your life. I have driven a double decker bus.

Situation 2.

Unfinished time words – When we say this morning, this week or today. I have drunk three cups of coffee today.

Situation 3.

Things with a present result – This is when something happens and you comment on it immediately before the situation changes. I have dropped my keys.

Situation 4.

New information – Think about the way the news is read in English – ‘There has been an accident.’

Situation 5.

Unfinished actions – When the thing we did is repeated and we know we are going to do it again. I have played football since I was a boy.

See you next time,

Richard.

January 3, 2019April 12, 2019

Make English One of Your New Year’s Resolutions

Clock Learn good habiits for speaking better English

So it’s that time again when we all decide to start over, make a fresh start and turn over a new leaf. On your list of New Year’s Resolutions amongst the gym membership, giving up drinking and spending more quality time with your kids, is learning or improving your English. We all know that you will probably succeed in some of these ventures for a short time but after three months (if you’re lucky) you’ll be back on the evening wine, working late and will have forgotten of which gym you are a member.

Jak se naučit anglicky v roce 2019?

Well, with my help, at least you have the opportunity to keep your eye on the ball when it comes to improving your English. This is the time of year I get the most emails from people asking me for help, so let’s jump on that enthusiasm for self improvement and get down to it.

Click here for this week’s free cheatsheet – Your English Habit Blueprint

This Year Will Be Different

What usually happens, and I’m sure you are no exception, is that January 1st rolls around and you think “Right!, this is the year I finally crack English.” You start out with some loose plan to study for half an hour a day but by the end of the first week you are exhausted, unmotivated, have already fallen off the wagon and missed the last three days. So, what’s the answer Richard? What is the solution? Read on …

Priorities, Time and Accountability

Your effort seems noble enough and it’s only half an hour so why couldn’t you stick to it? You have to be honest with yourself and decide where English sits in your priority list? Is it the most important thing on your list or does it rank below regular exercise, nights out with friends or some other thing? Then you have to decide realistically how much time you can devote to your learning. Don’t think it all has to be sitting down, seriously studying books though. You are far more likely to maintain enthusiasm and commitment to English if you mix up your learning. For a list of ways to learn English get this free PDF sheet here. While half an hour a day might not seem much to some people, to others it’s a huge amount of time. So, how should you split up your time and how much can you guarantee for English?

Click here for this week’s free cheat sheet – Your English Habit Blueprint

Frequency

Remember that frequency is the key. Better 5 minutes per day than 35 minutes once a week. There is science behind how your English mobile phone applications work. New words and phrases are repeated at specific intervals to decrease how quickly you forget new information. eg. Day 1 – learn 10 new words, Day 2 – learn 10 more, Day 3 – Try to recall from memory your day 1 words. This is a simplified example but the process of trying to remember will help your brain to commit these words to your long term memory. Yes, it’s more difficult than simply re-reading your notes and repeating them aloud but it’s the way to make that new vocabulary stick. Then, as long as you continue to refresh those words by recalling them at increasingly longer intervals (and best of all using them in your writing and speech) they should become part of your embedded ‘go to’ vernacular. This method is called spaced repetition and it’s the idea on which I based my Better Your English Now video course. More about spaced repetion here.

Right, off you go, and remember, be honest about how much time you can spend and the frequency. I have made you a free cheat sheet to help you determine your strategy. Click here to get this week’s freebie Your English Habit Blueprint.

Today’s idioms and their meanings:

start over – to start something again.

make a fresh start – to start something again

turn over a new leaf – start to act or behave in a better or more responsible way.

keep on the ball – To keep oneself very focused on something.

fall off the wagon – to return to any discontinued behavior, usually one that is detrimental in some way.

get round to it – to do something that you have intended to do for a long time

roll around – Occur / happen

December 10, 2018December 10, 2018

Coming Clean – modální slovesa v minulém čase

It doesn’t mean that I arrived in well-dressed way, or that I scrubbed off all the dirt after a particularly muddy football match. It means that I’m about to tell you the truth about something. And, I feel there are a few things I need to come clean about. This year I turned 42 years old and to be honest it hasn’t been a good year. It’s the first year I have ever felt the aches and pains of growing older, my eyesight is worse and I’ve made a few mistakes. I feel I should tell you about some of those mistakes if you’ll hear me out. Each of these mistakes has a moral for me to learn from, I’ll give you that at the end of each short tale. I’m not going to hang out all my dirty laundry to dry but I am going to air a few things and show you how we use modální slovesa v angličtině. So, today is about modals and morals, shall we begin?

Rail journey to Berlin (and a lesson in how to use modální slovesa v minulý (would HAVE BEEN)

A month ago, I made a last minute decision to go to Berlin to visit my friends and watch a football match with them. By last minute I mean, the day before. I’m from Yorkshire and Yorkshire people (like the Scottish) are stereotyped as being a bit tight with their money. While I don’t consider myself tight I have to admit that I love to get the best deal. So it was I set about finding the most economical way of getting to and from Berlin. I knew about a railway ticket that allows you to travel in both regions on either side of the German border ie. Last year I had a ticket for Plzensky Kraj and Bavaria when I went to watch Union Berlin’s match with Jahn Regensburg.

This time I thought I would buy a ticket for Ustecky Kraj (300kč) which allows you to travel in Saxony. I had already found and bought an online ticket from Deustchebahn to allow me to travel in Brandenburg and Berlin for 22Euros. The whole deal would cost me just over 1000 including travel to Prague and from Prague to the Usti region. A standard Prague-Berlin return would have been over 2000kč. Are you still with me?

So, once on the train it transpired that I couldn’t use these tickets on the express inter-city trains and so I had to buy two 42 Euro single tickets to and from Dresden on top of the 1200kč Prague Dresden ticket. Of course, I could have simply used the slower regional trains with my original tickets but I wouldn’t have been able to get back home on the same day. In the end I spent about 4000kč! Imagine where I could have flown to for that money!

The moral of this tale is an easy to learn from – Don’t try too hard to be clever. Let’s continue with my next and more serious mistake…

Car bump

The most serious of these mistakes happened just two weeks ago. I was busy in the morning writing some emails and it all went successfully. I got everything done that I needed to do before lunch and in time to be able to take my older daughter to gymnastics. She’s gymnastics mad and loves going to her class twice a week. All in all it would have been a great day but for what heppend next.

So, we jumped in the car and she was asking how fast I could say the alphabet in English (very fast) as we approached the junction on the edge of our village. I saw a car in front of me waiting for a space and as I pulled up behind him he set off. I glanced to my left and saw three cars coming but far enough away that I had time to join the road. Before I turned my head back to look in front of me, I set off and then …SMASH! The other car was still there. He must have decided that he didn’t have enough time to get out. Of course, it was my fault, though I felt a little unlucky, but I accepted the blame and have been without a car since as we await it’s repair. The other man is similarly waiting for my insurance company to pay for his repairs.

The moral and my opportunity to learn? Pay more attention, especially with things that are habits that I do automatically. Funny/ironic really, as I have been reading Eckhart Tolle’s New Earth for the second time which is a book all about paying attention to what you are doing AT ALL TIMES!

Compounding injuries

I’m a runner, or at least I like to think of myself as one. Not a great one, but, over the last few years I have seen some improvement with regular training. As I mentioned in my intro this year is the first year I have started to feel the aches and pains of age and after a knee injury at an orienteering event in July I should have taken a rest and given myself time to recover. That’s no my style though, as I pride myself on my endurance and believe that continuing as normal is the best way to overcome small niggles. This wasn’t s so much of a small niggle however and it was soon compounded by a compensatory injury in my other knee. That has lead to back pain and … You don’t really want to read about the grumblings of an old man now do you?

Moral? Curb my enthusiasm and come to terms with the fact that I’m not as young as I used to be. Sad but true.

Having a Cleaner

I’ll let you in on a dirty secret that I know many of you don’t like to admit to anyone. We have a cleaner. There, I’ve said it. I struggled with this decision because I don’t like the idea of paying someone else to do my dirty jobs, I’m quite happy doing them myself. However, with both of us working, the responsibility for keeping the house clean is down to me and there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything. I look after and play with the kids, feed and clean the animals (sheep, hens, duck, rabbit, fish, dogs, cat and hamster), see face to face Engish clients, run my online business and keep the house in a liveable state. My mistake? I’m sure you can appreciate that a bit of help in that department was absolutely required. Why didn’t we do this before? We could have done it ages ago?

Admit when you are overwhelmed and be brave enough to ask for help.

Modální slovesa

What did you notice about those modální slovesa v minulém čase? – That’s correct! the past tense version of a modal verb has the same structure as the present perfect; verb + HAVE + Past Participle I could have written this quicker but it wouldn’t have been better. Now there’s a habit to correct 🙂

Idiom phrases and their meanings (from dictionary.cambridge.org)

To come clean about something – to tell the truth about something that you have been keeping secret: I thought it was time to come clean (with everybody) about what I’d been doing. Admitting & confessing.

to hang out your dirty laundry – To talk to other people or in front of other people about personal things that should be kept private. You can also say “wash your dirty linen in public” and in America they use “air your dirty laundry/linen in public”.

to air a few things – to make opinions or complaints known to other people: Putting a complaint in the suggestions box is one way of airing your grievances. He’ll air his views on the war whether people want to listen or not.

to hear me out – to listen to someone until the person is finished speaking: Hear me out and then tell me what you think of the plan.

So there you have it. A few of the mistakes I have made this year. I’ve come clean about them, aired them and admitted them. Now it’s your turn. Don’t be scared, I only want to know about your English mistakes 🙂 Do you know which mistakes you are making? If not, take my free video course and start to correct a few of the most common mistakes Czechs and Slovaks make when speaking English. I suppose, if you’re feeling brave, you could tell me about your other mistakes in the comments below 😉 Look out next week for a review of the year and anything you might have missed.