1 Thing Not To Do In English Today. (Or Tomorrow.)

Promise me something, darling. Promise me that you won’t do this 1 thing today. Or tomorrow. Or ever again. That would make my life so much better. And yours, too!

Here it is. It’s saying things like “I didn’t went there”, “I didn’t knew that”, or “Did you saw that…”? This makes me sad. You don’t want to see me sad, do you? I get sad because this is soooo easy to fix.

All you have to do is…think of a battery. (Trust me. It will all make sense in a moment.) A battery only works if there’s a positive and a negative side. If a battery has 2 positive sides, it won’t work. Same goes for having 2 negative sides. If you have the word ‘did’ in your sentence or question, that is in the Past Simple tense. If you already have that word in the past, then you need the next verb to be in the present tense. Did + go, did + know, and Did + see are the ones you need! BINGO! If you have ‘didn’t went’, that’s 2 times in the past and that’s like having a battery with 2 negatives. If you have a past (“did”) then use the present (“go”, “know”, “see”) to make that sentence or question ROCK!

The magical unicorn beauty of this is that is also works for the Present Perfect. If you have “Have you see him lately?” that’s wrong. Can you see why? It’s because you have the present tense twice. Remember the theory – one verb in the past and one in the present. It should be “Have you SEEN him lately?” because ‘seen’ is the past participle (that’s sexy talk for page 155 of Rock Your English!) of the verb ‘to see’. So if you have ‘have’ or ‘has’ in your sentence as part of the Present Perfect, make sure your next verb is the past participle!  Not “has she meet” (sad smiley face) but “has she met” (super happy smiley face AND A HIGH FIVE).

I hope this helps you rock your English communication today. And I hope your (grammatical) batteries got an extra charge!

Wit lof and kisses (this has nothing to do with the wine I had at lunch)

XXX buffi

PS: You can still sign up for my newest Masterclass “Presenting Comfortably”, where Nancy Poleon, Astrid Rose and I will help you polish, perfect and practise your presentation! My clients get half off – only 49 euros for 2.5 hours of effective coaching with personal feedback! It’s on 14 September, and space is limited and filling up fast.  Click here for more info. Can’t wait to see you there!