Buffi Duberman update!

I sure like Mondays!

Why? Well, sweetie, there’s lots of reasons. Every Monday morning, I see lots (loooots) of students at the Rockacademie. Every Monday I make pasta for my kids (and sneak in spinach – don’t tell them!). Every Monday I go for a little run (I call it ‘monumentenzorg’ whenever I work out). And every Monday I am lucky enough to pop into your mailbox for a few minutes and call it my home. Thank you!

Today I’d like to cover a few things that have been bothering me. Recently I checked 85 exams (jealous, right?). Over half of them had silly, sloppy mistakes. I already have enough grey hair on my head, so I’d like to clear up those silly mistakes once and for all. Right here, right now, so that you don’t have to feel stupid for making them and I don’t have to feel like a broken record telling you why they are wrong. Everybody wins!
Let’s go! Here’s my Top 5 Of The Week:

  1. WHERE, WERE and WE’RE: WHERE has ‘here’ in it – it’s a place. WERE – is past of ‘are’. WE’RE is short for ‘we are’. Now go write a sentence using all three of them! (Don’t write ‘Where were the books we read yesterday, because we’re in so much trouble if we don’t bring them back to the library today!” because I just did).
  2. TO, TOO, and TWO: TO – you can go to a place or give something to someone, and instead of saying ‘also’ you can say TOO (also when something is ‘too much’) and one plus one is…wait for it…TWO! Now try to use all 3 in a sentence. Here’s one I made earlier…’Two guys went to the gym because they had gained too much weight, so I decided to go too.’
  3. OF/OFF: If I ever see ‘Check out the making off our new video’ again, I’m going to scream. OF– use for connection (a friend of mine, made of glass, a part of it, etc) and OFF is the opposite of on, and usually used with verbs (turn the light off, take off your shoes, don’t put off tomorrow what you could be doing today). Try both in a sentence? Yes! ‘Cinderella had to take off her shoes because they were made of glass.’ (We all know what happens next, right?)
  4. AFFECT/EFFECT: They sound pretty much the same, so I understands the confusion, so I’ll try to keep this one simple. AFFECT is a verb – it’s used as an action. Do you see a pattern here? A….ffect is an a…..ction. It’s used in ways like ‘How did the rainfall affect your crops this year?’ or ‘She wasn’t affected by his lame attempt to serenade her by singing 1Direction ballads outside her window’. EFFECT is a noun. It’s used with ‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘the’. Can you use both? In one single sentence? Sure you can! Like…’The effect of his horribly cheap cologne did not seem to affect his fellow elevator passengers.’ Now you try!
  5. BORROW/LEND: If I have something you want, let’s say a shiny new eyebrow tweezer, and you’d really like to use it (and give it back..promise!), then I would LEND it to you, and you would BORROW it from me. A nifty trick to remember this one? When you borrow, you bring it back. Think B and you can’t go wrong! J

So that’s all for now my dear, I’ll be back next week with some more tips and tricks! If there’s anything that you have questions about, feel free to contact me at any time – I love hearing from my Newsletter Buddies! Send me a message on Facebook, on Le Twitteur, or send me a mail via info@buffiduberman.com. Always happy to hear from you, darling!

That’s all, folks. I hope your week is off to a splendid start and to show you how much you mean to me, I have asked my friend Percy to express my admiration of you through the art of interpretive dance.

Have a super week!

Wit lof from buffi x

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