Rock Your English! newsletter

Hello, darlings! You know what? You so ROCK! Thanks so much for letting me into your inbox today! I do a lot of yoga (click!) so I folded myself up nice and tight and squeezed right in there! I’m going to leave it with some fun treats today!

NEWS

I had my first festival experience ever at Lowlands in the Netherlands. I got a little trashed (scroll down) because I had Mojitoes (scroll again) (actually, only 2 but boy were they great after a month of detoxing!), and there was magic in the air. One of the highlights was Ed Sheeran. I blogged about him and why his song ‘The A Team’ is a lyrical masterpiece. Check it out here. Another highlight was seeing de Heideroosjes live. I’ve been working for them for nearly a decade, and after 23 years of explosions, they’ve decided to move on to other adventures. Marco, the singer, is featured in my online course. He’s my chapter 15 and we discuss what it’s like to tour all over the world with songs in English, Dutch, Limburgs, and German. Check it here!

STOP DOING THIS AND I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER

I had a looong and lovely interview (will post it when it’s published) and one of the questions was ‘What’s the biggest mistake people make when speaking English?’ Actually, there are 2. One has to do with grammar, the other one with pronunciation. People confuse the ‘was’ with ‘has been’ a LOT. No need to. ‘Was’ is the Past Simple (Chapter 3 in my book and course). This is used for things that are over, finished, or history. Same goes for ‘were’. So, you’d say ‘I was there/ We were there yesterday’ (or ‘last week, in 2010, or when I was a child’, etc). ‘Have/has been’ is for things that are not finished – the time is still going on. So you should say ‘I have been there twice this year, this month, since Monday, etc.’ (This form is the Present Perfect and is Chapter 5 in my book and online course).

The second mistake people make the most is the TH sound. I hear waaaaaay too often things like ‘my brudder finks dat de book you wrote was good’. (Of course, there’s no mistake here really, because the book I wrote WAS good!;)). Make sure you extend your tongue way beyond your front teeth to make the TH sound correctly. Go ahead. No one is looking. You might spit up on your keyboard but that’s a GOOD THING. I am proud to have been spit on by so many awesome people. No D, F, or V when it comes to the TH. And did you know we actually have 2 kinds of TH sound? One is ‘blown’ – just a puff of air as you exhale – like in ‘with’, ‘both’, ‘math, path’. The other one is ‘buzzed’, where you use your voice as well. It’s the sound in ‘other’, ‘mother’, ‘rather’ and ‘brother’. Good luck  practicing! Now say this a zillion times fast ‘Thank you for thinking that today was my 30th birthday!’

It’s actually my birthday tomorrow! I’m going to hit the big 44 and I can’t wait. Every day kind of feels like my birthday because I love what I do, I do what I love, and I love the people I do it with!

Wishing you the same, and more….oh, and excuse me, do you speak English? 😉

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mlr_bJKVCc

Don’t forget to hit me up via Twitter or Facebook if you’ve got any questions – happy to help!

Sending you all a bathtub made of gold and overflowing with champagne and an enormous straw….in my head….

Wit lof from Buffi

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