Rock Your English! newsletter

Yes, my sweet, it’s that time of the year. Time to think about how lucky we are to have such awesome people in our lives. I think about this every day, but especially during this month, as this fabulous year draws to a close. I even started wrapping you a special present to show you how much I love you – see?

WORK IT AT MY WORKSHOP!

Are you ready to have fun, learn, and laugh a lot? Well, isn’t that a coincidence! So am I! If you haven’t grabbed a ticket to my “Save Your Ass in English” workshop on 14 December, it’s not too late! Grab a friend and get the second ticket for free! Just use “FRIEND” as your discount code when buying their ticket. I promise you a fun morning at Boom Chicago! See you then! Click here for tickets!

GRAMMATICALLY YOURS….

Sweet, I bet you’re wondering, “Gosh, I’d really like to know how good my grammar isRIGHT NOW!” Well, my love, as you know I am always scouring the Internet, searching for lovely ways to Rock Your English! Here’s a quick little grammar test you can take right now! How well did you do? Bet you nailed it! If not…did I mention I’m doing a workshop on 14 December? 😉

SAVE YOUR ASS IN A MINUTE AND A HALF

Here’s the second video in my new video series! We take 90 seconds or less and fix a common problem in English – this week we tackle the difference between “Would you like” and “Do you like” – here we go!

WHAT’S UP IN BUFFILAND

I had a wonderfully inspiring day at TEDxAmsterdamWomen! I learned so much, too much to mention….but I was deeply honored to be part of the “Inspiring Fifty” luncheon, where I had the pleasure of meeting Kim Lammers, Gold Medal Olympian for Field Hockey. Her story about perserverance really touched me. As did Janneke Niessen’s TED talk about embracing risk as an female entrepeneur. I’m so proud of Janneke  – I’ve been her presentation coach since May, and all her hard work is paying off beautifully! It gives me such a thrill to work with someone on their wording, delivery, message and content, and then to see it all come together so beautifully and powerfully (without notes!) before an audience of 450, all mesmerized and inspired! TEAM JANNEKE!

Oh, and I slept in a castle in Belgium and went to bed at 5.30 in the morning after beatboxing(yup) and dancing for hours. I love when my friends have birthday parties! ☺

YOUR QUESTIONS – ANSWERED!

“Hey, Buffi – save my ass! I’m working on a new song – should it be “I will often go” or “I often will go”? – from B, via FB.

Thanks for asking, B! Try saying those two phrases fast- which ‘flows’ better – if you say “I will often go” fast enough, you’ll automatically say “I’ll often…”. And that’s how native speakers speak. We make contractions (using the apostrophe to replace a missing letter) to make things ‘flow’ better. That’s why it’s more ‘correct’ to say the first one, but hey, since it’s a song, you do have lyrical freedom, so follow your heart on this one! Hope that helps!

HATE TO LOVE YOU AND LEAVE YOU

But I have to prep for my workshop, teach, learn, cook, read, dance, run, drive, hug, talk, listen, love, and of course EAT. Sending you a huge bag full of your favorite things (that can fit into a bag- if you love jumbo jets we might have a problem) and that someone you love shows up with this bag and says “Know what? Let’s give this bag of awesomeness to someone else who could really use it!” And then you share, and realize the best things in life don’t fit into bags.

Wit lof from buffi. X