Author: Bowman English
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Past Simple vs. Present Perfect Part 1
Today we’re going to take a look at the difference between the Past Simple and Present Perfect tenses. A constant source of confusion and irritation for German speakers (and the Swiss in particular), these two tenses may sound very similar but actually have a distinct difference – only one of them deals with when something…
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Get your 90s nostalgia fix while improving your English.
If you’re on the lookout for something new to watch, look no further than the psychological thriller ‘Yellowjackets’. Starring some iconic 90s actresses like Christina Ricci (Now and Then, The Addams Family), Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers) & Melanie Lynskey (Heavenly Creatures, But I’m a Cheerleader), Yellowjackets tells the story of a girls’ soccer team…
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Common Mistakes – ‘Dusche’
Today I’d like to share another common but humorous faux pas that native German speakers make in English. In German, the verb ‘duschen‘ means ‘to shower‘, and I’ve had students who have made the seemingly harmless mistake of using the German verb, anglicising it to ‘dusch’, and using it in a sentence. In fact, the…
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Coffee: A Sonnet
A poem I wrote to commemorate my addiction to coffee ☕️
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Common Mistakes – ‘Become’
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you’re all settling comfortably into 2022. Today I’d like to focus on a word that is commonly misused by German native speakers: ‘become’. This word is often (and understandably) confused with the German word ‘bekommen’ (to get/receive), leading to awkward sentences like ‘My sister became a baby!’ or ‘Did…