Category: Language

What Vocabulary is Important for me?

Posted on by AnnJoest in Language

The type of vocabulary important for you is the vocabulary that is important for you. No one can tell you, because only you know what vocabulary you need for your everyday life. At the same time, you probably don’t know it yourself, because you tend not to pre-plan vocabulary for the day. In contrast, vocabulary is created and so different needs for vocabulary and phrases themselves accompany us every day.

There tends to be not “the” vocabulary to master a foreign language, but the vocabulary in which you master your own language in a foreign language. At the same time, you need vocabulary you don’t know you need. Here, “the” vocabulary is a reference to language situations that cannot be planned and that often cause insecurities or the well-known language anxiety in everyday language situations.

In order to learn vocabulary specifically, it is important that the vocabulary has personal meaning. Unfortunately, in secondary language learning, this meaning is often taken away. This is done by students learning phrases and vocabulary that often fit ideal situations or situations where conversations can be kept short or are not really meant to take place. Such an example is a PowerPoint presentation, where you can learn the language by heart, similar to a poem.

Analytical English Class.

The problem with finding and learning “the” vocabulary is often that it is idealistic and secondly that it offers little room for deviation. This arises from becoming fixated on the vocabulary that has been learned. If I have learned to say “Please have a seat and Would you like a cup of tea?” I have not learned not to say it but to say what fits for the moment “I am tired today. I went to karaoke last night!” as an example.

Pre-learned phrases can snag us a bit of authenticity and therefore the possibilities that could arise from our vocabulary. “Oh you went to karaoke? I love this! I did karaoke months ago and had such a great time. How about having our business chat over karaoke instead of coffee downstairs?” “Oh, really? Sounds great to me. What song are you into?” or depending on your personality ” I’d like a karaoke session with you too, but I prefer having the meeting at the office, because I can focus better. Would you be up for both?” “Yes sure.”

What vocabulary is important for you? Find out with me. My English lessons are integrated into everyday life as much as possible, so that we can find out vocabulary and phrases that suit you and, above all, are important. Because I do not actively provide curricular and vocabulary lists, we work out both passively. The advantage of this is learning with conversational insecurities and confidently approaching individual vocabulary and phrases – with my help. The result is an authentic appearance in the foreign language, which often makes it easier to maintain relationships and individual (business) needs in the other language.

Contact Us

Don’t hesitate to reach out with the contact information below, or send a message using the form.

Annjoest

contact@business-eng-li-sch.com

Monday
9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Tuesday
7:00 am – 9:00 pm
Wednesday
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Thursday
7:00 am – 9:00 pm
Friday
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Saturday
5:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Sunday
7:00 am – 10:00 pm

Let’s Talk about Burgers! – Business English Made Easy.

Posted on by AnnJoest in Language

When a student for Business English signs up for my Business English Classes, they tend to expect „The Business-English“. So, for new students it can be a bit confusing to talk about general interests or what comes to mind. Like I mentioned in other posts, my students can talk about what comes to mind, because it makes learning relevant to them and then very fast. Often unexpected conversations occur, and here they get real-life authenticity.

Ok, ok. The title says „Let’s Talk about Burgers“ so whats‘ that got to do with Business-English?

Generally students tend to seperate „Business English“ from other forms of „English“, which means they think there is „one type of grammar and vocabulary“ for Business English and other „grammer and vocabulary“ for non business-English. I’d think that too to be honest, but it is not like that.

One word can be used for different meaning(s) in different contexts

We have solely one set of grammar rules for tenses and sentence structure. It’s universal, which means that if you can talk about your interests correctly in terms of sentence structure and tense, you can also talk about work or other topics correctly too. It’s not seperated, but integrated.

Let’s say you love Burgers and pop into my Business-English class. Naturally you wouldn’t talk about Burgers, because it just doesn’t seem suitable, but I make it suitable for you. I have you describe it and we dive very deep in to the meaning o fit. And I have mentioned, if it has meaning to you, you learn quick and you also don’t forget it.

Ok the burger! Ever looked at one? So what’s it like? You don’t like it? Why don’t you like it? And you like it? What about do you like? You find some conversations centering around when in the -past- burger was eaten so here lots of grammar potential for past tense hops in or future tense – when will you eat it next?  And here question and answers make it into the class room that indeed, you can harmonize for your business meetings

  • When will we meet next? (When will you eat burger next?)
  • The meeting felt tense, today. (The atmosphere in the restaurant felt tense.)
  • Excellent layers on the PowerPoint. (The Burger had many layers).
  • I don’t like the new acquisition. (Oh, you acquired fries in addition to your burger).
  • Send me the invoice immediately. (You were hungry, so you wanted burger immediately.)
  • It’s not suitable to meet a client today, unless the client visits our office. (Adding nutella to a burger seems not suitable, unless you like it of coures).

Curious to be my Business-English student ? Sign up for a free class. I make sure to always help you understand how to use specific interest related vocabulary in your business context. First step; let’s get you there easily.

P.S. I don’t teach grammar rules or vocabulary. In my classes you learn it naturally like your first language.

Contact

Don’t hesitate to reach out with the contact information below, or send a message using the form.

Business & Social English

acjoest@gmail.com

Monday
7:00 am – 9:00 pm
Tuesday
7:00 am – 9:00 pm
Wednesday
7:00 am – 9:00 pm
Thursday
7:00 am – 9:00 pm
Friday
7:00 am – 9:00 pm
Saturday
5:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Sunday
5:00 pm – 10:00 pm

The role of Ideals in learning a Second Language

Posted on by AnnJoest in Language


Often we compare our language to an ideal language and the greater the comparison, the more we feel that the foreign language already spoken is not good enough. The greater the ideal, the larger the gap of feeling inadequate. Such a gap creates insecurities and through these insecurities, fear arises. If this gap is reduced, fear or language-related anxiety often is too.

Language ideals are different and can be cultural, linguistic, and professional. Such an example is the “American or British” accent. Both often serve as the ideal. For example, in Germany we tend to not learn English with an American accent in school, but Cambridge English. It sets Cambridge English as the ideal and the more different our accent to it, the more one feels alienated from such ideal.

Obama speaking with an American Accent. His accent is good enough to be president.

Learning a second language often approaches an ideal. Many curricular offer ideal vocabulary, language usages, and ideal grammar. However, if it is ideal for the curriculum, it may be less so for you. On the contrary, this tends to create insecurities in practice. This happens even more, when the ideal does not match your own or is less likely. For example, having a different accent can be ideal too; many of my students learn fast when I adopt their accents.

In Business English, distinctive ideals are often taught. This means that students tend to learn specialized vocabulary and phrases. If you approach the ideal of specialized vocabulary and sentences, you are approaching “the” ideal, but at the same time, you are distancing yourself from your own. The risk is that the gap mentioned above will develop and anxiety will arise.

Language-related anxiety can be reduced by expressing ourselves as we are. Therefore, in my English classes, I make sure that you can express yourself in your personality. It is not important to me that you have perfect grammar or a vocabulary list, but that you feel satisfied with your expression. By analyzing your language and focusing on you, I help you achieve this. Good grammar and vocabulary come automatically.

I am looking forward to meeting you.

Contact me for your free trial class

How to rank higher on google? Be yourself.

Posted on by AnnJoest in Language, Mental Health

I started writing this post with fear, because it was about sharing my business model and who wants to share their business model? Somebody who is secure with their business model and what they are doing. If you do your thing, it is less likely that somebody can take it away from you, because it means taking away you. You cannot be taken away, because it is you and even if somebody tried to copy you, they couldn’t, because they can’t be you.

What does that mean for writing? Somebody writes something great, which often is an expert in a specific field. To me I am very interested in Psychology so I often find posts from a Dr. x in Psychology or Mayor Clinic. I think “Gosh I have to be like them, to write like them, to get my Google Rankings up like them.” What happens here is that I compare myself. I compare myself to a person I don’t know, but their title “Dr.” and then Mayor Clinc. I set both as an ideal as to how writing should be done to get Google Rankings up. This does not help other then thinking that my writing is not good enough!

By setting somebody else(s writing) as an ideal, we tend to forget that we are ideal in our ideal. You and what you have to say and write about is unique, which makes it good enough to be ideal for yourself and therefore somebody else too. No? Look at the New York Times offering strangers to submit opinion pieces, because these opinion are worth being published – they matter. In other words; somebody can have a Dr. and something great to say about mental health and somebody else cannot be a Dr. and have something great to say about mental health too. It means that both perspectives are valuable and therefore rankable.

That day I thought a lot about self-rejection on a personal level but since we are individuals at companies, we self-reject as companies as a total too. Just go for it. There are no ideals, other then the ideals you set to yourself on writing.

So how do I get my rankings up? Generally I don’t look up any competition and what anyone else has writtten about the topic of my interest. I do that to avoid comparison and to focus on my own writing style. It allows me to write about what comes to my mind, without feeling the pressure of having to live up to an ideal or writing like another to gain rankings. In my writing I also do not write for rankings, but because I enjoy it. For example, I have a natural curiosity for topics and I find it joyful to bring difficult topics more easy across and at times to mix different disciplines. And at times, I write about what comes to mind.

How to rank high then? Often we try to “create something” by having an ideal in mind. The ideal post should be like that, which ends up losing a sense author authenticity. It means that you may end up adjusting a specific writing style or change your writing voice to align with an imagined ideal. This leads you likely to lower your rankings, because it lacks authenticity. You are not like “Dr. x”, Mayor Clinic or Tesla Marketing, but you are who we are and your strenght is your knowledge, writers voice and perspective. So if you want your rankings up; be yourself and express that. Of course, good grammar, structure etc. helps with that too.

It seems helpful to ensure that your titel matches the content of your article. If your title sounds like “The elephant eats the apple” and the content is about buying houses, it may sound nice, but it is unclear.

Think of what you stand for and how to communicate that. Of course, different blogs on how to get your SEO rankings up will tell you differently and that is okay! For example, it seems helpful to use specific keywords to be found. On the other hand, you end up implementing all these things and realize that it was so stressfull that in many cases your rankings don’t go up. What is it that you stand for and whats your unique selling point? Communicate that and it is likely that your rankings go up higher. Does your view contradict whats been written about? Great, communicate that and if not whats your view on it? Let your voice be heard.

Lastly, I don’t know how to get Google Rankings up with certainty. Many blogs will tell you so, even experts in rankings, but the reality is that there is no absolute cerainty. However, Google of course is smart and what it does much – my secret now for you- is to have a look at individual writing styles. So what is yours and what is it that you want to bring across if it is only for you? What niche can you fill? And if you found that niche -a last analysis – fill it with #hashtags but don’t think to much about them.

Of course there is much more to it and validity in how to rank higher by actively applying scoring and writing techniques. With this post, however, I wanted to offer a different perspective that has been working for me well without even wanting it.

References

For this blog I used desperate observations on how I got my google ratings up and theory from psychoanalysis.

Contact

Do you find yourself in difficulties to bring your message accross easily , are you looking for someone to write for you, or somebody to find out whats niche for you ? Contact me for writing inquiries.

What’s my unique selling point? I bring difficult topics easy across and I tend to mix disciplines. Sometimes I use a bit of scienctific background and sometimes not.

Why is learning a second language often more boring and how to make it more effective?

Posted on by AnnJoest in Language

Have you ever been in a relationship with a foreigner or enjoyed a netflix series in a foreign language? Or was there something different that excited you, kept you awake and continues to do in a foreign language that made you stay with it? And although you didn’t know first what they were communicating or singing about, you understood something, while some time later you found yourself picking up words in the language you didn’t speak or study yet (well)? And if yes to most of it or something similiar, than it is that thing that made you learn.

The clip gives me good vibes. I think: Must be cool to speak like that. Speaking like that must give me good vibes myself: I learn fast.

Why is learning a second language then often so difficult? Often times, we don’t learn another language because of a single movie or because of a frequent encounter with a foreigner such as in an annual business meeting, but becaue we have to. Having to lacks naturality, which is the naturality that comes with learning, for example by maintaining frequent contact with a foreigner or an interest in a foreign language. Because you are interested or because you want to learn something that “foreign vocabulary” can offer, you keep at it and you likely naturally figure out what the other person tries to convey, or what that amazing song or book might mean. Learning ends up feeling rewarding.

Following curricular, studying vocabulary and grammar tends to feel unnatural if it is something that you don’t need, but need to gain something out of it. Remember how you learned you first langauge? I hope you don’t remember it, but you remember how it came naturally and how it was context dependend and in that context relevant to you. You learned by applying language. ” I am hungry. I am angry. I need this. Can I do this?” And as you grew older, you became professional in your primary language. You didn’t study it by force, but because of how you and your environment shaped and responded to your linguistic capabilities automatically.

A child wanting to eat potatoes for dinner wouldn’t learn first the grammar, an ettiquete and all the words for fruits and vegetables. Intead it would get quick to the point by likely asking “Can I eat potatoes for dinner?”. Potatoes are what it is familiar with and dinner is what it tends to have daily.” As adults, this works similiar.

Forcing ourselves or having to learn something that lacks the relevancy to us, often feels time consuming but also less effective. For example, why should you be able to learn to communicate about the weather and ettique in country Y, when right now your country and your way of communicating is individual and of individual importance to you? And why first piling through various grammar rules, when learning to say a sentence in the correct time leads you to the response or the gain you hoped to achieve with it right away? “Did you send the report?” “Yes.” “When?” “Yesterday.” “I did not recieve it.” “Did you look in your spam folder?” ” No, I will have a look, Thank you.” [Here the correct time is automatically learned and leads to effective conversation].

Sometimes we have to learn vocabulary that is not relevant to us. This can lead to a waste of time, but also is inefficient because it lacks the interest. Why learning research vocabulary, when other topics are more relevant to you?

What makes learning more effective? Learning is a process and often it is effective if what we learns aligns with our interestes and needs. These may not always be about fun, but anything that is important to us; our job or a thing we want to pursue like understanding foreign sports better or needing specific vocabulary to explain ourselves fast as well as under pressure. This makes learning effective, when it is about you. And of course having someone to support you in getting there. In doing so, learning grammar and the correct time comes naturally with it; and a pass in the exam or better communication at work likely too.

Whats a good teacher then? Someone who lets you be yourself and who challenges you too, like you would be in real life 😉

Curious? contact me for a free English class
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What does lost in translation mean?

Posted on by AnnJoest in Language


Lost in Translation means that the meaning given to a word or phrase is lost in translation. This can lead to misunderstandings. Let’s take the question “Do you like the Big Apple?”. If you translate the question word to word, in another language, the most basic assumption would be, whether you like to eat the fruit apple and conclusively apples in larger size. You want to answer of course and may think “Hmm. Yes, I like big apples and I’ll settle for small ones too.” The answer is being translated and you say “Yes, most often.” , or “Not much” because you don’t like apples, for example.

What is meant with the question “Do you like the big apple?”. In the example, “The Big Apple” is used as a reference point or in other words as a nickname for the metropolis “New York” in the United States. It is known as “The Big Apple”. Now you could wonder, why would someone not directly ask you whether you like New York instead of asking you if you like “The Big Apple”. This can have different reasons, for example having a different cultural backgrounds, where the term is commonly used or in other examples having different interests, or different meanings attached to what is being said. Does it matter that much? you may wonder.

It does matter, because by giving words different meanings, the expected result runs risk of being different then what was expected or hoped for. So imagine you set up a meeting with a counterpartner and that partner wants to set up a business in the United States. When they approach you and ask how you like the Big Apple (their primary choice of business location) and hear back that this is something you really don’t like, maybe never liked, that person might go on to look for another business partner. Worse, both of you might even be outraged, since it was clear to both of you why you met; “Lost in Translation”.

Sure, that’s quite the example. However, it can happen quite quickly. In my language teaching, I pay attention to what you mean and therefore, the message you want to convey. I listen and offer word alternatives to reduce”lost in translation”. Most of the time I succeed by using simple expressions. Why simple? Too often we get tangled up in long sentences and the longer the sentences, the more risk for “Lost in Translation”, or in other words “miscommunication”. Second, many words do not exist in the other languages.

Want to get to know your way of communicating better or have me help you become better in English? I offer language classes to German native speakers and non German native speakers. The benefit? If you can explain it to me, you can explain it to someone else too. Real-life learning.

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