Joanne Reilly 
English Academy
 

When you work for an international organisation chances are you will need to speak in English a lot of the time. You will need to write in English, take meetings in English, maybe have your lunchbreak in English if your boss is visiting from abroad. How can I describe this? What if you need to talk to your IT helpdesk in English? Your computer doesn't work, or your email is acting up (phrasal verb meaning to not work properly) . How can you communicate clearly with your Engli

When you email new customers or suppliers you want your message to be formal and professional. You want to give them a good impression of your company. There are 7 small changes you can make to your email to do this. You can change some of the informal phrases to formal words: 1) Request To ask for something. Informal: "I'm writing to ask for a chat about our new products." Formal: "I am writing to request a meeting with you to talk about our new line of coffee machines." NOT

Native English speakers use these essential expressions, also known as phrasal verbs , in everyday language all the time. When you are learning English these phrases can be confusing. Why? They are made up of two words, that when put together, have a different meaning to the two words separately... What is a phrasal verb? It is two words that are put together to create a new verb. Chill out Is a phrasal verb. Chill - is used to describe feeling cold. "I feel a chill, is th

Meeting someone for the first time can be scary, especially when you have to speak in your non-native language. Speaking from experience, I am often so worried about making a mistake that I make one anyway and feel embarrassed, prompting me to stay quiet for the rest of the meeting or visit. This is not great, and I don't want this to happen to you. Here are a few ways to introduce yourself, and how to respond appropriately: It's nice to meet you  is a phrase that is easy to

These two small words are really great to use when linking parts of a sentence together, or giving more information about something. For example (like and such as) I enjoy playing ball sports, like football, rugby and tennis. I enjoy playing ball sports, such as football, rugby and tennis. They enjoy creative hobbies, like painting, knitting and writing. They enjoy creative hobbies, such as painting, knitting and writing. Like and as can both be used in these sentences, w

You can communicate in English. I know this because you're reading this blog post. So what is the difference between the English you learnt at school and Business English? Business English is formal English. We use it at work to: be clear communicate professionally make use of specialist vocabulary show cultural awareness The English you learnt at school helped you to pass your exams. You can use it when you go on holiday, to sing along to the lyrics of a pop song or just to

This is something that I often hear native English speakers get wrong! Follow these tips to work out whether to use what or that. That is a thing That refers to a specific thing "I like that dress you are wearing." - that refers to the dress. What is a question What is used to ask a question " What are you going to wear to the party tonight?" - what asks for more information, in this case about your outfit! "I like that car." In this sentence 'that' refers to the specific

Do you sometimes get stuck trying to work out whether it is 'a apple' or 'an apple'? Is it 'a university' or 'an university'? Keep these tips in mind and you won't get stuck again... Tip 1 As a general rule if a word begins with a vowel a, e, i, o, u then we use 'an'. If a word begins with any other letter we use 'a'. Using this rule we have 'an apple', 'an egg' or ' an ice-cream '. We also have 'a hamburger', 'a banana' or 'a bicycle' for example. an ice-cream However, as wi

When you think of travelling to the UK do you immediately think London? There is so much for everyone to do there and so many well-known sights to see it's the obvious choice. If you are looking for somewhere with great shopping opportunities, combined with the attractions of a seaside holiday, visit Portsmouth and Southsea! Photo taken from www.visitportsmouth.co.uk Portsmouth and Southsea are located right next to each other on the south coast of England. As the name sugge

A beautiful Mediterranean island where English is one of the official languages. This makes Malta the ideal place to enjoy the sunshine and practice your English! We visited in April and had the most amazing time! To save you time looking on a map, Malta is located to the south of Sicily and to the north of Africa. Given this location you can understand why it enjoys around 300 days of sunshine per year! For 150 years it was a colony of the British Empire who brought the Engl

In my opinion, this is the most difficult of the four skills to master. With this skill I feel that we are really 'putting ourselves out...

Listening requires a lot of focus. How often have you found yourself drifting off inside your own head when someone is talking to you, in your own language? You are mentally adding to the shopping list, or trying to compose a response to a WhatsApp message. There are many internal distractions that prevent us from listening. In our native language this is one thing, we might be able to pick up a general idea from the few words we have listened to, but what about in a foreign

How much do you need to write in your new language? Studying to achieve a qualification? You will need to write quite a bit. Going...

I'm guessing that if you opened this blog post then reading is not your favourite pastime. Unfortunately though it's something we all...

These are all great words to use when asking a question, but how do you know which one to use? What Asks a general question about...

Not sure which one is correct? They both are! When a verb (doing word) follows another verb we either use 'to' in front of the second...

Should Should is a word used to give advice , we believe that it's the right thing to do: You should go and wash your hands now, it's...

It all depends on the time you are writing about. Can Can is used to talk about abilities in the present . It is used to make a...

Thinking of visiting the UK but a city trip isn't for you? Why not try the Jurassic Coast? As the name suggests this has a lot to do with...

May and might are used to say whether something is possible. Let's look at the following dialogue: "Has anyone seen Joe?" "He might be...