Sourov DEB

Author: Sourov

  • Reading Skills: Skim First, Scan Second

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · B1 📖 From Experience When I was studying for my French C1 test, I had to read long articles in 40 minutes. There was no time to read every word. I learned to skim first — get the main idea — then scan for specific details. These two skills changed how…

  • Describing Places: The Language of Home and Belonging

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · A2/B1 📖 From Experience I have called four places home: Chittagong, Sydney, Plessis-Trévise near Paris, and Réunion. Each one needed its own vocabulary. Réunion is not just ‘nice’ — it is lush, volcanic, remote, tropical, and for me, something between adopted home and island exile. Words carry what photos can’t. 📚…

  • False Friends Between English and French

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · B1/B2 📖 From Experience When I was reaching French C1 level, English kept ambushing me. I told my neighbour I was embarrassed — and used the French word I thought matched. In French, embarrassé can mean ‘bothered’ or ‘cluttered’. In English, embarrassed means red-faced with shame. Different word, different disaster. 📚…

  • Work and Career Vocabulary: The Words You Need in an Interview

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · B1/B2 📖 From Experience I have had job interviews on three continents — in English, in French, once in broken Creole in Réunion. The one thing that helped everywhere was knowing the right vocabulary: not just the buzzwords, but the verbs and collocations that make you sound professional, not rehearsed. 📚…

  • Words for Feelings: Beyond Happy and Sad

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · A2/B2 📖 From Experience When I arrived in Sydney in 2005, I could say I was ‘happy’ or ‘sad’. That was it. But feelings in English are precise — there is a difference between homesick and lonely, between overwhelmed and exhausted. Learning to name your feelings exactly is one of the…

  • Wine and Drinks Vocabulary: From Bitters to Barolo

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · B1 📖 From Experience I trained as a sommelier at Uccello and Establishment — two of Merivale’s restaurants in Sydney CBD. The vocabulary was its own language. Guests would ask for ‘something dry, not too oaky’ and I had to decode that sentence while opening the bottle. Here is the core…

  • Gerunds and Infinitives: Stop to Think vs Stop Thinking

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · B1/B2 📖 From Experience When I was learning French as an adult — working towards C1 — I realised I had stopped thinking in English while I studied. But I had also stopped to check my English grammar. Same verb, different meaning. That difference — gerund vs infinitive — matters. 📚…

  • Question Tags: Checking, Confirming, Connecting

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · B1 📖 From Experience The hardest part of English small talk, for me, was the question tag. At the casino, regulars would say: “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” And I’d freeze — not because I didn’t know the words, but because the logic of the tag felt backwards. It isn’t backwards. Once…

  • Wish and If Only: The Grammar of ‘I Should Have’

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · B2 📖 From Experience I sometimes lie awake and think: I wish I had written that down. If only I had kept a record from the beginning. Now I write everything. But the grammar of regret — wish and if only — is worth understanding, because it shows you what you…

  • Countable vs Uncountable Nouns: The Rule Behind the Rule

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    ⏱ 5 Minutes · A2/B1 📖 From Experience “I need an information.” I said this. In a job interview. The interviewer smiled kindly and said nothing. Information is uncountable in English — a fact that ruins sentences for speakers of almost every other language, including Bengali and French. 📚 The Principle Countable = you can…