Author: Sourov
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Second Conditional: The Life I Almost Lived
CEFR B1-B2 · 5 min From my experience: Every immigrant has a sentence that begins ‘If I hadn’t left…’ Mine is: if I had stayed in Bangladesh, I would never have learned to pour a perfect espresso. But that sentence is about the third conditional. The second conditional is simpler — and just as powerful.…
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Comparatives and Superlatives: Sydney vs Réunion
CEFR B1 · 5 min From my experience: People always ask me: ‘Which do you prefer — Sydney or Réunion?’ My honest answer is that they are not comparable in the way the question assumes. Sydney is bigger, louder, faster. Réunion is greener, quieter, and the sky is more extraordinary. Comparison is not about better…
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Future Plans: ‘Going To’ vs ‘Will’ — and Why the Difference Matters
CEFR B1 · 5 min From my experience: When Vanessa and I decided to move from Paris to Réunion, we had two kinds of sentences. ‘We’re going to find a flat before we arrive’ — a plan we had already made. ‘It will be fine’ — a prediction we invented on the spot to calm…
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‘I Used to Work Nights’: Past Habits That No Longer Exist
CEFR B1 · 5 min From my experience: I used to start every shift with a double espresso I pulled myself. I would stand at the empty bar at 5 PM, before any guests arrived, and just breathe. I do not do that anymore — different country, different life. That gap between then and now…
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Past Simple for Stories: How I Tell My Sydney Years in English
CEFR B1 · 5 min From my experience: 2005 to 2017. Twelve years of Sydney. Every sentence about that chapter of my life starts with ‘I worked at…’ or ‘We lived in…’ or ‘She told me…’ The past simple is the tense of completed time — the shelf where you store the chapters that are…
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Present Perfect: The Tense That Connects Your Past to Right Now
CEFR B1 · 5 min From my experience: The first night I arrived in Réunion and looked up at the sky, I said out loud — genuinely surprised, standing in the dark — ‘I have never seen so many stars.’ That sentence is the present perfect in its purest form: your whole life, up to…
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Telling the Time in English: From Shift Start to Last Call
CEFR A2 · 5 min From my experience: At Merivale in Sydney — the group that runs The Ivy, Uccello, and Establishment — a shift started at 5:30 PM and ended at 2 AM. Time was everything. A five-minute delay could mean a cold plate arriving at the wrong table. Knowing how to say and…
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Jobs and Workplaces: Talking About What You Do in English
CEFR A2 · 5 min From my experience: In twelve years in Sydney I had many titles: waiter, barista, bartender, sommelier, floor manager, restaurant manager. Each title came with its own English vocabulary. In Australia, ‘What do you do?’ is often the third question a stranger asks — right after your name and where you’re…
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Food & Drink Vocabulary: A Sommelier’s English Lesson
CEFR A2 · 5 min From my experience: I became a sommelier at The Ivy in Sydney. My job was to describe wine to people who could not see the bottle — only taste it. That forced me to learn that food and drink words are the most sensory vocabulary in English. One wrong adjective…