Every lesson, essay and journal entry, newest first. 726 published posts.
At the Star Casino, I read sales reports every Monday morning. Volume, trends, percentage change. I was reading data in hospitality English years before I ever sat an exam. I said things like 'Sales rose…
I took IELTS in 2026. The writing section did not test my vocabulary — it tested whether I could think in paragraphs under pressure. Once I drew a simple box on my paper with four…
My first job application in France said: 'I am an excellent communicator.' The interviewer looked up and asked: 'Excellent by whose standard?' That was the day I understood that in professional and academic English, confidence…
In English, you do not 'make' homework — you 'do' it. You do not 'do' a mistake — you 'make' one. These are collocations: word partnerships that native speakers use automatically, without thinking. I learned…
I failed my first formal English essay assignment in Australia. The ideas were there — solid, clear. But every paragraph started with 'Also' or 'And'. My tutor wrote just two words in the margin: 'Show…
My best manager at Merivale never gave direct orders. He said things like: 'I was wondering if you might have thought about checking the private dining room.' Reported to a colleague later: 'He suggested I…
As a sommelier at The Ivy, I lived inside the passive voice without knowing it had a name. 'The wine is aged for twelve months in French oak.' 'The cork is extracted at the table.'…
The head chef at Uccello had one rule: 'Run the kitchen. Don't manage it.' I spent three months figuring out what that meant. Run — take full responsibility, keep it moving, own it. Phrasal verbs…
I served thousands of guests at The Ivy and Establishment in Sydney. The guests who said 'Do you want to bring the bill?' got one kind of response. The guests who said 'Would you mind…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
My first week in Paris in 2017, I got lost in the Métro every single day. Not because I couldn't read French — I could. But I was building the mental map in English, and…
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…
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…
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…
At the Star Casino in Sydney, every night was a number problem. Table 17 wants two martinis. Bill for $248. Thirty-five guests on the reservation. I learned English numbers fast because I had to —…
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Sourov Deb EI · SIRET 106 764 061 00011 · Saint-Pierre, La Réunion