Wednesday time to sharpen your pronunciation.

🔠XAGGERATE — describe something in a way that makes it seem much bigger, stronger, or more important than it really is.

Example:

In cartoons, a character’s smile might be EXAGGERATED to show extreme happiness.

In today's video, dad tells his kids EXAGGERATED stories about his school days. Do your parents do the same?

🎧 Listen to the audio below to catch the pronunciation

#s2s_pronunciation The Impact of Cartoons

🎧 TO EXAGGERATE

/ɪɡˈzædʒ.ə.reɪt/

Mind the sounds /ɡz/ 🔠 /dʒ/

Want to drill this super useful word and get points for the hall of fame? Drop your audio in comments

#s2s_pronunciation

Friday time to sharpen your pronunciation.

🔠URSUER — a person or character who chases or follows someone else.

Example:

In Tom & Jerry, the cat is the PURSUER trying to catch the clever mouse.

The verb is TO PURSUE. You can pursue a victim, a career, or a hobby… So many choices — what’s yours? ;)

😀 Listen to the audio below to catch the pronunciation

#s2s_pronunciation The Impact of Cartoons

Insights from 9️⃣1️⃣ student feedback reports at B1-C1 (Intermediate-Advanced) levels

As you may remember, S2S analyzes user speaking sessions for errors and send personalised feedback report after each speaking. We have analysed 405 student speaking mistakes from 91 reports. Now, we share the findings.

💡

We analyze speaking by picking Grammar, Vocabulary, Pronunciation, and Interaction slips.
At the B1-B2 (Intermediate-Upper-Intermediate) levels, Grammar errors are most frequent.
At the C1 (Advanced) level, the leading error type is Vocabulary.

In the Grammar strand, the most common error type among B1-C1 is ... [🥁drumroll] prepositions. Prepositions are words such as "in," "about," "after" that connect meaningful words together. Prepositions are often neglected: when students think grammar, they think verb tenses. It's time to bring prepositions into the spotlight.

🔠 WHY prepositions matter more than you think

Student often complain: "I sound not natural," "I can't connect words," "Sound strange, not sure I say the right thing"
Prepositions do exactly this — they help your speech flow naturally without hiccups

🔠 WHAT leads to errors with prepositions

You learn new words separately, one by one. You do not pay attention what comes before and after them. For example, you learn the word "listen," not the phrase "listen TO (music)." That's why you use "listen" in a wrong way

🔠 TOP preposition errors

1. Using a preposition when you shouldn't:

This influences for the whole industry >> This influences ˛ the whole industry
I entered in the room >> I entered ˛ the room

2. Using a wrong preposition:

Schedules prepared by employees by their own >> Schedules prepared by employees on their own/by themselves
I lost my interest to this >> I lost my interest in this
Scared about spiders >> Scared of spiders

3. Not using a preposition when you should:

I often listen ˛ podcatsts >> I often listen to podcatsts
I am aware ˛ this >> I am aware of this
I'm waiting ˛ my bus >> I'm waiting for my bus

🔠 HOW to avoid preposition errors

— See a new word? Learn it as a part of a phrase, not separately
— Make your own examples with new phrases, use them in speech or with chat GPT
— Do not use patterns of your first native language. Pay attention, accept, learn, and use English way of using prepositions

😘 S2S is ready to help

1. Every week we give you new phrases with prepositions in this channel

2. Users of our speaking product use new phrases with prepositions in speech and receive personalised feedback while having fun networking (more info and a free session here)

3. Share this channel with your friends in your story or group chats, reachout to @ybeymlina with 'prepositions,' and we'll share 3️⃣4️⃣ exercises clustered by level [Elementary] [Intermediate] [Advanced] with you

👍 if we've inspired you to learn prepositions

#s2s_frequent_errors

🔠rapping up the topic The Impact of Cartoons and we want to hear from you

What is the most annoying thing about English for you? What barrier you wish you didn't have? It can be about English itself or your relationship with it.

Or maybe English is 100% stress free for you and you don't have any issues with it?

Comment >>
— Stress free
— Challenge — (your challenge)

Silly, basic, typical comments — all welcome! Don't hold it inside. Knowing how you feel about English helps us coming up with content that matters even more ❤️

____
📌 You can sneak a peek into Speaking plans S2S users have discussed with their speaking partners this week here

🔠ayoff stigma — weekly topic for this week

LAYOFF = When a company tells workers to leave their job because there is no work or not enough money (not because the worker did something wrong).

Example:

> Many software developers lost their jobs post pandemic because of IT LAYOFFS.

→ (The company didn’t have enough money, so they had to let developers go.)

Every week we give you a new weekly topic to explore. You discover views on trending topics and grow English vocabulary. 50% of the topics are related to workplace, 50% — of general interest, often popping up during networking, small talk, coffee breaks. As a result, our users feel confident connecting in any professional environment.

Every topic is selected based on its relevance. It's either what S2S founder hears other international founders and IT workers talk about in person via coffee breaks or what's trending on X, Reddit, LinkedIn.

This week it is LinkedIn's turn. We dive deeper into Kim Tran's (Ph.D, Bay area) views on stigmatisation of layoffs and learn to speak on this complex issue in English at length. Byproduct: we learn what's trending in the world and how other professionals react to it.

Stay tuned and may you have a week free of layoffs and other BS.

Your S2S, the place where you find your voice in English. Learn more about us.

#s2s_weekly_topic Layoff stigma