Lunchtime in the co-working kitchen.
I was enjoying some of my home cooking: ground beef, buckwheat and kimchi with Tabasco sauce.
What do I call that?
I don’t know.
How about…. A Vig Special.
Anyway, as I was eating, I was eavesdropping on a nearby conversation.
They were talking about travel and food.
I heard someone say “more tasteful.”
Hmm.
Do you see the mistake?
We don’t say “tasteful” in English.
What do we say?
Tasty and tastier.
As in, vanilla ice cream is tasty, but chocolate is tastier.
But it’s not the worst mistake.
Because I still understand.
So it’s not a Category 3 mistake.
It’s only a…
CATEGORY 2 MISTAKE
These are mistakes that:
- Don’t sound good — Native speakers don’t say it like that, but…
- The other person still understands you.
My guess is, most of your mistakes are Category 2 mistakes.
And while you could live a long and happy life while making a ton of Category 2 mistakes…
You’d prefer to make fewer of them.
Am I right?
So how do you make fewer Category 2 mistakes?
You’re already doing it!
Reading is a great way to erase these mistakes.
So is listening.
When you read and listen every day, you create memories of correct English.
You then say it correctly simply because it sounds correct or feels correct.
Make sense?
TOMORROW: Let’s learn about Category 1 mistakes
Cheers,
Mr. Vig
P.S.
Here’s a crazy idea…
While your friends and family and colleagues spend the summer kicking back and soaking up the sun…
You get serious about your English!
Then, in September, you can impress everyone with your new confidence, big words, and easy sentences.
Here are two ways to improve your English this summer:
- Join the Vig Village waiting list (we’re re-opening soon).
- Get a private teacher on Teacher Creature.
Eavesdropping, the origin Is very interesting. A eavesdropper was a person who stood close to a house, just where the rainwater drops from the eave, and listened what are people inside talking about. The verb to eavesdrop came to use in the early 17’th century as a term for snooping.
So Mr. Vig, you shouldn’t eavesdrop other people in a kitchen 😉 You should go outside the house and eavesdrop there. You know, the walls have ears.
So technically I guess I was kitchendropping…
Yes! But in the Middle Ages I think the eavesdropping was not entertainment. Of course some people vere nosy and eavesdropped their neighbours. But eavesdropping used to be a way how to watch and control the people by rulers and the Church. There were very strict rules, laws and moral rules and the rulers and the Church had informers, agents who eavesdropped other people and telled on them. And the people could be punished than if they vere charged. Some of them bere even tortured, burnt to death and do on.