Below you can find a list of the most important chemical elements and their correct pronunciation. Elements which are often pronounced incorrectly are highlighted in red. I have previously written about iron and copper. Let me also remind you that in English, the letter y (which appears in elements such as Beryllium or Yttrium) is
My fellow German native speakers tend to make the mistake of translating the expression studieren gehen as to go studying. However, the correct English expression is to go to university. Moreover, in a previous post, I had pointed out that the noun study is not the English translation of Studium but instead means Studie. Therefore, a
Non-native speakers often struggle when they have to speak about powers. For example, the correct expression used for is ten to the power of three, although it is common to instead use the shorter form ten to the three. Similarly, is x to the (power of) seven. The exponents 2 and 3 (can you think
Two common mistakes are “nominator” instead of “numerator”, and “denumerator” instead of “denominator”.
In this post, I want to discuss some fascinating mistakes made even by very advanced speakers. They concern expressions which are borrowed from their native language (called Germanisms when borrowed from German), and are not used by native English speakers. The examples given below are typically absent in formal writing, but often show up in
Abbreviations such as LCD, HTML, or USA are commonly used in many languages. The correct pronunciation of such abbreviations is a two-step process. First, you have to be able to correctly pronounce each of the letters. As discussed in a previous post, this task can be more daunting than you would expect even for advanced
Prepositions are not at all logical, especially if you try to translate from one language to another. However, they can significantly change the meaning of English words and phrases and you should therefore try hard to get them right. For example, I frequently hear people say concerned about when they actually mean concerned with. According
The alphabet is among the first things people learn when they study the English language. Remarkably, quite a number of advanced speakers have problems pronouncing the letters. In particular, the last three letters, x, y, and z cause most of the problems. X is correctly pronounced as [eks], listen here. A common mistake is the
While apparently rather simple at first sight, the word interaction is very often mispronounced. In fact, there are two pitfalls. First, as discussed in this recent post, action is pronounced as [ˈækʃn] rather than [ˈæktʃn], listen here. Second, a remarkable number of people do not pronounce the letter r in interaction, which is incorrect. The
Most high-quality science journals have editors who will proof-read your manuscript before it is printed or published online. While not all journals exclusively employ native speakers as editors, their English is typically very good. Therefore, the proofs you receive should not be regarded as an annoying hurdle on the way to another publication, but can