4 TOP Popular Posts of November

Saying "Bye-bye, fall, hello, winter" feels weird from Viet Nam. We do honour the milestones, though. Let's review the posts you've enjoyed the most in November.

💓TOP by views
Vocab quiz: long-watered OR long-winded?
Great for vocabulary review. We only quiz you on vocabulary that was introduced in our posts throughout the week - pay attention & reap benifits.

💓TOP by shares
12 Phrases to Read English Colleagues Between the Lines
Great for understanding the mindset of your clients, colleages, investors around the world.

💓TOP by comments
The Importance of Genuine Shout-outs
Great for learning the practical value and vocabulary of mutual support.

💓TOP by reactions
"Humans of English for Impact" — Irina Khan
Great for getting inspired by one of the readers to submit your video self-presentation.

🪴 Thank you for choosing @EnglishForImpact
What kind of posts would you like to see more of in December?

December, the 1st in History: 5 notable events ranked from oldest to most recent

🇵🇹1640 - Portugal ended 59 years of union with Spain, acclaiming João IV as King [Wiki]

🇺🇸1865 - Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, was founded [Wiki]

🇺🇸1955 - Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger [Wiki]

🏳️1959 - The Antarctic Treaty was signed by 12 countries, making Antarctica a demilitarized zone reserved for scientific research [Wiki]

🇬🇧🇫🇷1990 - The Channel Tunnel connecting the United Kingdom and France was officially opened [Wiki]

🪴 Remember: you're making your personal history today. Keep going - it matters.

@GoGlobalWorld's Pitch Day Overview

Last week I attended a "Pitch Day" organised by GGW (“Go Global World”)

Before sharing my insights, let me give huge cheers to the host Alexandr Zlotnikov and judges Luis Martinez, Matviy K. They managed to keep a dynamic pace for 90 min so well that I manageed to stay 70% awake from 1 am to 2.30 am 💤

THE FORMAT

@DanilGGW opens and closes the ceremony. In between, the host and the judges remain on the stage, as founders come and go to share their decks and deliver their speeches. 3 min for the pitch, 2 min for Q&A.
You can see the timer widget in the upper right corner - it's very neat and makes cute little sounds for the 10 sec count-down. I loved the timer widget so much that I added looking into adding one to my backlog.

FOUNDERS

🫧 domain agnostic (=the industry doesn't matter)
🫧 mostly B2C
🫧 pre-revenue projects and with revenue traction
🫧 international founders: Greece, India, USA, and many other locations sharing the stage
🫧 50/50 ratio of male to female founders, approximately.
As far as I remember, I fell asleep at certain points - remember, 1AM-2.30AM ;)

TAKE-AWAYS

❓ Most of the Q&A questions concerned metrics: customer retention, time to get to $10M ARR, CAC, customer acquisition channels. Super practical, on point, down to earth.

🌎 The international vibe makes a difference. As much as I admire the work of Russian only pitching communities, if you want to go global and sell to international markets, you need to surround yourself with an international community. Go Global World is a great chance to do so.

⭐️ Energy matters! I caught myself making an impression of a founder during the first 10 sec. The remaining 2.50 sec I was tuning in for data to confirm my initial bias. Guys, your energy matters as a founder and you can learn to work with it, to an extent at first. And then, to even a greater extent ;)

Are you an active founder, product manager or looking to become one? Share what you're building or want to build in the comments 💓

Rules are rules, and everyone's equal. Just some people are more equal than others, aren't they 🐷

Truly hope this video, although an exaggeration, will help to dismantle the unconditional worship of native speakers. The skit IS realistic.

Glossary

🫧Midterm - The main exam or test in the middle of a school term or semester, not at the end.
🫧To bend the rules - To loosely interpret or slightly break minor rules, usually for convenience, without technically breaking them completely.
🫧Two grand - Two thousand.
🫧Unconditional worship - Extreme admiration or devotion given to someone no matter what they do, without any limits or requirements.
🫧To dismantle - to take apart, break into pieces.

IG reference helenlanguagelab
British Sitcom "Mind your Language"

🪴 Your turn
What accent is the most challenging for you to understand?
Are you happy with the accent you have or wanna modify it in any way?

👋 Sending a shout-out to Ivan Gan, an investement analyst at Deep Tech Origgin Ventures, for joining our "PitchUp Club" as a guest.

At "PitchUp", active founders and high potential wannabes gather every week for 90 min to break down a speech sample of a successful founder, construct our own ones, and exchange feedback. This allows the club members to share their ideas with confidence at demo days, product releases, and challenging Q&As.

Any fans of Khan Academy here? Did you watch Sal's Maths or History videos? Last meeting when Ivan joined us, we dived into Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn's Founder)'s interview with Sal Khan (Khan Academy's Founder). We broke down Sal's 5-min answer to "What drove you to create Khan Migo?"

Here's Sal Khan's 7 paragraph answer structure to: "What drove you to create Khan Migo?":

1. Personal take and importance: "It's pretty much all I think about these days"

2. Pre-history with Khan Academy & key USP - personalisation. "And what I really was trying to do was scale up what a tutor would do, scale up personalization"

3. Starting Khan Migo from a tech perspective

4. Taking the standpoint of his critics & showing transformation journey. Turning risks into features

5. Mitigating a specific risk - PG18

6. The measures taken at Khan Academy to ensure smooth operations

7. Wrap up the answer in a 1 sentence summary

RESOURCES
🫧Reid Hoffman & Sal Khan's Full Interview on YouTube. The answer to the question "What drove you to create Khan Migo?" starts at 8:30.

Ivan's background helped us to get an international take on storytelling, something that all of us appreciated. Even Valera the Duck started projecting light from his beak.

I admire you, PitchUp Club members, for taking 90 min from you busy schedule to invest in your long term growth. The words are a key to power and I'm rooting for you.

🪴 Want to join the PitchUp Club? DM @ybeymlina PitchUp to apply.

11 phrases you need to know to implement Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" in your life

Does December feel like a battle time to tie up the loose ends? Doesn't feel this way to me since I move to Asia. Wondering what it's like on your side: who feels like a warrior?

"The Art of War" is a 2,500-year-old military text written by Chinese general Sun Tzu, and somehow it's still more relevant to your Monday morning than half the business books published last year.

11 Phrases to Ignite Your Fight

1. Brute force: Using raw power or effort instead of intelligence or skill.
"I couldn't open the lock, so I used brute force and broke the door."

2. With the least amount of bloodshed: Achieving a goal while avoiding unnecessary conflict or harm.
"The manager resolved the team dispute with the least amount of bloodshed, keeping everyone happy."

3. Market awareness: Knowing what customers want and what competitors are doing.
"Our market awareness told us smartphones needed better batteries, so we made one."

4.Worth pursuing: Good enough to spend time and effort on.
"The lead from the conference seems worth pursuing; they're very interested."

5. Back people into a corner: To trap someone, leaving them with no good options.
"By taking away his funding and his team, they backed him into a corner."

6. Desperate: Willing to try anything because you are in a very bad situation.
"He was desperate for a job, so he applied everywhere."

7. To adjust your approach accordingly: To change your plan based on new information.
"It started raining, so we adjusted our approach accordingly and moved the picnic indoors."

8. To rigidly stick to: To refuse to change a plan or rule, even when you should.
"He rigidly stuck to the old recipe, even though no one liked it anymore."

9. Resource allocation: Deciding how to use your time, money, and people.
"Our resource allocation was poor; we spent all our money on ads and none on product development."

10. Mythical ancient wisdom: Supposedly perfect advice from the past, which is probably more legend than fact.
"The secret isn't some mythical ancient wisdom; it's just hard work and practice."

11. Competitive dynamics: How companies react to each other's moves in a market.
"When one airline lowers prices, the competitive dynamics force others to do the same."

💅 What phrase do you choose to incorporate into your speech first?

🪴 Want to get 60 meenutes of high quality focuse practice, meet English For Impact readers, and start using these phrases in your speech already this week?
Text "wednesday" to @ybeymlina to sign up for an open meeting on Wednesday, 6-7PM MSC time zone. You've got what it takes!

"Humans of English for Impact" #3 ⭐️ Bringing to you the stories of our readers, one at a time.

Meet Nick Nedelchuk, Founder & CEO at "Localie."

I LOVE projects with a mission to bring the world closer. "Localie" is one of them. It's a marketplace app bringing together travelers and locals ready to show you around. As a user of "Air B&B Experiences," definitely see value in this. Inclined to believe that "Localie" is way more authentic at this point.

Give ❤️ to Nick and check out his channel @localiehome.

For Russian speakers, check out Nick's fascinating story of quitting a corporate job, moving to the Netherlands, and building traveltech "Localie" during COVID despite all odds.

🪴 Want to share your story here? DM @ybeymlina “Humans of english for impact” and links to your projects

What was it like to run a "PitchUp Club"'s open session for @rezinkinaa 's MFS community.

⭐️General Impressions

I LOVED the founders!
Last Wednesday, I met 8 founders from Andrey's club. While they're from different industries and business development stages, there's one thing that unites them all - a solid foundation.
Another thing I appreciated is their focus and attention to details during the public speaking training. Attention is an expensive gift and it was rewarding to receive it from the "MFS" community.

A shout-out to the founder who made an especially lasting impression on me: Alexander Malandin from "SereneDB." First, I payed attention to his outstanding English. Then, learnt he's recently raised $2.1M in pre-seed. Is it a coincidence?* :)

You can read more about Alexander in Andrey's recent post.

Kudos to @rezinkinaa for building such a strong community that the founders respect and enjoy.

⭐️What we did at the "PitchUp Club" session for "MFS"

- Deconstructed Ali Ghodsi (Databricks's Co-founder, CEO, a16z's portfolio company) founder transformation journey: from academia to CEO [5:30-8:20min]. The 4 min speech sample was obtained from Ali's interview with Ben Horowitz;
- "MFS"'s founders prepared and shared their own's journeys, using Alis' framework;
- Exchanged feedback.

⭐️Key take-aways
- Sharing your personal story helps to build trust and credibility.
- Don't ramble*: choose up to 3 points and bring them home with clarity.
- Glue the speech together using the signposting language* such as "That's about you yourself. Now, for managing..." to indicate where you begin and end thought blocks.

*Glossary
🫧To ramble - to speak a lot without a clear direction
🫧A coincidence - when 2 events happen at the same time in a surprising way
🫧Signposting language - phrases that show how parts of your speech relate to each other

🪴Over to you

Know a community that will benefit from a "PitchUp" trial or simply want to get a sneak peek into "PitchUp" yourself? Comment and/or DM @ybeymlina "PitchUp" to apply

5 phrases Sam Altman would use in Bangkok

On my way back to Viet fresh with Bkk energy, asked Claude what SA would say about the place. Not disappointed with the results:

🫧“This floating market is basically decentralized commerce.”
Tries to explain to confused vendors why they’re actually web3 pioneers. They just want to sell him mangoes.

🫧”I’m very excited about the talent density in this co-working space”
There are three people there. One is napping.*

🫧“Incredible go-to-market strategy.”
Seeing the monks collecting alms.*

🫧“This is obviously the future of remote work infrastructure.”
Gestures vaguely at a beach bar with spotty WiFi* and plastic chairs.

🫧“We need to make this 10x better.”
About Thai iced tea. He’s not wrong, but also it’s already perfect and he’s ordered six.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

*GLOSSARY
🫧To nap - to have a short sleep
🫧To collect alms - to ask for money in the street
🫧Spotty wifi - unreliable wifi that keeps cutting in and out

What would Sam Altman say about your city?;)

8 Acronyms to Survive a US Office

We're all a bit of a Sahil, aren't we?.. ;)

Trannoscript

Sahil, FYI before applying for OOO complete KT by EOD. I'll be on DND mode, so SME will be your POC for any QQ

8 acronyms spelled out

🫧FYI - for your information
🫧OOO - our of office
🫧KT - knowledge transfer
🫧EOD - end of day
🫧DND - do not disturb
🫧SME - subject matter expert
🫧POC - point of contact
🫧QQ - quick qiestions

IG reference sahil_the9to5

❤️ Like, share, comment to spread fun, knowledge, and confidence

1️⃣0️⃣ phrases to speak about 6 big ideas as seen by "a16z," the world's leading VC fund

We checked out those two articles from Andreessen Horowitz, a big venture capital firm's predictions for the biggest tech trends coming in 2026. Think of it like a peek into the future from people who bet big on new ideas.

🫡 Overall, the big theme is that AI is moving from just chatting/answering questions to doing real work, personalizing everything for you, and even revamping old-school industries like factories and banking.

1️⃣0️⃣ phrases you need to speak about 6 trends in English

1. To peek into the future - To get a quick, exciting look at what might happen later.

"Reading that crystal ball app is like peeking into the future – suddenly I 'know' I'll win the lottery!"

2. To bet on (an idea) - To invest money or strong belief in something new, hoping it succeeds.

"Investors bet big on electric cars years ago, and now everyone's driving one."

3. To revamp old-school industries - To completely modernize outdated traditional businesses.

"Robots are revamping old-school factories. Goodbye assembly line boredom, hello fast-paced machines!"

4. To treat everyone the same - To give identical treatment or options to all people, no personalization.

"One-size-fits-all jeans treat everyone the same. Great if you're average, tragic if you're not."

5. To jump in to help - To quickly step in and offer assistance without being asked.

"When I dropped my groceries, a stranger jumped in to help. Instant superhero moment!"

6. To prevent problems - To stop issues before they even start.

"Brushing your teeth prevents problems: way better than crying at the dentist later."

7. To pull from (photos, messages, habits) - To gather or use information directly from those sources.

"The app pulls from your photos and messages to create a hilarious 'year in review' video that feels magically personal."

8. Widely used - Popular and used by a huge number of people.

"WhatsApp is so widely used that even my grandma sends memes now."

9. To spark (the internet boom) - To start or ignite something big and exciting.

"That first easy web browser sparked the internet boom. Suddenly everyone was online shopping in their pajamas."

10. To set apart - To make something or someone distinctly different or special.

"Her bright pink hair really sets her apart in a sea of boring office outfits."

Tomorrow, Wednesday, 6-7PM MSC time, EFI (@englishforimpact)'s readers will
🫧learn what 6 trends're about
🫧summarise the gist
🫧express their opinions using advanced vocabulary
Text Wednesday to @ybeymlina to sign up.

🌸 Share with a friend who needs a bit of inspiration

"MIT Lab" is introducing the first near-telepathic device, "AlterEgo."

Besides converting speech thought to text, "AlterEgo" allows you to communicate with another device wearer in thoughts, without saying a word out loud. In most common languages.

🤯 Yes, your thoughts can be translated into the target language live!

TRANSCRIPT
Alter Ego gives you the power of telepathy, but only for the thoughts you want to share. With Alter Ego, you talk just like you normally would, but without making a sound. Let me show you how it works.

[Thinking]: "From the outside it looks like telepathy."

We all have moments when inspiration strikes* and you want to save an idea before it slips away*. You can now capture those instantly without lifting a finger*. For example: "Make a note I need to pack hiking boots for my trip to Bulgaria." Just going to see if that sync. Oh yeah. Awesome.

Alter Ego has tiny cameras built in and can make sense of the world around me from my perspective. Here I have a postcard and when I find something interesting, I can point to specific parts and ask questions about what I'm seeing:

— "Who's this character?"

— "That's Europa, who represents Europe, shaking hands with America to celebrate the first transatlantic telegraph cable."

— That's cool. "Remind me to send the postcard back."

— "Okay, reminder is added to your notes app."
— Awesome.

You can get so much done with Alter Ego, but I want to talk about how it changes communication. This is where it gets really interesting. Alter Ego works with your other devices, but it also works with other people wearing an Alter Ego. It feels almost telepathic.

— "Where do you want to get lunch after this?"

— "Thai food could be good."

It doesn't matter where Arnov and I are. It could be a noisy environment or a quiet office. Having a direct conversation is possible without saying a word. The signals Alter Ego detects aren't affected by environmental noise. So even if you're walking past a wind tunnel or a construction zone, what you want to say will always get across.* It's like having infinite noise cancellation.

If you're traveling, your silent speech can be converted into any language.

— Scott, how's my Mandarin? "When I visit Shanghai, I'm hoping you can show me around the city."

[Trasnlates into Mandarin.] "I would be glad to show you Shanghai. I'm going to use my Alter Ego to give you a travel tip in Hindi."

For all of human history, we've built tools to extend our abilities, but we never perfected the tool and the interface to extend the human mind. Alter Ego gives us that, a way to communicate at the speed of thought. We believe this is the beginning of that future where technology is no longer an external box we carry but a natural extension of who we are. Thank you for being here with us today at the beginning of that future. You can visit us at altergo (dot) io to sign up for early access.

5 phrases yoused in the video you can benifit from using in your speech

GLOSSARY

🫧

Inspiration strikes

- A sudden, clear, good idea comes to you.

🫧

To slip away

- To be forgotten or lost.

🫧

Without lifting a finger

- Without any physical effort.

🫧

To get across

- To be understood by someone else.

🫧

A natural extension of who we are

- A tool that feels like a normal, effortless part of yourself.

AlterEgo website. You can learn more and even sign up for early access.

👍 I want to try “AlterEgo”!
💀 I am afraid of “AlterEgo.”

💅 By the time you're seeing this, @ybeymlina and most committed EFI readers’ve already discussed this and 5 other emerging trends (see yesterday’s post) using high level English.
Text Wedensday to @ybeymlina to sign up for our next focused practice.

🍕 An actual pizza order for "a very pregnant" wife

The Problem with "Very Pregnant"

"Pregnant" is what linguists call an absolute or non-gradable adjective. You either are pregnant or you aren't. There's no middle ground. You can't be "somewhat pregnant" or "extremely pregnant" in the literal sense.

That said, colloquially, people often say "very pregnant" to mean visibly, obviously, or far along in pregnancy. It's not technically correct, but everyone understands it means someone is showing clearly or in their third trimester.

The husband's pizza order is absolutely chaotic. It's loaded with bizarre combinations (banana peppers, half portions of everything, light jalapeños, olives) and includes an anxious, rambling customer request about his "very pregnant wife."

The phrase "very pregnant wife" signals two things:
1. She's far enough along that her cravings are intense and specific
2. He's terrified of getting the order wrong

Usage Tip

"Very pregnant" is widely understood in casual speech to mean "obviously/heavily pregnant."

🔠It's not grammatically neutral!

You can call it someone:

🫧close to you as a term of endearment
🫧annoying in a derogatory way
🫧but hardly ever in a neutral way

🌸 Send this to someone you want to make "very pregnant," if you dare ;)