This list was suggested by Joy Waller.

Can you spot the errors in these sentences? It took me a couple of reads to get one of them..

Mistake 1

‘Thank you all for coming to here today.’

Mistake 2

“In this talk, I will …”

Mistake 3

“I am welcoming you …”

Mistake 4

“I apologize for my horrible English!”

Here are the corrected forms….

1. “Thank you all for coming here today”

We say ‘come here’, ‘go there’ without the ‘to’.

2. You can often cut introductory phrases like ‘In this talk’… and ‘I will talk about…’. Once you’ve greeted the audience, get on with your main idea

3. ‘Welcome’ or ‘Welcome to the 150th meeting of X organization’.
Some phrases in English are really easy to learn!

4. Never apologize for your level of English, the content or length of your speech, your slides, the weather or anything else.

The audience wants to see you take control of the presentation. If – or rather – when you make a mistake, recover gracefully by stating what you mean to say. When I slip up in conversation or in a presentation, I usually say ‘Sorry, I mean X’ and then carry on.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the first female politicians in Canada, Agnes Mcphail.

‘Never apologize. Never explain. Just get the job done…’.