Write English Like a Native: 12 Phrases, 3 Habits

Fix the business English phrases that mark you as non-native, and rebuild the sentences underneath them.

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Created byMikhail Konkov

Last updated 8/2026

English

What you'll learn

Recognize the 12 phrases that mark your writing as non-native, even when the grammar is perfect and every checker passes it
Replace dated business English — "kindly", "revert back to me", "do the needful" — with what native professionals actually write today
Fix the preposition and verb-pattern errors that survive fluency: discuss about, explain me, cope up with, good in, depends of
Rebuild sentences with three structural habits: verbs instead of nouns, actor first, new information last
Spot the overcompensation tell — saying one thing three ways — and cut a draft by a third without losing meaning
Trace any new mistake back to its three root causes, so you catch patterns on your own instead of memorizing a list

Course content

4 sections • 7 lectures • 35m total length

Introduction4:18
Two emails, same request, both grammatically correct — one written by a native speaker, one not. This lecture names the difference: the errors a checker catches, the patterns it never will, and the three root causes behind both. Plus what the rest of the course covers and how the quizzes work.

Dated business English5:09
Three phrases that mark writing as non-native louder than anything else on the list: "kindly", "revert back to me", and "do the needful". None of them is a grammar error, which is why no checker flags them. What each one signals to a native reader, what to write instead, and why all three come from the same source.
Dated business English
Prepositions you don't need (part 1 of 2)4:11
One idea, five verbs: English uses fewer prepositions than your language does. discuss about → discuss, explain me → explain X to me, request for → request, cope up with → cope with, and the three-way split on reach / reach to / reach out to. Ends with a two-second test you can run on any draft: drop the preposition and see if the sentence still stands. Five quiz questions follow.
Prepositions and verb patterns (part 1 of 2)
Prepositions you can't guess (part 2 of 2)3:08
The reverse problem, and the harder one: English wants a preposition and it is a specific one. good at for skills, bad at, but experienced in and skilled in — plus why "good in a crisis" and "good in interviews" are correct while "good in React" is not. Then depends on, never of (Romance) or from (Germanic/Slavic), and the "it's depend" error that travels with it. Four quiz questions follow, including close pairs.
Prepositions and verb patterns (part 2 of 2)
The grammar four5:02
Four grammar habits that mark you as non-native even when the vocabulary is perfect.

"Since" marks a point in time, "for" marks a span — and the tense follows: "I've been working here for three years", not "I am working here since three years".

Uncountable nouns (information, feedback, advice, equipment, software, research, luggage, news) take no plural -s. Counter words do the job: "two pieces of feedback", "a bit of advice".

"Agree" is a verb, not an adjective — "I agree", never "I am agree". This one comes straight from "estoy de acuerdo" / "je suis d'accord".

One comparative marker only: "better", not "more better". For emphasis, reach for intensifiers instead — much better, way faster, significantly easier.
The grammar four

Three Structural Habits: The Layer Under the Words7:03
The layer under the words. Phrases are easy to swap; sentence structure is what actually marks writing as non-native — and almost no ESL course teaches it.

Three habits:

1. Verbs, not nouns. English builds serious writing out of verbs; most other languages build it out of nouns. Sweep your -tion / -ment / -ance words and turn them back into verbs.
2. Actor first, active voice. "It was decided" hides who decided. Passive is legitimate in science or when the actor is unknown — in business writing it costs words and reads as evasive, not polite.
3. End-focus. Open with what the reader already knows, close with what's new, chain forward. Adverbs go in the middle — they are never the new information.

Plus the loudest structural tell of all: overcompensation — asking one question three different ways because you're not sure you were understood. Writing few words is harder than writing many.

Ends with the US-only rule nobody teaches abroad: a company is "it", not "they".
Three structural habits

Over-formalization, Cliches, and What to Do Next6:15
The last pattern, and then the reason behind all of them.

"It's worth to mention" is the cleanest example in the whole course of an error no checker flags — both forms parse, but only one is English. "Worth" takes a gerund: it's worth mentioning.

Then the cliche stack. "Last but not least, we need to think outside the box. At the end of the day, it is what it is." Nothing there is wrong; nothing there says anything either. ESL writers reach for cliches because they were taught those are professional English. Modern native business writing sits much closer to speech than to legal writing.

Three root causes tie the whole course together:

1. Direct translation — of structures, not only of words.
2. Outdated textbooks, still teaching the business English of the fax era.
3. Over-formalization — everyone learns English in an academic setting, so every draft comes out shaped like a school paper.

And the fix, which is not more rules. Twelve patterns are learnable; two hundred are not. What actually works is exposure: read current native writing — Slack from American coworkers, LinkedIn posts from US and UK founders — and copy the rhythm. Slack and LinkedIn teach you phrases and register; books teach the cadence behind the three habits.

Ends with a concrete plan for the week after this course.
Final quiz: the whole course

Requirements

Intermediate English or better. If you can write a work email without a translator, you're the right level.
No grammar study needed — this course is about patterns grammar checkers don't flag.

Description

Your English is correct. It still sounds foreign.

Not because of grammar mistakes — a grammar checker cleared those years ago. It's the phrases. "Kindly find attached." "Please revert back to me." "It's worth to mention." "I am agree." Every one of them parses. Every one of them tells a native reader that English is not your first language, and half of them make you sound like a 1985 fax rather than a colleague.

This course is 35 minutes long and covers exactly two things.

First, the twelve patterns. Dated business English that textbooks still teach and nobody has written since the fax era. The prepositions and verb patterns that no rule explains and you simply have to know — "depends on", "discuss the plan" with no "about", "look forward to hearing". The grammar four: "since" versus "for", the uncountable nouns that refuse to take a plural, "I am agree", and double comparatives like "more better".

Second — and this is the part that other courses skip — the layer under the words. Three structural habits that separate native writing from correct writing:

- Verbs, not nouns. English builds serious writing out of verbs; most other languages build it out of nouns.

- The actor first. "It was decided" hides who decided, and in business writing that reads as evasive, not polite.

- End-focus. Open with what the reader knows, close with what's new, chain forward.

Plus the loudest tell of all: overcompensation — asking one question three different ways because you're not sure you were understood.

Every lecture ends with a quiz, thirty-six questions in total, all built from real sentences rather than textbook drills.

Who this is for: anyone who writes English at work but didn't grow up in it — engineers, founders, marketers, support agents. B1 and up. If you translate from Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian,

French, or Italian, the specific interference errors from your language are named directly.

Who this is not for: beginners, and anyone preparing for IELTS or TOEFL. This is workplace writing — emails, Slack, LinkedIn, docs.

You need no textbook and no prior study. Bring an email you sent last week and rewrite it by the end.

Who this course is for:

Non-native English speakers whose grammar is already correct but whose writing still reads as foreign
Engineers, freelancers, and remote workers writing emails and Slack messages to US/UK clients and colleagues
Anyone who has been told their English is "very good" and suspects that isn't a compliment

Write English Like a Native: 12 Phrases, 3 Habits

What you'll learn

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Course content

Why correct English still sounds foreign1 lecture • 4min

The 12 patterns4 lectures • 18min

The layer under the words1 lecture • 7min

The pattern behind the patterns1 lecture • 6min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: