MyDigitalpoint

Don't take my worth for it, but I think that "elegant" is a style to dress up, while "smart" is a choice made to dress up.

So that I see that dressing elegant is wearing fashionable clothes that fit great to someone.

While dressing smart is having made the right clothing choice that might not be necessarily elegant but sober, casual, contemporary, etc.

I'm really not certain what the longest word I have used in a conversation is, but I imagine it was a doozy.

Me either, nor even a longest word used in my writing.

Nonetheless, procrastination and some of the already mentioned are not that long to me. However I have never used or heard discombobulate before.

Funny thing however is that I have not only tried "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" as a pass-phrase, but another similar nonsense word; "tumbaloflesicodelicomicoso," both of which seems more like tongue twisters 

The other common usage of exclamation marks is to show surprise or emphasise unexpected information: "I went a date with the guy and he brought his sister with him!"

This is the context I was taught about using exclamation marks.

Also agree that sales copy has abused of them in a call to action attempt, but used wisely, exclamation marks can empower a sentence or simply differentiate one concept from another.

Why would you voluntarily want to go dumb? Just why?

Good point! Nobody will do it voluntarily.

However if it would happen to me for something out of my control, I think I would go for writing.

This is something I have been doing for a lifetime and wouldn't impact that much my lifestyle, only that it would come to be a full-time option rather than a complementary option as it is now.

I believe one's mother tongue will always be easier than the second one because is your own language. No matter how hard are the grammar rules or whatever make it complex to you because there is always the chance to comprehend when someone has the patience to explain you or you try to improve your own language seeking how to cope with your grammar problems.

With a second language, you need to understand the basics first to figure out what the explanation of grammar should be applied.

Rules for one language or another could be easier. In example, perhaps Croatian is complex if compared with English, but if you are not proficient in English, you won't understand someone explaining you English grammar rules, while you can understand someone speaking your native tongue, despite you cannot memorize such rules or suck at them.

Curiously to me English is not that beauty but Spanish, because while English seems to have more words and meanings, but when it comes to translate from Spanish to English, you realize that English is very poor in comparison.

There are much more ways to says one same thing in Spanish than in English, and there are many words and phrases that describe accurately something that you want to describe as opposed to English.

In example, the hours within midnight and dawn are called in Spanish "madrugada" but there is no translation for this period of time in English other than "early morning"

To me early morning means sometime beetween 6 am and 10 am, not the darkness hours noted above.

Similarly when you want the definition of a firearm, the dictionary returns "gun" for almost any of the many type of firearms that you can cite in Spanish and so on.

Really cool indeed!

I don't speak nor understand any Balcanic/Slavic language, but they have always attracted me, same as the Balkans region with its rich traditions and folklore.

Perhaps one day I would devote more time to learn more about their languages and, why not? Study one of them

Not really, I dislike buzzwords as much as I dislike people distort languages whether using them improperly, shortening words or "mixing" them with foreign terms to make up a new one with no sense at all.

So whenever I listed to a buzzword, I blame it but since I don't memorize it, I couldn't bring one as an example.

Ah! Just brought to my mind a season when I was prone to use POP culture reference taken from movies such as Johnny Dangerously and Roger Rabbit.

I don't longer do it because I rarely watch movies since at least the past whole decade, I'm more like prone to use idioms instead

Every country manage new words in English in different way.

I have seen however that new English words are simply incorporated into the local language preserving its meaning but sometimes distorting their use, as in example, using English nouns as local English verbs using the local language conjugation rules.

I believe that it all depend on what accent are you trying to use.

Spanish has many accents depending on the country of origin.

An Spaniard from Andalucía doesn't speak like a Spaniard from Madrid or Aragon.

Similarly, a Mexican from the capital city doesn't speak like someone in Veracruz, Monterrey or Yucatán.

None of those accents should be offensive because are regional to the different places.

However let's take as in example Mexico City, where some people talk in what locals consider a "vulgar style" best known (locally) as "naco" style.

If you would try to learn this accent, then a local who is not a "naco" may consider offensive the way you speak, as many of them also think from their local speakers talking in a vulgar way.

I write in my second language on a daily basis because I make a living from it.

In fact I may say that I make use of my second language throughout the whole year more than I could use my mother tongue.

I have seen an increasing number of job opportunities for bilingual translators both online and offline.

So it's worth look at this market to develop a successful career.

One is given with a mother tongue by birth and teachings coming from our parents, but this is not a lifetime guarantee that we will speak it correctly and much less that would be written properly.

So what someone's native language is doesn't really matter but how good he or she will learn to use it overtime.

Was and were can be used with I, he, she it but it's tricky as Laura explained.

For the regular conjugation of the verb "to be," was is the correct form, but subjunctive is mostly determined by the context of the expression.

Or at least this is the way I differentiate the use of one or another form.

No problem Eudora, glad to help out

Where was this when I needed it? 

Precisely this is what I said after finding this resource, so thinking of many people needing this resource as we would need it earlier, I thought this could be a good share.

In Spanish it's said "Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias"

At least in Mexico City it's said this way, and Thanksgiving day is celebrated not just by the large community of American expats, but also in many restaurants because of the large number of American tourists visiting this city by this day.

This is a funny thing but another language has not given me the ability to pass in another culture, but not even my mother tongue makes pass as my own nationality.

I don't know why people says I have a "curious" accent either speaking one or another of my two languages.

Who knows, probably is the influence of growing up in the middle of a Greek family where nobody spoke Greek nor taught me this this language, but my father had a remarkable Greek accent.

I remember my English teacher recommending to parents make an effort to get a Cablevision subscription by the all shows, series, cartoons and movies aired were broadcast in English only with no subtitles.

My parents follow her advice and got Cablevision to help my sister and I to improve our learning and yes, by listening to the movies and all other programs' dialogs I could learn more effectively.

I do it in the same fashion as you do. I text my messages writing the words as they should be, unless I need more than the 160-words limit and then I try only to use the more common shortcuts to make the message remain clear.

By saying the above I mean substituting 4 instead of for, 2 rather than to, and some of those well-known shortcuts except "u"  because I really hate this.

I thing that words with different meanings are hard by itself but not at all when they are put into the different contexts.

Probably this is the key to avoid confusions when using them.

There are are also many lose words from Spanish that have integrated seamless into the English language as in example amigo, aficionado, solo, and many more.

I remember to have heard also many Latin words, but right now I can't land any.

What a great idea! I had never considered doing this before. Now I'm wondering if there is a Chinese version of my favourite cooking book, "How To Cook Everything". There just may be...

And hey, if I misunderstand, I'll wind up with some really crazy dishes maybe? Heheh.

True! And this shows off that cooking while studying a language can be really fun

Nice video but sad thing that those tribal languages are being lost.

I use to play a joke at other forum where people post freelance writing projects and often require "native Americans" saying that it would be hard bring online indigenous people to struggle with their low-pay projects.

However I never thought of my own words, trying to figure how a native American indigenous could sound or could write on.

I was pleased to see you are now on Facebook but I don't have really a Facebook account at all, but sort of fake to check my family and friends.

But I have a Twitter account and now I'm following Linguaholic

Great to have you on this social networking site too