thekernel

Yeah, unless I was writing a script, I wouldn't know why your English teacher would enforce the present tense. If anything, present tense is the tense I've used the least when writing things like short stories or poems.

I do a double take whenever I see "doughnut" instead of "donut". I don't know why there are two extremely similar words for the same item. It's just confusing.

Well, I would never recommend anyone ever read it, but since you asked I guess I will tell. "Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk is my favorite short story. It's a very disgusting (thankfully fictional) account of sexual experimentation gone horribly wrong. No gruesome detail is spared. One might ask why it's my favorite, well, I find I've never been so physically affected by something I read. It's a great piece of literature for that reason; it leaves a very unique imprint on the reader that you would almost certainly never get from reading anything else.

The creature of great horror laughed at her question, but his laugh did not sound normal. It sounded as if there were hints of screaming in his timbre, like there were multiple souls aching to be set free from his belly.

I find it hard to maintain any relationship without a fundamental basis of communication. An old co-worker did not speak any English (and I didn't speak any Cantonese), and I found it very challenging to teach him the nuances of the work space. Fortunately another co-worker was able to translate.

As far as friendships go, you would need mutual interests to bond over.

I can do an okay Eastern European accent. I'm also pretty good at Eastern Indian imitations. I can't do English in other accents though, it always starts out British before turning Australian.

As unfortunate (and possibly controversial) as this may sound, the use of the word "retard" has become very common in relation to other slang. "That's retarded" and "you retard" come up quite frequently. Heck, I've even heard my mom use it a few times.

When I was younger I was quite fascinated with the family dictionary. I would just be flipping around, looking for strange or funny words. It really improved my descriptive ability and gave me the flexibility to be loquacious.

Word games are great for testing words you already know. Word jumbles and word searches are popular ones, as is the crossword though that is more trivia than vocabulary.

I enjoy the freedom of writing with the inspiration of the given topic. However if there's one thing I don't like about writing them for school, it's the fact that they can be judged subjectively. That's not saying all grades given are unfair, because there is a lot of objective criteria like spelling, grammar, structure, syntax etc., etc...but sometimes I've found myself losing marks because of a differing opinion. My main concern is that no matter how strong my argument could be, I may not be able to maximize my score based on a fundamental disagreement of topic.

My favorite movie of any language is Forrest Gump. As far as the English language goes, it's a great peek into American culture and its vast differences from state to state. Forrest speaks with a heavy southern drawl, and looks/sounds like a fish out of water when he's in Washington, D.C.

Americans say "roof" with the "ə" sound (called the schwa) rather than the long O sound. It sounds like they're a barking dog when they say it. It's so strange, it just tickles my strange nerve when I hear it.

I love the way it sounds, it's my favorite sounding language. That being said, French is also great for phonetic sounds. This music video alone almost convinced me to learn French:

Her tiger joined her on the quest, eager to explore the world with Alberta. Together they walked deep into the forest, but before long they lost track of time.

It depends how much you want to learn. If you are gunning for fluency, it would take a lot of learning and immersion, which I think would take longer than a year.

Language difficulty is also another variable. I find Spanish exceptionally easy to absorb, while languages like Cantonese or Russian are fundamentally challenging.

It's kind of like unlocking doors in your brain. When you are learning a language you are improving your communication with many people who speak it. Fun is an interesting word to use, it's more about the practical pursuit of knowledge that is rewarding.

I tried to make my own but I didn't get very far. Pig Latin was a pretty easy language to learn, once you get the hang of it 

He's holding a picture of his son. I had to read it a couple times to understand it, too. It was very tricky.

Here's an old one but a good one. A prisoner is told 'If you tell a lie we will hang you; if you tell the truth we will shoot you.' What can he say to save himself?

Judging by my self discipline I would be foolish to attempt more than 2 extra languages. Knowing Spanish is one goal that I've set for myself, and if I ever feel comfortable enough, I might give Russian or Cantonese a try. I don't see myself taking the time to learn more than 3 languages.

In written English, you won't believe how many native speakers don't know the difference between "it's" and "its". It seems so simple; "it's" has no meaning other than "it is". Every other place you would use that word, don't sneak the apostrophe in there.

This is the Guinness World Record for toughest (English) tongue twister:

"The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick"

Another tough one I remember from a brain teaser book in elementary school:

"Blue black bug's blood"

Absolutely, everybody understands simple gestures like pointing, waving, smiling. There are a few exceptions as Trellum pointed out. Things we aren't conscious of doing could have unfriendly meanings in another culture. But for the most part, our body is the language we all speak.

I prefer them for larger exams. Usually when you think multiple answers could be correct, that means you haven't studied the source material enough. Reading and absorbing the information thoroughly will normally let you instantly recognize the correct answer.

I don't find it much less knowledge-testing than writing answers, the only knock against it being the ability to guess the correct answer at least 25% of the time.

In Spanish, it's incorrect to leave them out. Languages have different punctuation rules, I'm not exactly sure what the "¿" or "¡" marks are for. According to Wikipedia:

"This helps to recognize questions and exclamations in long sentences. "Do you like summer?" and "You like summer." are translated respectively as "¿Te gusta el verano?" and "Te gusta el verano." (There is no difference between the wording of a question and a statement in Spanish as there is in English.)"

Even then, there were works of Spanish literature as late as the nineteenth century that did not include the inverted punctuation mark. Eventually it became universally adopted though.

Does your question include body language? Because body language is quite universal, such that animals communicate with it as well as humans. Life without spoken word would be quite animalistic in that regard, since body language would be all we could use to communicate.

Quixotic is one of my favorites. Q and X are so rarely together in a single word, "exquisite" being the only other one I can think of offhand, but "quixotic" looks and sounds way cooler.

Other than that most words that I like are Spanish. Guitarra, anaranjada, chicharrones....Spanish words are way more fun to speak than English ones!