Baburra

I used to play this too, and I never really understood why this happens myself. I think it might have to do more with neurology or psychology than actually being about the words themselves, but I agree, it is very interesting. I hope someone here could shed some light on this, but as for my take, OP, you might want to look into the term "depersonalization" in a psychological context. It doesn't completely answer it, I don't think, but it might come close or at lease it might lead you/us to the answer.

when you cringe at a relative or friend making grammatical mistakes or misuses a word, but you know it's not appropriate to constantly correct people. Seriously, I've had to bite my tongue so many times, I almost have no more tongue.

I wouldn't say I'd still want it used now, but I do find it amusing. The word I'm pertaining to is flabbergasted. I think if I heard that word spoken in a modern TV show or movie, I'd be amused and I would at least burst out a little chuckle.

One of the most famous English writers stated once that the word "cellardoor" was the most beautiful word in the English language. I don't know if I would agree that it's the most beautiful, as beauty is most of the time subjective, but it is admittedly still very beautiful indeed. As for my own choice, I like the word "fluid". I think it conveys enough of what it represents with just its phonetic aspect, and I always love it when words do that.

"I came across a dirty road" is the most proper way to say it, I think. The word "to" after "across" is unnecessary, if I'm not mistaken, but I'm not sure how to explain it from a technical standpoint. Hopefully some of our more technically knowledgeable members could chime in. Good luck!

I think learning any language would give you some insight on the culture behind it, but yeah, the French language is definitely rich in culture. I studied it daily for a month, and I found it relatively easy to learn, but the words are a little hard to pronounce, and it's so easy to make them sound inaccurate or even sound like a different language with just a simple mispronunciation. I hope to immerse myself in their culture by means of living a while in France soon, I think that will turn out to be more efficient in teaching me the language, and it certainly will provide for a fuller experience.

I think capitalization is very practical and it adds depth to separating sentences from each other. I think it would be way easier to misread things in writing if everyone started giving up capitalizations, but that's just me.

Thanks for the great resources in this thread, guys! These are certainly helpful not only in learning but in motivation as well. Usually, resource sites will only provide exactly that, resources, but of course it's also helpful hearing about personal experiences and a few tricks, since if you learn fast, there's less chance of giving up on it, and that's why I joined this forum. Again, thanks guys!

Majority of the schools in my country require English as part of the curriculum, so it's rare that I meet anyone here that doesn't speak multiple languages. Most only speak two, though, but some of the kids with parents from other countries almost always speak 3, such as the friends I have who are Indian and Chinese.

I'd turn the subtitles on if there was absolutely no other choice for me to understand the movie, otherwise, I prefer to keep them turned off. I don't mind having them, but I prefer not to have text blocking the picture as much as possible, especially if the movie's in English and I can understand it relatively well anyway.

I think Spanish is easier. A lot of the Spanish words are probably still somewhat discernable even when spoken with a very foreign accent, but I think that's not as applicable to French words. A lot of them tend to sound like different things to me when spoken with even minor mispronunciations.

I've been in many discussions, especially online, wherein I mistakenly used a slightly off word and could have been better off had I used the right one. One of the instances I remember was using the word "logical" in place of "rational", which are similar, but in some ways totally different. As the discussion progressed, I'd found that we weren't getting anywhere because I was using the wrong word, albeit being similar in meaning, and I had to reset the whole discussion to rephrase my question. Do you guys have any examples of easily interchangeable words like these? I'd love to be reminded of some of them.

I've never attempted it, but I imagine it could be a little intimidating. When it comes to poetry, I don't think it's enough to just translate the words, but also the essence of the whole piece, so it would probably require a little digging to find the corresponding "artful" words to use. It's still very possible to translate it, I think, but it would be difficult to capture the whole charm of the work that was specifically tailored in and for another language.

We are taught English at a very early age, and some of the classes in high school required us to translate a bunch of texts. I personally didn't find it too hard, except for a handful of native phrases that don't carry over well when translated. Otherwise, I actually found it fun.

I wouldn't say so. English is so engraved into culture that it hardly feels foreign to me anymore, so speaking and understanding it is almost second nature to me already and at this point, it's hard to imagine it as a foreign language for me. That said, I still like it, and love that I know it enough to be able to understand most things online, including comments that I find here.

In our country, we are taught American English from a very young age, so it's difficult to imagine myself ever using British English spellings. I personally just like the accent, but the spellings, not so much, but like I said, it's only because of what I've gotten used to.

It does happen to me, but not too often, and thankfully most people here speak two languages so I could just refer to an English word counterpart if I ever get stuck. It bugs me a lot when it happens, though, especially when I can't remember it totally for a whole day and no one can remind me of it.

I speak English and Chinese, but I'm not that fluent in Chinese. I'd still consider it useable though, I probably will have a relatively easier time in China over the average person if I had to go there, but it would still be difficult for me to some degree, especially since their accent would assumably be a lot thicker than what I'm used to.

I'm not too familiar, but I'm assuming that most of the internet slang we use now are in English, such as the term "LOL". So yeah, it's very easy to get used to it and it's certainly a lot more accessible for the average person to immerse themselves into it more than anything, not to mention they also provide the largest amount of entertainment which are, of course, in English.

I feel like English lends itself best to sarcasm. That, or English speakers just are better at it. Even without the idioms, with just a change of tone and a few regular words they convey distaste in what I find to be a very fascinating way. "That's just great" is one of my favorite ones.

I use it for more informal writings, such as commenting on forums or writing on blogs, but I don't do it in formal letters to clients. I think writing has become a little less formal in the past few years, which makes it a lot more acceptable now to do so.

Do you find it humorous when some people mimic accents for comedy? By this I mean speaking in gibberish or English with just a certain culture's accent. I personally find it funny if the person does it justice and it's done with affection instead of hate. It can be overdone sometimes, of course, and I'd still hate it if the whole population were doing it to each other. But as it stands now, I find it very amusing.

I don't believe I've heard that much German conversations or dialogues in my life, but of the ones I've heard, I don't think I'd call it aggressive, but it definitely isn't as whimsical as some of the other languages I've also heard snippets from.

I think conversation or immersion is the most efficient way to learn a language. There's no better way to more naturally pick up the language, including the accent and the correct pronunciations, in my opinion. And I think your brain just works a little bit differently when you absolutely have no other choice.

I'm trying to learn Japanese because I watch a good number of Japanese shows and I really would like to understand them in their purest form. Also, it probably would be nice to be able to speak a lot easier knowing Japanese if ever I go and stay in Japan for a while, which I'm really planning to do in the future.