tyconequod

Well it kind of depends on who you are texting to. I had a period where I didn't use punctuation too, together with shortcuts, though I forced myself to use proper grammar again in texting, since I don't like the idea of losing my grammar skills to something ridiculous like texting, as a lot of people do. The grammar level of a lot of people I know has notably decreased when they started texting, and I don't want that to happen to me.

Well, you should try to ask somebody to translate a random sentence (doesn't really matter what sentence) to a specific language. Then, you need to ask someone else to translate it back to the original language. I'm pretty sure that often the sentence will have remained it's original meaning, though it's likely to be a bit different. Though in some cases, depending on the language, and on the words you've used, a sentence could also change completely when translating it like that (there are a lot of google translate jokes who use that principle), though I'm pretty sure it's often not that different from the original. It's often bad luck when those things happen like the coca - cola billboard, I'm sure most of the time the original meaning is preserved.

I actually had to read the short stories of Roald Dahl for my English exam (which I nailed on the language part though horribly failed on everything else), and I found them actually quite amusing for children's stories. (we have English as our third language here in Belgium) We've also read 'Sherlock Holmes and the speckled band', which I found quite interesting. I often read Sherlock Holmes short stories for reading exercises, and I would really recommend them if you like detectives (which I obviously do).

There's actually a website dedicated to 'definitely', you should look at it on http://www.d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com/ They even have a hall of shame, and man, it's really bad if you see who makes that mistake (CNN, BBC, FOX13, ...) Though that's on of the most common traps in the English language. I've made that mistake numerous times too before I realized I've been doing it wrong the entire time.

Mon amour pour toi est éternel -> My love for you is eternal Well, that's pretty straight forward, there's also once I translated myself : Vivre sans toi est comme un crayon cassée. I'l n y a pas de point. -> Living without you is like a broken pencil. There's no point. Well, the second one actually sounds pretty lame in french, but damn it, I tried.

nager (to swim) Well crap, most verbs end on '-ER' so wouldn't it be better if we'd just use substantives (nouns)?

Indeed, the difference between Flemish and Netherlands Dutch is almost nothing. The thing is though, that Flemish people easily understand Netherlands people, while the other way around it's way harder (or atleast they say). But Belgian Dutch is more of an accent than an actual language when you'd ask me. If you just speak normal Dutch, it's also okay.

I would definitely say from as young as 5 or maybe earlier. I live a Belgium, we speak French and Dutch, so we have to learn both languages at some point. Given the fact that I know some parents who started teaching their children Dutch and French and they turned out to be better in French than me, it's obvious that it's good to start learning a second language at a young age. I had to wait until I was 10 before I started with French, since my parents never thought of teaching me French.