u/Maximum-Rabbit-1752

I understand when people use she/her and he/him. But why they? Is it used to denote a group of people?

I was talking with a friend this morning about what makes someone sound obviously non-native in English. We came up with things like wrong prepositions, missing articles, phrasal verbs, and word order. What else do you notice? And for non-native speakers, what should we actually focus on to sound more natural when speaking or writing?

Should I just say 'Thank you'? Or should I explain a bit more on the idea to make the person agree. I'm not sure if that means the person agreed with my idea or not.

Today my senior told cache is "kash-ay". But she keeps saying niche as "nee-sh". Is she right? If so, why are they pronounced different when they look same? Or, is she just wrong.

I was doing a speaking session on Praktika's avatar Alisha and she used this when speaking back to me. I did really loved the conversation and helped me improve but then I was recollecting her feedback and that is when I remembered this. Did a google search and found it's used in books and novels, so what do you think as natives? is it common to use?

English just has one "you." Same word for your boss, your best friend, a stranger, a kid.

I think most euro languages split it. French tu/vous, German du/Sie.

So, when you talk to someone important v someone close, does that switch still happen somewhere? not in the word, but in your tone, your phrasing, the tiny choices you make without thinking??

English dropped "thou" ages ago but i think it's stil used. curious what natives actualy notice in themselves.

My grammar book says you can use "I should…" to advise another person, like: "Shall I leave now?" "No, I should wait a bit." Apparently it means "I would wait if I were you."

I always just said "you should wait." Is the "I should" version actually common in real speech, or does it sound old? Is it sound natural to use?

I thought I'm learning English and now I need to understand these too? Is it now becoming official to be used in writing? I strongly think if this is how it's going soon all the major english tests will have to include these shortform words too. Is this the evolution of english??

Was going through a saved vocabulary list for my CELPIP prep and I realised I've been spelling a few words wrong all this time. Like champagne, which I was literally pronouncing as "cham-pa-gni"😭

Also, how old were you when you realised gif is "jiff" and not "giff"? Share your mispronounced words, will be fun lol

I usually use couple to mean a few things like, a couple of things. But my teacher told me it actually means two and that is why a man and woman is called a couple. But yeah, man and man & woman and woman are also called couple. Anyways, is it to be used only for exactly two or is it fine like I use? Feel a bit confused here.

I read that English lost the grammatical gender long back. My mother tongue has it, so for me the article just comes automatically with the word, I never think about it.

What about the others? If you are native English speaker and I give you some made up word, will it feel masculine or feminine to you, or the question itself has no meaning? lol. Words like sun, moon, death, ocean somehow still carry something no?

Also curious about people who learned a gendered language as adult. I am practicing with Praktika, the AI speaking practice app, it's actually doing a great job teaching me but gender agreement is still slower for me. ANy ideas on this?

I'm still getting confused with whether that means twice a week or once in 2 weeks. My manager asked me to schedule a 1-1 call biweekly and I did it once in 2 weeks and then got confused that I had to google the meaning to finally feel relieved..sheesh!!

A quick question, what does it mean when someone says to divide a number by half? Is divide the number to half or multiply by 2? I'm confused between the literal meaning and how we use in maths?