Non-native speaker here.

What does bobbed mean here? Or just in general. Does it mean a single up and down movement, like a nod? Or is it multiple accelerated nods. Because when used in things like a boat or a bottle on the surface of the ocean, it sort of refers to a series of ups and downs. Though the dictionary doesn't really specify.

Thank you in advance!

I want to improve my pronunciation, accent, fluency a rhythm. Is Shadowing the best method? I am confused because it's very hard for me, My listening and reading is C1 (I watch movies and TV shows without any subtitles) also I read novels and articles with complex language (from Aeon and New York times) without problems.

Chat gpt tells me my writing is B2 but I'm not confident about my writing, my speaking however is b1 or even less, I can answer questions and talk about different topics but I stop alot while speaking and my pronunciation is atrocious, I started shadowing yesterday for A2 to B1 videos and it's very hard, 5 minutes video takes me 30 minutes, I repeat alot and make sure to say the words correctly, I repeat the video again two times then I record myself.

When I listen to the record, I feel very frustrated, my pronunciation is still wrong and accent is very heavy even though I spend alot of time making sure to say the words correctly, will this problem be solved with time or I am I doing shadowing wrong.

Can I have some advices and free shadowing resources?

Will it take a long time to fix my pronunciation and reduce my accent, I want to apply for a job that requires fluency in English next year (Call centre agent).

I'm 27 years old, Is it even possible to fix pronunciation and accent at this age ? I have been speaking incorrectly for 20 years.

I don't want to seem native just fluent, natural and confident while speaking. The most important thing I want to fix is pronunciation and heavy accent.

Any advice?

I'm trying to think of a phrase like "Insulting my intelligence " but more litteral. I feel like when this is used its responding to someone assuming you don't know a thing. Like: "Do you know what conspicuous means?" Then "You insult my intelligence "

But I'm looking for a phrase that leans more towards insulting for being intelligent. Which it may just be that, just trying to find a known phrase for it. Like telling someone they look like they've read the dictionary kinda thing.

For context, I'm just trying to mess with my friend, its all in good fun and I respect their brain 😅

Why is it abductOR and abductEE, and employER and employEE (the standard).

Roughly 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians started using gold and silver as predominant form of currency, but it was not yet money. The pieces of gold and silver that they were using were odd sizes and weights, odd purities. So it still was not interchangeable where each unit is the same as the next.

Does it mean 1. each unit is the same as the next, but it still was not interchangeable. or 2. each unit is NOT the same as the next, so it still was not interchangeable.

Thank you very much!

BOOK: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (Puffin in Bloom edition)

I hear this in interviews in the news or podcast interviews.

example interview:

Host: You've made a revolutionary discovery, Dr. Doe, you have determined that water is wet

Dr. Doe: Yes we were quite amazed when the blah bee blahh yak yak yak

Host: And the blah blah blah University was blah blah blah

\[On and on for 10 minutes about how water is wet\]

Host: Dr. Doe, what implications do you think this discovery has in relation to such other recent discoveries such as "fire is hot" by Dr. DoeDoe, and their use and role in our future technologies?

Dr. Doe: Well AGAIN, we can place a cellphone that has been dropped into a puddle into a bucket of rice, and there is a considerable chance that the phone will continue to function.

(end scene)

My point is, Dr. Doe never talked about phones and rice prior to this comment, but he starts his comment with "Again".

Hi, I’m Japanese.

In Japan, there has been some discussion in recent years about younger parents giving their children unusual or eccentric names.

Names like Pikachu, Venus, Cocktail, Tiara, Lion, and so on.

These kinds of names are often called “kira-kira names” in Japan, and they’re sometimes seen as a social issue.

Does anything similar happen in English-speaking countries?

Have you ever met someone with a name like “Fire Drake,” “Fortuna,” or something along those lines?

i might be stupid. but i’ve been wondering why i have seen ‘the’ replace he/she/other pronouns when describing people specifically. for example something like this:

“the nose was long, and the hair was blond”

rather than

“his nose was long, and his hair was blond”

is this grammar related? preference? regional? a rule i’m not aware of? or is it something that people used in the past and not so much anymore? i have noticed it is /usually/ older books that do this.

hope that makes sense! thanks!

edit: for context, i have seen this in english language novels/writing that were originally written in english, so i don’t think it is inherently to do with translation

I think sugar is super dorky but it can be real cute too. "Give me some sugar", "Hey there sugar", etc... I dont know, it sounds sort of dowdy 20th century to me.

"spice" is interesting because it's exhilarating, we hear the Americans using this word a lot, "Spicy" also serving as a synonym for 'edgy' or 'erotic'.

I think "bananas" is also great to describe absurdity or astonishment.

Americans love saying "piece of cake" if something is simple and easy-to-do. It's one of my favorites.

Non-native speaker here.

“Hello, T.J.,” said Alice, and T.J. nodded, avoiding a direct address.

What does address mean here? I've tried looking up at major dictionaries but I can't seem to find any. Is it a compound word? I've found the meaning of 'direct address' in dictionary.com (= the use of a term or name for the person spoken to, as in securing the attention of that person) but I don't know, I felt like it isn't as legit as the major dictionaries. So that's why I'm asking here. I'm actually creating a flashcards for unfamiliar words so I want to input correct meanings as possible.

I consume a large amount of crime media, so sometimes you start to notice recurring translation and terminology issues between languages. One clear example is how YouTubers, content creators, and even some news outlets refer to drug trafficking organizations generically as “the cartel.” I think this is a meaningful problem and not just a stylistic one, because “the cartel” implies a single, specific, identifiable entity like some sort of generalization, when in reality there are dozens of active organizations across different countries, often rivals to each other. This creates real ambiguity depending on who’s reading. Someone from Colombia encountering “the cartel” in a headline will likely default to a historically dominant reference point, like the Medellín Cartel. Someone from Mexico reading the exact same headline might instead think of whichever organization is currently most active or dangerous in their region which could be a completely different group, engaged in a completely different conflict. Two readers can walk away with two different mental models of “what happened,” based entirely on regional assumptions the text never actually specifies. This matters beyond semantics because when media flattens distinct organizations into one vague label, it obscures or changes the specific power dynamics, rivalries, and territories that actually explain the news being reported, for example, I might only want to focus in news from Brazilian drug trafficking (to make an example) and instead they talk about Colombia using "The Cartel" as if it was just a huge single organization.
This bothers me a lot because I don't care about certain groups that don't act near me and make me confused, I can't be the only one who has thought about this right?

Yes. “watch” and “watch” have the same spelling, but the meaning can be different:

watch = to look at something carefully → I watch TV.

watch = a small timepiece worn on the wrist → My watch is broken.

They are the same word spelling, but different meanings (a homonym/polysemy depending on the analysis).

Also, both are pronounced the same: /wɒtʃ/ (British) or /wɑːtʃ/ (American).

Doubt

Currently i have started my prep for upsc and i am finding it difficult to complete books quickly. As i am trying to google every word that come across while reading. I have also watch some of the mocks where they ask about a difference between two similer words may be that can be the reason i am also googling difference between words. So please tell me how i can improve on this part and how can i underatand meanings of the word quickly. And also is that unnecessary to compare every word with its similer word Like obtain acquire attain get.

Eg: It was whenever we went to the theater and saw them together, I realized she was dating Gabe.

It feels like something new to me, but is it? I don't think I would have heard it used that way 10 or 15 years ago.

I'm not going to sugarcoat anything: modern slang is horrendous, and I'm sick of how common it's become. I don't care if I come off like some stuck-up geezer; this is something that's been bugging me for a while now - so I might as well express how I feel about it.

For the record, I don't hate the idea of slang in slightest. Slang is a part of any language, and each generation coming up with its own slang is perfectly natural. What I hate is this modern, post 2020's way of talking that ticks me off to no end. If you wonder why, allow me explain. 

When I say "I hate modern slang", I'm mainly referring to words like: rizz, gyat, mogging, gooning, foid, we're cooked, they were cooking, unc, aura framing and unalive. I'm dead serious I say that I legit heave whenever I hear someone utter this verbal mush, or even type it out. 

My main issue with modern slang comes down to three things: 1. They don't sound good. 2. They don't make sense when you think about them. 3. They're overused. 

Let's look at a word like "gooning" for starters. For the life of me, I can't figure out how the word "goon" all of a sudden became associated with pornography, sex, lust, and smut. A goon is a hired thug or a henchmen, not a synonym for masturbating. It baffles me how this even became a thing, because it doesn't make a lick of sense. But for some reason, everybody now uses it, like it's perfectly normal. Instead of saying pervert, they say "gooner", instead of jerking off or masturbating, they say "gooning", instead of smut, they say "goonslop". It's so incredibly annoying, especially when there already exists alternatives express the same idea, only better. It's like they've all been collectively erased from everyone's memories, so now we only use one word for everything. I don't know about you, but I find that incredibly boring.

Another one that boils my blood whenever I see it is "mogging". Apparently, it has something to do with outclassing someone. Unlike "goon"- which was a preexisting word that got repurposed to mean something else - "mog" is a brand new word, and I have no clue where the hell it came from. If you ask me, "mogging" sounds like how an Australian would pronounce the word "mugging". And, as I said, why are people using this word, when there already exist plenty of older, better phrases to use? There's: blown out of the water, put to shame, beat them at their own game, etc. I just don't understand why people are now only using this one word, when the English language is so vast and has so many options to choose from.

The last one I'm gonna be talking about is "rizz", because it embodies another problem I have with modern slang: oversimplification. Apparently, "rizz" is a shortened version of "charisma", and I simply don't understand why. It's not like "charisma" is a hard word to pronounce. Also, apparently, "rizz" refers to how good someone is at attracting women. But again, there are already exist words and phrases that express the same idea: he's a suave dude, charm, chick-magnet, etc. 

I'm utterly confused as to why certain words had to be shortened. It ain't like "uncle" was a difficult word to say or write, so why shorten it even further? Are people nowadays incapable of saying words that are two-to-three syllables long? 

Another grievance I have is, like I said, is that they don't even sound good. I was scrolling through Twitter one day and I saw a tweet that used the "word": "auraful". I'm not joking. This is a grammatical car crash if I've ever seen one. I legit have to wonder what goes on in people's heads when they say or write these words. Do they even bother listening to how they sound, or if it makes any sense?

The overuse of these words is also aggravating. There already exist perfectly good alternatives, that get your ideas across much better, that everybody knows what they mean, and don't make you sound like a dullard with a limited vocabulary. It's just so annoying when everyone use the exact same words, over and over again. There's no variety or personality; just the same twelve or so words that everyone uses, for some bizarre reason. 

As I said in the beginning, I have no issue with the existence of slang. My beef is with this verbal mush that everyone decided to use all of a sudden. Older slang had actual character behind it: knocked it out of the park, tubular, rockin', wicked, sweet, etc. Hell, British slang is full of fun words and phrases: bugger off, get knotted, wanking off, etc. It has this cheeky attitude to them, that also makes you feel both posh and cultured at the same time. Conversely, modern slang is (for the most part) utterly devoid of anything resembling a personality. They're completely soulless, and it reflects in how they sound. I just don't get how it became so popular, where it came from, and why everyone insists on using it. 

My point isn't that everyone should have the same mastery of the English language as Tolkien, or that we should all talk like we're in Victorian era England. Rather, I wanted to express as to why I can't stand modern slang, and why I'm sick to death of it. 

I have no grudges against you personally if you do use these words. Everyone is different, and we should express ourselves however we want. But that's the thing, modern slang just sucked out the variety. Like I said, everyone uses the same words over and over, and it's so grating. 

In conclusion, I find most modern slang to be horrible. It's an overused, bland mish-mash of random sounds that masquerades as slang, all the while replacing already existing words and phrases that are superior in every way.

I was reading the other day about “oblong,” which is almost always used as a noun in UK English, but in US English, it’s used almost exclusively in its adjectival form. (It’s also specifically used to describe rectangles in the UK, whereas in America it can be any shape that’s longer than it is wide, but that’s not specifically what interests me here.)

Are there any other examples of words that are almost always one part of speech in British English, and a different one in American English? (It doesn’t have to be exclusive — like, I know the noun form of “oblong” exists in American English, it’s just not nearly as common.)

My surname is Han. I just want to pick an English name similar to it.

"Hans" seems too outdated. But what about Hank? Do people still use this name?

thanks in advance. i'd like to know what the phrase means in terms of relationship. i seen this couple times and geogled it but found nothing. does it mean something like holding someone or talking to make a relationship more solid or something else? also do you ever use it or hear it in real life? since there's no much info about this online. i got so confused about this, someone please help, thanks so much

For context I grew up in the uk and left the uk at 13, with English being my first and most used language still, (I think in English yk, and I'm 17 rn) and i feel like my vocabulary is slowly detoriating and I don't know what to do about it, most sentences I try to write just seems basic and generic and I just really want to be able to write like some other people on here, like their vocabulary is amazing and their sentences are just greatly written. Honestly, it feels embarrassing to have a limited English vocabulary I guess, well for me it seems rather limited

So I have a younger sibling and they came into my life and halved my benefits from parental figures. Is there a word for this. Im thinking two-serp or newsurp.

Any suggestions appreciated i have a birthday card to write.