What do you sound like?

Recently, I've been on the path of language learning and it's all this kid's fault. But it all more or less started when I thought I had an opportunity to go to France and Germany and I found a program that would help me learn German. Why did I chose German over French at the time? Maybe because most people have a vague idea of wanting to learn French and it's the more popular language. I mean, at least they were the good guys during WWII thought nobody thinks they really did anything(isn't stereotyping fun?).

But, the short answer is that I don't know. I have these weird inclinations to just learn things that don't really seem to help. I obsess over these weird things. It seems like everything I know is completely trivial to my every day life but it certainly helps me at trivia games.

Anyways, ironically, I think I know more French than I do German at this point but I haven't been actively studying those languages in a while though I do plan on continuing with them eventually. What I have been learning? Korean! After one arduous semester and one month of learning this language, I can officially say that Korean is my 3rd best language...though I still won't be able to hold a conversation. Half the battle was finding the right resources for learning and, after searching, I finally found a good learning site. Plus, with the help of my teacher, I think I'm going to be able to learn it fairly quickly...at least slightly more quickly, but I'm optimistic.

My second best language is Spanish. Yeah, most Americans are going to know "a little Spanish" but I speak it a lot better than the average American. I'm at an intermediate level with the language and can hold a very basic conversation. It's going to be a boring conversation though which sucks because how many times can anyone talk about the weather before they realize it's the most boring thing to talk about ever?

Well, apparently, for a lot of you motherfuckers, there is no limit.

I think back to all of the things I had to talk about today and realize that my life depends on being able to explain concepts and being able to walk people through math equations or how to write an essay or how to understand biology. Then, the other part of my day involved talking about learning words and then talking about a Korean drama.

My problem is that my vocabulary is pretty limited so I can't talk about the things I like to talk about in other languages.

So, where is this digression leading towards? Well, basically, learning other languages has made me think a lot about how we speak our native language.

The first thing I noticed is that everybody is incredibly lazy at speaking there own language. And, really, why shouldn't they be? The reason why we talk in the first place is to get ideas and messages across each other. If you can say what you want in a way that makes sense even if it isn't grammatically correct, there really isn't that much of a problem.

That's why I'm not too hung up on the "there, their, and they're" problem. I honestly think it's this stupid languages fault for having 3 words that sound exactly the same and have completely different meanings. But, for those complaining, can you explain the difference between "its" and "it's"? How about when to use "who" or "whom"? When was the last time you've heard anybody use the word "whom"? It's use in grammar means that it should be a word we use everyday, but it's not because everybody ends sentences in prepositions.

You can cry all you want about it being the "death of English," but, if that's the case, good riddance. Oooohhh, you're getting sick of people misusing the word literally? We have to say figuratively now? "I just figuratively had a heart-attack" "I figuratively died when he told me that" " "My head figuratively exploded" You know what you should tell someone the next time they complain about people misusing the word "literally?" Tell them to go figuratively blow a goat.

So, even after all that, a lot of this has to do with which regions we're from anyway. We all develop a certain way of speaking. Weirdly enough, I'm a native Oklahoman, but I don't really carry that much of an accent. At least, I don't think I do. My brother tells me we have "standard" American accents and even my cousin from California told me that she couldn't really detect one on me. According to the internet, I have a Midwest accent which, apparently, is another way of saying that I don't really have an accent. However, whenever I listen to myself closely(after a get past the fact that I hate how high pitched my voice is), I do notice that the we I draw out words is a bit...ugh...okie-ish.

Not that there's anything (that) wrong with a southern accent, I just don't really like it on myself. I think it can sound decent on some people and even a bit sexy on certain people(when it sounds sophisticated, I think), but I would seriously prefer to have any other kind of accent. Even a Bah-sten accent.

Though, apparently, you do have control over your accent. That's why some people who speak English as their second language can sound more native to the US than some actual natives. Just ask this person.

So, yeah. Here was my fun thing to talk about. Next time? Eh, I 'unno. If anybody is willing to comment, watch this video I made and tell me what I sound like.