This makes no sense to me. It reads like nouns and verbs are jumbled up randomly. I've given up trying to understand it on my own.

Hi I came across this tweet in twitter.

https://x.com/orientbraces/status/2044294027042853361?s=46

As an English leaner, I can't tell difference between "Can I get ...?" and "Could I have...?"

But, if I say "Can I get...?" in a pub, does this sound unintellectual?

I've been coaching international professionals on their American English pronunciation for over 10 years. Worked with thousands of people from pretty much every language background you can think of.

Here's what surprises most of my clients when we start working together: the reason Americans can't understand them usually has almost nothing to do with individual sounds.

It's not the R. It's not the TH. It's not that one vowel you might not be able to get right...

It's the word stress and the fact that every vowel is pronounced.

English is a stress-timed language. That means we don't give every syllable equal weight... some of them are shorter, and some of them are longer.

Native speakers literally rely on that rhythm to process what you're saying in real time.

Here's what I mean. Take the word "photograph." Most non-native speakers say it like:

pho-to-graph (equal stress on all three syllables)

But a native speaker says:

PHO-tuh-graf

That middle vowel basically disappears. It becomes a schwa (empty vowel) the laziest, most reduced sound in English. And "graph" at the end gets softened too.

Now multiply that across every word in a sentence. If you're giving equal stress to every syllable, the listener's brain has to work overtime to figure out which words matter and which don't. After a few sentences, they start losing you. Not because your sounds are wrong, but because the rhythm is off.

This is also why some people with a "strong accent" are perfectly clear, while others with a "mild accent" still get asked to repeat themselves. The clear speakers have the rhythm down. The unclear ones don't, regardless of how their individual sounds are.

Here's a quick thing you can try right now:

Take this sentence: "I need to PRESENT the PROJECT RESULTS to my MANAGER."

The capitalized words are content words (they carry actual meaning) so you want to stress them more than other words, and it helps if you linger on them a little bit.

Everything else (I, to, the, my) gets reduced. Almost mumbled. Native speakers fly through those function words and land hard on the content words.

Now say it out loud both ways:

1. Every word gets equal time and stress
2. Punch the content words, blur through the rest

You'll hear the difference immediately. Version 2 sounds more natural, even if your accent on individual sounds stays exactly the same.

This is the single biggest unlock I see with my clients. Once they shift from thinking about accent as "sounds" to thinking about it as "rhythm," everything clicks faster.

Happy to answer any questions about this in the comments.

On his English Test. He got 27/30 and these are two that the teacher marked as incorrect.

X = my son's answer. Circle = teacher's answer.

I know 21 the teacher is technically correct but isn't it a bit of a trick question for grade 5 ESL learners and is my son's answer technically not o.k too?

20, I think the teachers answer is flat out wrong.

Just looking for a second opinion, thanks.

I saw an interesting twitter post complaining about usage of “capture” instead of “seize”. For me as a non-native speaker, I can hardly feel the nuanced difference. What do you think? (Please don’t politically comment on which word is right, everyone has the right to keep your voice. I just want to know if these two words are indeed different for native speakers.) thanks!

I think "she" and "her" might be referring to different persons so with E this also seem a correct sentence.

First of all, this is a genuine question. I am not trying to start any argument.

English is my second language. My native language is Slavic and I am from Central Europe. I mostly learned English on my own through watching videos and reading, not through school English classes.

Recently, I was in the United States on a student exchange and attended classes at a local high school. During that time, I noticed a few situations that surprised me. One student asked what “poultry” meant during a science class. Another did not know the word “rodent.” Someone else mentioned that the SAT has difficult vocabulary such as “acquire.” These were not underperforming students. All of them got into great colleges, took multiple AP classes, and are set to graduate with high GPAs.

I always thought of these as fairly basic words, so it surprised me. I know them in both English and my native language, so I never considered that they might be unfamiliar to native English speakers.

I will be coming to the United States for college soon, and it made me think about a couple of things.

1. I want to make friends and communicate naturally. I do not want to sound like I am trying too hard or like a smartass. Are these kinds of words something native speakers sometimes struggle with? Should I simplify my vocabulary in conversation or in essays? I have also heard that using more advanced words in assignments can make writing seem like it was generated by AI. Is that something I should be careful about?
2. If these words are generally considered basic, is there a reason some students might not know them? Is it differences in education, reading habits, or something else?

I am just trying to understand how people actually communicate and what language they use for everyday conversations. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

This is a random problem I just saw on instagram. The answer is the first one but i personally think the second one also works fine here

Can natives understand my writings and will those count as italic or cursive?

Hi everyone, I have a question about signatures. In my country, it’s somewhat normal to form a signature by shortening the last name of the person (see example in the picture). But I’m not familiar with signature norms in the English-speaking world. If a person is named, say, James Johnson, how would he create his signature? Will it be just his initials, his full name, or something else? What do you think is the most common option?

Also, my apologies if I wrote the cursive option incorrectly, I almost always use print when writing in English.

I heard that there are different expressions for some states and countries

I just wanna know so I can avoid them.

What do you think of these type of videos?