Reply #82: Actually, I think phrasal verbs are the biggest nightmare!

[Karenina]

There are just. so. many. of them AND so many have multiple meanings...

Oh, those compound nouns! :rofl: I like to make them up but THERE ARE STRICT RULES (which I will never quite grasp) so of course they sound like nonsense to native speakers. I do my "damsel in distress" WOIK WIT ME HEAH routine which always produces peals of laughter.

English is very elastic. ESLers can slap whatever relevant words they can find and a native speaker WILL most likely be able to decode it. A Brazilian friend was a source of constant entertainment with the spot on references she pulled from thin air. We could not NOT understand her! She was absolutely HILARIOUS!

Deutsch doesn't work like that and when it DOES it makes the papers! Case in point:

Some years back a (Portugese, I think) soccer coach, after a particularly distressing game hollered ICH HAB' FERTIG!
The next day it was THE headline and is now used by native speakers to describe that emotional state. Funny how language works, eh?

I speak D'English. :hi: