this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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I am multilingual and that is frequently an issue I have ... with my native language. Which often forces me to make a decision on whether it's fine to just use the English word (plus using an English word in the middle of a non-English sentence trips me up), which the recipient might or might not understand.
The same happens to me often. Luckily for me, both Gen Z and people in corporate environments like to insert random English words in my native language, so depending on the context it might come up as pretentious corporate or "Howdy fellow kids", but at least not like I'm a complete idiot.
TBH I'd rather look like an idiot than a pretentious corporate.
insert meme
You use the English word because you're a pretentious idiot
I use the English word because I forgot
We are not the same
In Hong Kong, mixing a moderate number of English words into speech is considered an indicator of good education. There is, however, a very specific way to do it, and doing it wrong will instead cause the opposite effect.
This effect is so strong that many English words have been actually absorbed into Cantonese as loan words and displaced their native equivalents.
Skill issue, I mix in english without noticing
I'm living in Sweden but only speak English still. When I'm in a group everyone switches to English but if I don't talk for a while they start slowly mixing back in Swedish words. There's a sweet spot with Swedlish that to me sounds like a bunch of giggly people a drink or two in trying to see how far they can get away with mispronouncing words while still being understandable