Antique Native
I learned English at a very young age. It's not my native language and slang doesn't sound right to me?
My native language is French but when I was 4 my parents and I immigrated to the US.
I really don't get slang like:
I don't know no weird people on this town.
or
Bob is giving an antique to Charlie and his new bride for a wedding gift.
I prefer:
I don't know any weird people in this town.
and
Bob is giving an antique to Charlie and his new bride as a wedding gift.
I think it's because I read a lot. My grammar is perfect and I'm really articulate.
Sometimes people talk in really bad slang and I don't understand and I feel like I'm foreign. Help.
hahaha.... How delightfully ironic that proper use of the English language could be considered a weakness. Even more ironic, but sad, is that correct diction has simply become another boorish means of identifying "strangers among us!" American's are notoriously proud of their ignorance. We wear them both, pride and ignorance, like an odd badge of honor.
Slang is a vulgar devolution. The more interesting colloquial, vernacular and idiomatic use of language, from which slang derives can be indicative of a deep and energetic understanding of the tongue. American English decorated by an informed use of phrases of that type can be richly expressive and entertaining. After all,does not the great prima donna warp the dry perfection of tonal precision to artfully color and intensify a composition's expression of emotional and intellectual subtext?
Your admirable mastery of English should never cause you dismay. As time passes the petty demons of youth will have been left behind, buried and mouldering in the schoolyard and the higher angels of mature interaction will populate your world. Then, when you slyly interject a soupcon of colloquial wit into your chit-chat your chums will delight in their own cleverness for having chosen so droll a friend as you.