"we must commute the pasta"

I like being around people who speak more than one language fluently, because it often means that they make some interesting constructions in their non-native language(s), as a result of knowing so many other languages. Similarly, some of these little phrase quirks carry over into one's native language. Although I don't speak any languages other than English, I can read and write in a few others (Old English, French), and I know that my feeble attempts at forming phrases are entirely based in my own language; you often end up making fairly clunky, literal word-by-word translations.

Though occasionally (as a native English speaker) it can get frustrating to try to use some advanced metaphorical language, on the whole, most people are pretty fluent in English. A number of my friends here speak English as well as their native language, and what's cool is that you can almost see what they are literally translating from one language to another. For example: Two of my friends are French and they'll often use gender pronouns to describe inanimate objects ("my chair, she is broken"). My German friends have less difficulty with this, perhaps as a result of the fact that German and English are linguistically really close. (Interestingly enough, my German friends all speak English with American accents.)

My friend Stefano speaks Italian, German, and English fluently, with Italian obviously being his first language. Although his spoken English is not perfect, it is very, very good (and as a linguist he's always interested in hearing how English works for a native speaker!) Sometimes he says some strange things, but they're all very reasonable and logical when you think about it- today I ran into Stefano in the department's kitchenette while he was preparing his lunch, and I asked him what he was making. He explained the dish to me, and as he moved the pasta from the microwave to a bowl, he told me "we must commute the pasta". This is a wonderfully formal sentence to say that you are moving the pasta into the sauce, but it makes perfect sense: you are moving the pasta from one point to another in a large group, and there's a lot of them, so it could take a collective pronoun.

English is hard to learn, you guys - I'm not nearly as confident in other languages as my international friends are! I'm always impressed when I meet non-native speakers whose English is as good as (if not better than!) mine, even if they do sometimes tell me that we must commute the pasta.