@ZachWeinersmith Speaking with people who spent their entire lives learning a standard version of a language that they don’t use with friends and family is definitely interesting—I found the Swiss Germans and Swiss Italians didn’t really care about the particulars, but they were great at helping me be understood in both languages. (Are you on a long sabbatical in Switzerland?)
@ZachWeinersmith I did have a hilarious moment in Ticino/Tessin where I was trying to order mushrooms on a pizza and went through every language I knew the word in before I could remember the Italian. We all had a good laugh when I got there! “Champignon? Mushrooms? Pilzen? Funghi!”