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I've been thinking a lot about commas lately. I mean, I guess I'm thinking about them the normal amount as a writer?

But here's a thought that crossed my mind:

I don't understand English the way I understand Spanish. I studied them both in college--English major with a Spanish minor--but Spanish makes structural sense to me in ways that English doesn't.

Granted, English is kind of a creole, from a linguistics perspective.

But also, as a native speaker, English just kind of exists in my brain. I don't really understand it. But I can use it without batting an eyelash, mostly.

(Idioms will largely never make sense to me. So, those make me bat several eyelashes.)

Spanish? I can construct sentences correctly and write whole essays in the language. I know why things work in Spanish, just because the rules were explained by professors in staggering detail every time we studied a new verb tense or Spanish literary style.

But even so, I still innately speak English better, and even though I can't tell you the rules of comma usage in writing, I can mostly feel them. And at the end of the day, even though I structurally understand Spanish better, I'm not actually fluent in the language.

English, though? I am quite fluent, to the point where I can play with the language and it's mostly understood by other native speakers.

It's super weird, man.

(Also, when I say I can feel commas, I mean they are feelings. When you feel that little pause in your soul, that's when you put them in the writing. That's what editors don't want you to know. Also, 9 out of 10 editors disagree with me on this, and the other editor called in sick the day I took the poll.)

But all this got me to thinking. There are probably things you know innately just by being around them. Sure, you're not perfect at them, and maybe you can't explain why things work the way they do. But you're still good enough at them to claim a level of proficiency.

So the next time you feel like you don't belong somewhere or that you can't do something, remember that language is one of those things that you can do, and still not fully understand. You use it every single day, and even though you may not be able to explain why it works, you're still a pro.

That's a comforting thought to me, gang. Like maybe we're all a little bit better at stuff than we think.

Anywho, I'll be popping into your inbox next week with a little bit of information about a preorder for that anthology I teased last week.

Until then, take care of yourself.

Thanks for letting me invade your inbox! 

Marisa 

MarisaMohi.com

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