I know, grammar might be boring. Oh, what am I saying? I don’t really mean that: I love grammar. 
Let me introduce you to homophones. As you probably know, the prefix “homo” means “the same” and homophones are those words who have the same pronunciation but different meaning and spelling; that is, they sound exactly the same but they’re not. BTW, “phone” comes from a Greek word and means voice or sound.
Each new language I study I learn amazing, creepy, curious, cute, awesome, funny, interesting new things. It’s true what they say: learning a new language expand your horizons.
But learning languages is not only about speaking, writing, listening and reading it perfectly. It’s also about knowing the culture behind the countries a language is spoken in. We can all improve our cultural knowledge: whether by reading, trying different kinds of food, talk to foreigners and obviously by being there, that is, traveling.
When we learn a new language we face some words that have a very similar meaning but cannot be used interchangeably. Sometimes even natives can’t distinguish those words but they know automatically where and when to use them properly.
That’s the case with the words finish and end.
Most people use “ZIP code” and “postal code” interchangeably but they’re not the same. ZIP code as many English commonly used words is a brand. Actually it was a brand since it has expired. The New Oxford American Dictionary doesn’t even recognize it as a servicemark but simply as “a postal code consisting of five or nine digits”. The term though cannot be used that broadly…
So I was watching Friends season 10 (yeah, the last one :() episode 14, “The One With Princess Consuela” when I heard Joey shouting “Shotgun!” and Chandler following him by saying “Damn it!”. I obviously understood it wasn’t something good but I had no idea what Joey was talking about.
There’s an informal noun (yeah, a noun), “yada yada yada”, which is kind of used to replace the ellipsis sign in spoken English. It’s like saying “it doesn’t matter what comes after what I’ve just said as the outcome is too predictable, boring or not relevant”. It essentially means “blah blah blah” which is very popular throughout many languages (English, Portuguese, German, just to name a few).
I think tough “yada yada yada” is way cooler and who doesn’t want to be cool, eh? (♥ Canada BTW). At the same time…