Sounding Like a Native Speaker - The English Pronunciation Reduction of -ing

I figured I'd make this post since I couldn't find much information about it on the internet.  Native speakers often take liberties when it comes to pronunciation. Often words or letters may be reduced for the sake of fluency and rhythm.  Recently, I spoke to a class about how Americans frequently reduce the -ing sound in the continuous form.

Example: 

I'm walking to the park. 

When spoken with the natural flow of native fluency, it becomes: 

I'm walkin' to the park.  

The -g gets dropped at the end of the verb.  Therefore, walking sounds like walkin'.  This is how many American native speakers pronounce verbs in the continuous form.  However, it's important to note this rule doesn't really apply in the case of gerunds, when nouns look like verbs with the -ing ending.

Example: 

Walking is fun.

In this sense, the full word is pronounced and not reduced.   

An English nuance in Namibia - NOW NOW NOW

There many English nuances in Namibia.  Many fall within the realm of Namlish, a portmanteau that describes the amalgamation of language and country.  Some nuances are extremely subtle, while others...not so much.  Perhaps my favorite English word in Namibia was the word now.  It's used in a form of tautology to express a varying degrees of time.  Sound strange?  Well, here's how it's used.

When someone says now, they really means later.  If the person says now now, then they mean very soon.  But if a person were to say now now now, that that really means right now.

This form of Namlish was commonplace throughout the country.  Often I'd have fun with it, especially in the classroom.  If I wanted the students do something right away, I'd repeat now about a dozen times.      

Do U English?

English     noun

-    The West Germanic language of England, now widely used in many linguistic varieties throughout the world.

How does one define something as all-encompassing as English?  The language defines so much of the world we live in today.  It’s how we communicate, how we understand, and the way we do business.  English has gone viral around the world, and it doesn’t even have a YouTube video.  The world speaks English, reads English, writes English, and studies English.  It has touched just about every square inch of this planet that the human race has inhabited.  Yet how can we begin to define the scope of something without knowing how it’s used?

English can be used as a noun; there’s no doubt about it.  I just did it.  How about as an adjective?  Can we use the English language as an adjective?  Done!  Supposedly, it can be used as a transitive verb if followed by an object, such as if you’re going to translate something.  I’ve never heard this before but let’s try it.  He’s going to English Don Quixote.  To me, it just doesn’t sound right.  And I imagine grammarians hate this argument – it doesn’t sound right!  But why shouldn’t our ears be guidelines to linguistic acceptability?  I for one would like to hear English used as an intransitive verb.  Let’s give it some action.  We were Englishing at the restaurant, when we overheard the people behind us Spanishing.  I kind of like it!  And why can’t we play English?  We can speak it, write it, read it, and listen to it.  I’d much rather play English than do any of those other things.  I think it would also make a great adverb.  If only something could look, sound, or feel Englishy.  Like many things in this world, English has rules.  Rules should be followed, but quite often they are broken.

The beauty of the English language is that it's adaptable.  The more people who try to learn English, especially as their second language, the greater the variance we see in the way it's both spoken and written.  Today, English the most widely-used second language in the world.  According to estimates by the British Council, about 750 million people speak English as a foreign language.  It's also believed that over a billion people are currently learning English worldwide.  Countries and empires will not conquer the world, bu the English language just might.