Don't go chasin' wadderfalls...

I already have pointed out that I use a lot of inflection when I speak English, but I have learned even more about the way I speak lately.

I didn't notice until I came to France that Americans (in general) sometimes have a soft "t" sound when the "t" occurs in the middle of a word.  For example, when you say "water" to the kids and hear "wadder" shouted back, something's getting lost in translation.  I've been working on saying, "waTer", with a harder T sound, which makes feel like a pretentious tool but sounds better when the kids say it.

Also, I've been teaching numbers lately, and the kids already can't tell the difference between thirty/thirteen, forty/fourteen and even between thirty/forty, so if I can take some difficulty out of the equation by at least pronouncing it correctly then so much the better.

Off topic, but speaking of numbers, you know you've been in France too long when "fourty" starts to look like the correct spelling...