I’ve experienced the language skills of Nederlanders first hand! What I found to be most striking was hearing people having trilingual conversations especially in restaurants where the waitstaff were actively communicating individually with dozens of people in two to three languages.

I’ve tried to keep up with language skills but starting a language in high school or college just didn’t work for me. Especially since the application of those skills prioritizes written communication. I always end up with an understanding of pronunciation, some grammar, and a handful of vocabulary that I can’t actively use.

I don’t think any Americans are judging you too harshly for UK spellings. I think keeping track of all the slang and colloquialisms would be the greater challenge. I was taught “grey” and “colour” as a kid and the only problem I have is with spellcheck. 😂

That’s one way to do it!

Happy to share (I don’t get the opportunity very often to just talk about the classical guitar itself!).

You don’t need a tension tool or anything; you’d wind the string like normal up to pitch. If you’re new to restringing them, I’d suggest using a tuner that displays the frequency in hertz so you don’t over-tighten. I eventually got to a point where I can hear/feel when it’s close to pitch.

Some caveats though: Nylon strings stretch. So it typically takes awhile for them to settle and stay in tune. I learned in college that tuning them up a full step would stretch them enough to set overnight as opposed to a week. Also, with high tension strings specifically, you have to wind the string a lot for it to reach the correct tension, so the only tool I’d recommend is a string winder (but definitely not an automatic one).

Because the strings are tied off on both ends, they will slip out if the knots are tied in the wrong direction or without enough wraps on the pegs or the wrong knot on the bridge. At higher tension, they slip with much more gusto.

In my experience, steel/electric strings break more often. I never had classical strings break until I started using a specific brand (Hannabach). Apparently this brand is notorious for shitty D strings, which is exactly which one broke repeatedly for me. Luckily, for most classical sets you can buy individual strings, so for every set I would buy, I’d get a redundant D string - and I would always end up using it. Changed brands and no more broken strings.

No problem! Another difference between classical strings and acoustic/electric strings is that tension is how nylon strings sold by tension instead of gauge; the gauges are mostly there for reference.

It’s also common to mix tensions between the basses and trebles or use a string from a different manufacturer or material set. I don’t think this practice is as common with the steel string/electric world.

I had problems with TSA before because my real ID confused them and they didn’t believe it was a valid US ID. Granted, this was at a regional airport, but it’s literally the ID that complies with requirements set by Homeland Security for the specific purpose of use in airports by TSA.

Edit: and my ID isn’t even from New Mexico!

Your English is also better than people in my family whose ancestors were 18th-century British colonists.

I once had a heated argument with a coworker about where the capital of the US is located. He was of the opinion that Washington state was the capital and Washington, DC was a US city located in Colombia (he also had difficulty understanding that Colombia and Columbia were spelled differently). He wasn’t trolling; when I finally got to a map (pre-smart phone days) and showed him where DC is located, he got really mad.

Other places to check for buzzing include:

• The ends of the bridge knots. These should have been tied so that they are looped into the knots of the other strings, but if they are sticking out and touching the soundboard you may get some vibration.
• Same of the ends of the strings around the tuning pegs. It looks like these have been trimmed so that there isn’t any extra string after the knot around the tuning peg, but if there is it will sometimes touch the headstock and buzz (I don’t trim mine, so this happens to me sometimes).
• Someone else mentioned that your strings are touching the wood due to how they are wrapped - also a possibility. I’d loosen the strings and push those wraps further onto the post.
• And just a wild guess - were you playing while wearing a shirt with buttons?

The basses on a classical guitar are nylon filaments wrapped in silver or nickel plated copper; the trebles are solid nylon or carbon fiber. The tension and gauge required is drastically different for those strings different because of the materials.

Here’s the gauges for a particular set of classical strings I’ve used in the past:

• E/1st .024
• B/2nd .028
• G/3rd .034
• D/4th .0291
• A/5th .0354
• E/6th .0433

And you’re right that the G and A, and B and D strings look to be of similar size! But when these strings are put under tension, they reach different pitches.

If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.

This infuriating quip summarizes the cultural perception of the laziness of the low wage worker. I also think it is somewhat culturally related to “Protestant work ethic” and the phrase “idle hands are the Devil’s playground.”

I worked a lot of shitty low wage jobs in college and I can still feel the unfairness of it all in my core. I bristle decades later when I think about being reprimanded by a manager for waiting to mop a lobby until we had locked up for the night. Their argument was that I was wasting time and no counter argument would be heard. They didn’t get it, I was insubordinate, I quit a month later. Rinse and repeat somewhere else. I’m sure the hours worked after close cut into their Christmas bonus or some shit.

But I digress. The point is, in the US, it’s common knowledge that businesses exist to abuse you. It’s just that a lot of people delude themselves into thinking that if they’re the customer then they’re better off than the employee. Then add in some “back in my day” and a “well, I never” with a twist of “I took advantage of a combination of luck and a commitment to unhealthy work-life balance to get promoted to assistant regional manager so now I empathize with your boss because I now realize that employees leaning against the counter or sitting at the register cuts into my productivity bonus and also looks bad to snotty customers like me and that’s how I rationalize working 60+ hours a week after signing a contract where I’ve waived my right to overtime pay because technically I’m salaried and should be able to do all of my work in 40-hour week.”