When I say "lock the lock", what does that make an English speaker think? I mean, normally when we say "lock something", that something is considered some kind of container or opening, as in lock the car/door. So that makes me wonder if I can I say "lock the lock" because after all a lock is not a container or opening. What do I say if I want to convey the idea of inserting the key into the lock, turning the key and making the lock functional?Thank you, Susan, Bruce, and Ben, for your prompt and helpful answers. In terms of English learning, I am, as Ben said, in a vacuum that is divorced from the actual linguistic environment. And italki is by far the closest thing I can get that serves as a way out for me. Therefore, when I say thank you, I am not just saying it; I do mean it. Thanks again, you guys!

Can I say "Is the air conditioning okay?" when I want to know if the a/c is cold enough for you? Can I say "Is the air conditioning okay?" when I want to know if the a/c is cold enough for you? Or when I say so, a native speaker of English will intuitively assume that I'm talking about the quality or technology of the a/c.

Does "piled up with money" make any sense in English? In our language, we sometimes say that something is "piled up with money" when we mean that it is only achieved by spending a lot of money, denoting that there's no originality, or no taste, or it's not practical at all, etc. For example, (a) His new decor is only piled up with money (meaning there's little or no taste at all and some or a lot of the things are probably not practical). (b) Her beauty is only piled up with money (meaning that she's gone through a lot of extravagant shopping or even plastic surgeries to look like that (and probably not in a good way)). I was wondering what would this be paraphrased into in English. Built up on money?It's both amazing and disappointing to know that there isn't a counterpart in English that means exactly the same. But that's exactly the fun/hard part of learning a foreign language and I'll just have to take it as it comes. I really appreciate all the time you guys have taken to help me with this one. Thanks a million!

"Do you want the whole of you in the picture or just the upper part?" I would probably say this when I'm asked to take photos for tourists and want to make sure how they would like their pictures taken (not on a regular basis, of course). How can this be worded differently and sound more idiomatic? (I wonder if this will help: in our language, which is Mandarin, we would probably say 你想照全身還是半身?)

How can I phrase this so it sounds idiomatic and not so wordy? I'd like to say to a random person on the street that I am looking for a "garage", the type where I can get my car fixed. I have trouble with this because the word garage have more than one meaning. And my sentence would be like "Excuse me, I need to get my car fixed. Is there a garage nearby?" And another thing is, can that kind of place be called a "car repair"? I mean, there's "car park", "car wash", so I figure "car repair" might work, or might it?

Is my understanding of the word help (used as a verb) correct? As far as I know, "to help somebody (to) do something" means that this somebody will still be pulling some of his/her weight. Therefore, saying "please help check the grammar" would be incorrect because this means the speaker will still be doing the checking only he/she needs someone on the side as a helper when in fact he/she is incapable of doing the checking and will have to leave the whole checking thing to someone else. So, in my opinion, instead of saying "please help check the grammar", say "please check the grammar for me". Similarly, say "please get a ticket for me" instead of "please help get a ticket". Am I right about this or am I analyzing this too much?

Can I use "for (time duration)" and "since (starting point)" in one sentence like this? I have been learning English for more than twenty years since high school. Or, how about using so-and-so times and "since (starting point)" in one sentence like this? I have been to Japan twice since last year. Thanks a lot for your time reading this :)

I think "It's nice and all, but..." roughly means "Indeed/For the record, it's nice, but...", but... can I change the word nice and apply the sentence pattern to some other adjectives? For example, It's smelly and all, but it tastes much much better than it smells. Or, It's hard and all, but that's exactly what makes it worth trying.

Just Out of Curiosity Just out of curiosity, do you have trouble reading the titles of books when they sit on shelves vertically? I mean when the words go top down? I have to say that I can't make out the words without tilting my head to the side and that makes my neck go sore in a short while (and probably makes me look stupid to others).