this would also be linguistically accurate!
i speak english the most in day to day life and also think in english sometimes. my accent in english is americanized, pretty indistinguishable from a native (excluding sets of certain phonemes like /rl/) .
but if i’m really tired or spending time just around my wife (with whom i speak english), i sometimes switch to what i call ‘lazy english’.
what this usually consists of is i allow myself to speak english with the russian /r/ phoneme that is more natural for me, i drop articles, replace continuous and future tense with simple present, use the ‘….,yes?’ construct, avoid contractions (bc the verb ‘to be’ is dropped/implied in russian, so contractions aren’t always natural)
for example, when i’m in ‘lazy english’ mode, this is how my speech varies:
‘i’m making the bed’ = ‘i make bed’.
‘you’ll help me later, right?’ = ‘you help me later, yes?’ (for this one, in russian, the same phrasal construct ends with the word ‘yes’ instead of the word ‘right’)
‘can you give me a tissue?’ = can you give me tissue?’
‘where’s the pen? do you have it?’ = ‘where is pen? you have?’
if you pay attention, you’ll notice that a lot of these patterns also occur in ilya’s speech, especially earlier on. that’s why i’m particularly impressed with the writing of his dialogue — it doesn’t come across as stereotyping/caricatural because the way he speaks english is consistent with russian linguistic/grammatical rules. this is often how russian-speaking people speak english when it is their second language and they’re still learning.
i like to imagine ilya reverting to ‘lazy english’ or speaking in a similar manner to me around shane. it is linguistically consistent and a sign of comfort/deep familiarity with the person.
