As a non-native speaker, one fascinating phenomenon for me is the flip side to Uncleftish Beholding[1]. Many latinate words are considered more sophisticated, or fancier in general, than germanic words.
Because I'm a native speaker of a Romance language, those are precisely the words that I reach for naturally, because they're familiar. What follows is that, past a certain threshold where your English is good enough, there is a very sudden phase change where people around you go from "you speak pretty good English" to "you speak amazing English" with nothing in between — all of a sudden you're perceived as a peer, and you choice of vocabulary then sets you apart. Ever since I've noticed this I've been trying to make my vocabulary "worse" by incorporating more mundane words into it.
Because I'm a native speaker of a Romance language, those are precisely the words that I reach for naturally, because they're familiar. What follows is that, past a certain threshold where your English is good enough, there is a very sudden phase change where people around you go from "you speak pretty good English" to "you speak amazing English" with nothing in between — all of a sudden you're perceived as a peer, and you choice of vocabulary then sets you apart. Ever since I've noticed this I've been trying to make my vocabulary "worse" by incorporating more mundane words into it.
1. https://msburkeenglish.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/uncleftis...