This is true, but given human nature it unlikely that people will both to go to the effort of learning a second or third language once there is an easier approach.

Which is a shame, since the value of learning a second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc) language isn't limited to being able to converse with the people who speak it. Learning a new language can help you understand the world and yourself to a greater degree than is possible when you're forced to think inside the confines of a single language. It's a trippy feeling the first time you realize that you're unable to translate something from an acquired language into your native language not because you don't understand what you're attempting to translate, but because none of the words in your native tongue feel right. But it eventually starts to happen a lot and you realize that there's so much that you weren't able to easily conceptualize because you were constrained by the limits of your native tongue.

There is an established theory that language shapes your thoughts. If you only know one language, then you are confined to a single way of thinking.

Another interesting phenomena is that you are more logical in a 2nd or 3rd language than you are in your mother tongue, where you are more emotional. This can be a useful superpower.

I have a personal hobby of trying to find one of these thoughts that only can be thought of in one language and not another and I have yet to find one. All modern languages seem to be able to be used to express all human thoughts that can be expressed with any language.

In english it is very common to say that you are a "mommy" or "daddy" of your pet. It sounds normal and acceptable.

In Slovenian it sounds like you're a mental patient who thinks they gave birth to a dog. So most people switch to English to express said sentiment since we imported it from US television.

Even though we have a direct translation for the word "mommy", all the submeanings do not directly translate. So we sometimes use them as separate different words.

I have to say even in English you sound like you are unhinged if you say you are the mommy or daddy of a pet.

The concept here that is trying to be expressed is that you are the loving owner of the pet - loving like a parent is of a child. I am sure that this concept exists in Slovenian even if expressed using different words.

People have begun to say this in the US, and it drives me nuts as a native speaker of English. I do not find it normal or acceptable.

If you want kids, have kids or adopt them. Don't take an animal and twist it into filling your own emotional needs by treating it like a human infant.

My only anecdata is that I have only noticed it in the past few years, and it makes my skin crawl. Don't know how to get good data on the extent or prevalence of this practice, sounds like a lot of work.

I'm describing an extreme, but I reckon it's the case that in American society there has been a significant increase in the use of animals for emotional work. As in treating domestic animals as pets and members of the family rather than work animals (for deterring vermin, hunting, guide work, &c.). Referring to pets by familial terms is a linguistic reflection of that.

> People have begun to say this in the US

I encountered it first in the 1970s -- when my age was in the single digits. It might have been new then, but few people seemed to think it was noteworthy, so I doubt it. So, I think "have begun" is somewhat of a misrepresentation.

> Don't take an animal and twist it into filling your own emotional needs by treating it like a human infant.

IME, virtually none of the people who use this language treat their pets "like a human infant", and many of them have either biological or adopted children as well as pets.

This same concept exists within a language too.

I can only speak for English, but there are many concepts that can only be expressed in "high" English. You can be faced with trying to explain some concept to someone when they don't have the vocabulary to understand. You can simplify what you say to get across a shadow of the idea, but it just does not feel right.

I've noticed that after I switched to watching most English movies with the original audio track, rather than the German dub. To the point where my usually-German internal monologue would sometimes flip to English because some idioms are only available in English, and I wouldn't notice until several sentences later.

I've come across the latter concept myself despite only speaking english, and basically intend to learn another language for the reasons you mentioned. Not 100% sure which one, though.