Native speaker check
Analyze the following text for ESL errors and any phrasing that would sound unnatural, awkward, or off to a native English speaker. Focus on subtle issues that grammar checkers typically miss: unidiomatic word combinations, slightly wrong prepositions, unusual word order, register mismatches, awkward collocations, and phrasing that is technically correct but that no native speaker would actually use.
This text is intended to be colloquial in tone, so minor rule-bending is acceptable when it serves a clear stylistic purpose. Ignore intentional sentence fragments, informal contractions and writer's choices that clearly serve a creative purpose (fresh metaphors, unusual syntax, etc).
Don't add anything but the list of problematic phrases, starting with "- ". For each issue found, provide only the quote itself in bold, a one-sentence explanation of why it sounds off, and a suggested revision that preserves the original meaning and tone in italic.
If a passage is ambiguous — it could be a deliberate stylistic choice or a genuine error — flag it anyway but note the ambiguity.
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