Learn English – I thought of it too

I think we need to clarify a couple of definitions:

• Native English speaker – A person whose first language is English (they learned English from birth or as a very young child), and for whom English is the primary means of communication.

• Fluent English speaker – A person who learned English later in life (i.e. as an older child, teenager, or adult), and who is very proficient in both spoken and written English.

There is nothing wrong with not being a native English speaker, and many non-native speakers have far better English skills than myriads of native speakers.

By and large get off is proper in two circumstances:

• When the idiom for the activity which you’re ending involves being on something. We speak of being on the telephone or on the treadmill or going on line, so it makes sense to end these by getting off.

• When the idiom for being uninvolved in the activity is expressed with off. We speak about being off work or off duty, of being off rhythm or off our feed, so it makes sense to enter those states by getting off.

But the idiom is not ordinarily extendable to other situations. And you have to be careful. As Wendi Kidd has discreetly pointed out, get off has an explicitly sexual meaning, to achieve orgasm; and although that meaning is frequently extended to non-sexual activities in the sense “experience a rush of excitement”, or even simply “enjoy” (I get off on answering ELL questions), it’s still not a meaning you intend. If you say “I just got off reading the novel” people will probably think you are making a different mistake than the one you’re actually making!