I appreciate your thoughtful response, Matthew!

Thanks for sharing your story about, and suggestions regarding, the benefits of learning multiple languages. I studied French for several years and so I can relate to the experience of developing a more technical understanding of English as a byproduct of studying a non-English language. For instance, learning how to use l’article partitif en Français led me to develop a deeper comprehension of the partitive article in English, especially after recognizing that we often omit the word ‘some’ in English (e.g., “I ate (some) pasta last night”) whereas its use is standard in French (e.g., “j’ai mangé des pâtes hier soir”). ‘Des’ and ‘some’ are not direct translations of each other but, unlike in English, you’d never (properly) write or say, “j’ai mangé pâtes hier soir” in French.

Concerning the possible error in “…we’d be finished work by now!”, I was writing in a rather colloquial/slang way, which is my mistake. We often say things like, “I’ll be done work soon”, “What are you going to do once you finish work?”, and “I’m finally done work, yes!”. You’re right to suggest that “…we’d be finishing working by now!” could work here. I’ve changed the sentence to “…we’d be finished our work by now!” to make things clearer. Thanks for your input here.