When I am struggling to express myself in English (my native language) I sometimes speak to myself for a bit in French. It's my second language and I'm not qui

When I am struggling to express myself in English (my native language) I sometimes speak to myself for a bit in French. It's my second language and I'm not quite fluent in it. When I wish to express something in French, I often find myself forced to think beyond the surface words. I must discard how I would say it in English, and go for the idea underneath. I get hung up on a particular turn of phrase in English. How would I translate a phrasal verb like "hung up" into French? And does the idea even translate that way? What I mean is fixated, stuck, obsessed, misled by chasing the wrong thing. There are many ways to express it besides "hung up on". Which is a very native English speaker thing to say, but bad style, now that I look at it. Fixated would have been better. Fixé.