My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
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Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
#2Firstly, I most highly commend you for your existing use of English. It's not an easy language to learn, and the item you've pointed to is really rather good - I only spotted a few small errors that matter, and I'm very picky. It's certainly much, much better than I ever got at French, German, Danish, Swedish, Bulgarian or Spanish. Overall, they didn't really detract from the item.
For many people it won't matter much, but for a few it definitely will. You need to decide how much it matters to you, and if you decide it matters, you need a copy-editor. You don't want someone to write the copy, you just want someone to tidy it up and remove the worst of the errors without changing the content much.
What contacts do you have? My circle of contacts would, for me, each copy-edit a few hundred words a fortnight. Depending how much I wrote, that would probably be enough without imposing on them too much. I'd also then buy them a beer, or cook them a meal every couple of weeks to say thank you.
There are also tools such as the Link Grammar. After spell checking, type what you want into that and see if you get one parse. If so, you're done. It's easy to download and install, and not so hard to automate.
That would be my recommendation.
PS: I'm a complete grammar-nazi and am probably much more severe than most people. Trust me - it was pretty good.
Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
#3@RiderOfGiraffes Thanks a lot for your feedback.
I really appreciate it! Thanks also for pointing me to the right direction. I am going to check the Link Grammar.
Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
#4Firstly, I most highly commend you for your existing use of English. It's not an easy language to learn, and the item you've pointed to is really rather good - I only spotted a few small errors that matter, and I'm very picky. It's certainly much, much better than I ever got at French, German, Danish, Swedish, Bulgarian or Spanish. Overall, they didn't really detract from the item. For many people it won't matter muc…
I agree completely with this. While it is admirable that you have come this far with your English, poor English will interfere with your message for a lot of people. There is no shame in hiring a copy editor, best selling novelists rely heavily on their editors.
I would also advise that you read more. Pick up a novel that you find interesting. The more you expose yourself to well written English, the better your English will become.
Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
#5@marilyn Thank you! I actually read a lot but no novels. I usually read rails, design books and tech blogs these days. I will need to find some time and squeeze some novel in so it is not tech oriented content only.
Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
#6Firstly, I most highly commend you for your existing use of English. It's not an easy language to learn, and the item you've pointed to is really rather good - I only spotted a few small errors that matter, and I'm very picky. It's certainly much, much better than I ever got at French, German, Danish, Swedish, Bulgarian or Spanish. Overall, they didn't really detract from the item. For many people it won't matter muc…
Wondering what made you learn Bulgarian, I'm bulgarian that's why I ask :)
Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
#7@RiderOfGiraffes Thanks a lot for your feedback. I really appreciate it! Thanks also for pointing me to the right direction. I am going to check the Link Grammar.
On hacker news, you respond to messages using the "reply" link below the comment rather than using twitter '@' style replies.
Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
#8@RiderOfGiraffes Thanks a lot for your feedback. I really appreciate it! Thanks also for pointing me to the right direction. I am going to check the Link Grammar.
On hacker news, you respond to messages using the "reply" link below the comment rather than using twitter '@' style replies.
I am sorry, I missed the reply link. I will know from now on. Thanks!
Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
#9I've lived in London and in the US for a while and English is my third language (after Romanian and German). I'm quite proficient in English, not as good as my mother tongue, but I understand everything that is said to me and my vocabulary is quite extensive; however my accent is east-european with no doubt.
What I've found out is that while Americans are a lot more insensitive (tolerant?) to broken accents the British absolutely can't stand it. They avoid talking to people with bad accent and will generally walk away form any conversation with somebody of a non-british accent. I've observed this with brits around the world, not only in the UK and for sure it's not related to talking among conationals only: generally they are willing to engage in conversations with people that are obviously not british as long as they speak proper english with proper accent.
Of course you can not generalize the above to every brit in the world however this is my observation.
About blogs I observed in a comparative study that pages not ending in .com are just a bit less likely to be clicked.
About a written message, what can I say? If the English is badly broken I get annoyed too. If there are minor spelling mistakes it does not bother me, substance prevails over form.
Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?
#10The linked blog post is certainly quite acceptable, grammatically.
Different audiences have different reactions to bad grammar. Financial professionals are put off by it, while teenagers expect it. Are you building ETrade, or MySpace? For something like ETrade, that's a handicap -- get an editor or a copywriter. For something like MySpace, you're fine.