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My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

lewro.com

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Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

#21
post #6

Firstly, 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 :)

A few years ago for my day job I was technical consultant on a demonstration being given to the Bulgarian Navy. Our equipment worked perfectly from the moment it was installed, so apart from helping our partners solve a problem with their kit, I had very little to do. I had a Bulgarian phrase book, so I decided to test out this technique:

http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/LearningLanguages.html?HN

I went to the local shops and bought a copy in Bulgarian of "Men At Arms" by Terry Pratchett, and I set about decrypting it.

As you might expect, I didn't really get all that far in four days, but I was able to go to the local shops and order coffee, comment on the weather, reply to questions about my work, and read the menu. I could also do some actual shopping, with considerable tolerance from the vendors, no doubt, but without anything other than Bulgarian and good will.

We had a formal dinner at the end, and as the Rear Admiral came down the line shaking hands I said "Blagodarya" (can't write Cyrillic) and he stopped dead in his tracks. "You speak Bulgarian?" he asked, in tones of great surprise. "Only a few hundred words - I've only been here 3 days" was my reply. He proceeded to quiz me on common phrases, and seemed surprised and impressed.

Later, when we all got a "Thank You" email, I was the only one whose email was personalised. More, even though that contract was never awarded, we have since been contacted to start negotiations for other work. Clearly the episode made an impression.

Sadly, after leaving I didn't have the chance to continue practising and I lost it all quite quickly, but there was a magic period of a few hours where I was really getting the hang of communicating (comprehension was significantly better than synthesis), and it has made me regret again my mono-lingual background.

Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

#22
post #12

The 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.

Thanks Noah! I am building project management application. I expect it to be used by freelancers and small companies. I guess it would be better if I hire someone. I hope good copy-righter could help me to present the service in the right “light”.

In the interests of assisting your English:

You mean "copy-writer" as in "one who writes copy (text)". And I don't think you need someone else to write your copy. I think you just need someone to make small corrections to your copy. You need a "copy-editor".

I think it's important that the voice is yours, even if someone else helps with the grammar and/or spelling. Your English is clearly good enough to communicate what you intend to say. It just needs a little tidying.

Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

#23

How many people clicked the down arrow expecting to see more content? What's the reasoning behind reversing the longstanding tradition of down means down?

Certainly I did. I understand the reasoning, the arrow shows which way the text will move. The convention is that the arrow shows where your eyes want to go.

Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

#24
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

The "Reply" link doesn't show up immediately. On deeper comments it takes longer to show up, thus discouraging the "flame exchange" problem.

Are you willing to put contact details in your profile? Or email me for more comments, suggestions and random advice?

Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

#25
post #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.

As a quick example, the link grammar immediately highlighted that your second sentence:

  > I have been living in London for past 6 years
  > and my English still sucks.
doesn't parse. You need a "the" before "past" for natural sounding English. It really might help a lot, and perhaps get your error rate down to an acceptable level without having to pay for external assistance.

As a footnote, in the fourth sentence it did not pick up that you meant "conversation" and not "conversion."

Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

#26

How many people clicked the down arrow expecting to see more content? What's the reasoning behind reversing the longstanding tradition of down means down?

Certainly I did. I understand the reasoning, the arrow shows which way the text will move. The convention is that the arrow shows where your eyes want to go.

That is good point guys, I will need to change that. Thanks!

Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a native speaker of American English. It was certainly readable, but some of the sentence constructions were stilted enough to distract me. Here's my extremely pedantic edit, which also changes the tone to be more conversational: http://pastebin.com/f4c49579f HTH :)

Thanks! And if anyone wishes to see the changes: paste both texts into http://www.quickdiff.com/index.php and hit 'Compare' Okay, if any of you actually went through the exercise of pasting it onto quickdiff.com, you probably noticed how aggravating it was to copy & paste from that container. Really a bigger turn-off in terms of UI than his English skills, in my opinion.

Thank you for this! I am not sure if I should change the copy now as it would probably does not make sense for people who would come later to read the article and there would be no mistakes.

Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

#29

The 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.

I disagree. Regardless of your target audience, bad grammar and bad spelling are going to make your site look less professional; even teenagers will notice that.

Also, teenagers' bad grammar follows a certain pattern that is quite different than the "I don't speak the language fluently" pattern.

Re: My English sucks. How much does it devalue my message?

#30
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wondering what made you learn Bulgarian, I'm bulgarian that's why I ask :)

A few years ago for my day job I was technical consultant on a demonstration being given to the Bulgarian Navy. Our equipment worked perfectly from the moment it was installed, so apart from helping our partners solve a problem with their kit, I had very little to do. I had a Bulgarian phrase book, so I decided to test out this technique: http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/LearningLanguages.html?HN I went to the local sho…

Thanks for sharing the story!
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