To write better in English

8/7/2019 To write better in English

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To write better in English

Ten Practical Tips for Writing in English

July 12, 2009 by Jarkko Laine

Filed underBlogging, Freelance Advice, Freelance Writing

88 Comments

Online opportunities are not created equal.Although access to the Internet is open to everyone, and the cost of publishing your

thoughts are minimal, language gives a huge advantage to those who have learned

English as their first language. They can reach the whole world by writing in their ownlanguage. For the rest of us, it requires a bit more work.

Im from Finland, a country of 5,2 million inhabitants at the northern end of Europe, right

between Sweden and Russia, so when I started blogging, my decision was easy: if I

wanted to reach more than a handful of people, I had to go with English. If you speakFrench, Spanish or Chinese, there is a bit more incentive for writing in your own

language, but even then, the only way to reach the whole population of our planet is to

write in English.

Its not always easy, so thats why today I am sharing with you the ten most useful andpractical tips for writing in a foreign language that I have learnt during my blogging

career.

1. Read in English

When you want to master a language, you can never read enough.

Every new book, short story or article you read teaches you new words, new ways to

formulate sentences, and more natural ideas on how to use the language. They go to your
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subconscious and slowly start becoming more natural to you, until one day you notice

that you start to think in English and know that youre on the right track.

The easiest way to get started with reading in English rather than your own language is topick up a non-fiction book on a familiar, interesting topic. Non-fiction tends to be easier

to follow than fiction (fiction authors use tricky words to touch their readers feelings)and reading about a familiar topic makes it easier to guess what the author is trying to say

to you when you dont quite understand the words hes using. Dont use a dictionaryunless you really have to just skip the parts you dont understand. If you make your

reading feel too much like work, youll lose the fun in it, and the habit of reading wont

last for long.

Some great, free e-books to get you started:

1. The Medici Effectby Frans Johansson

2. Make a Name for Yourselfby Scott Ginsberg

3. Whys Poignant Guide To Ruby: This is a programming book, but also a readingexperience like no other. I suggest you take a look even if you are not interested

in learning to code in Ruby.

2. Listen to native speakers

Blogging is a form of public speaking, which is why one of the best tips for making yourtext come alive is to write as you speak.

But if you dont speak English every day, this is a rather tricky advice to follow. So, one

thing I have found useful in practicing conversational writing is to watch and listen

natives speak.

The Internet comes to rescue here through podcasts and videos from speaking events.Pick your favorite speakers and listen to them deliver their message. You will learn not

only about how they use the language, but also how to captivate the audience, and a bit

about the topic at hand.

Check out these videos for a good start:

1. Randy Pausch on Time Management

2. Steve Jobs talks to Stanford students

3. Scott Ginsberg, that guy with the nametag, tells you how to be moreapproachable atNametagTV

3. When writing in English, think in English

This is one of the most important tips that separate a decent foreign language writer from

a lousy one. The lousy writer thinks in his own language and then tries to translate his
http://www.themedicieffect.com/downloads/MediciEffect.pdfhttp://hellomynameisscott.blogspot.com/2007/05/nametag-guy-gives-away-his-4th-book-for.htmlhttp://poignantguide.net/ruby/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NAhttp://www.nametagtv.com/http://www.nametagtv.com/http://www.themedicieffect.com/downloads/MediciEffect.pdfhttp://hellomynameisscott.blogspot.com/2007/05/nametag-guy-gives-away-his-4th-book-for.htmlhttp://poignantguide.net/ruby/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NAhttp://www.nametagtv.com/


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thoughts to English. But that simply doesnt work: the idioms, grammar rules, and

cultural differences make text written in this manner sound clumsy and unnatural.

Finnish is probably one of the extreme cases when it comes to grammar. In Finnish weconcatenate a big part of words together (for example a railway station would be called

railwaystation in Finnish) whereas English is full of small words. We have no futuretense. We dont use prepositions but suffixes The list of examples could go on forever.

Thats why every time I set out to write in English, I push all my Finnish thoughts far tothe background and dont even look back. Then I pretend to be English speaking until the

work is done and I can move back to my Finnish self.

I suggest you do the same.

4. Write

The best way to learn anything is by throwing yourself out there and practicing. Withwriting practice is even more important. In fact, I would give you the same advice even if

you were considering writing in your native language. But of course, its even more

important when writing in some other language.

When you are just starting out with your blogging, you should write something every dayto really get your writing routine developed. After a while its OK to drop the pace a bit

although even then, if you want to become best at what you do, keeping up the habit of

daily writing helps a lot.

Write in different styles: lists, humorous posts, serious posts, interviews, and if you have

the time, even text that is completely unrelated to your blog. Just to get more practice.

5. Trust your gut

The human brain is an amazing machine.

You put in the source material by reading, listening to people talk, and speaking. Thenyou start writing your own blog posts and tune in the mind set of writing in English. And

all of the sudden, words just start flowing from straight from your brain to the keyboard.

This can be a bit scary at first as you dont know how you have learned the sayings andword plays you are using, and cant be sure if they are correct or not. Uncertainty is theprice you have to pay for trying to learn to use the language in a natural way. You just

have to go with your gut and trust your brain when it keeps popping up words that you

didnt know you even knew.

I usually write freely on my first cycle, just trying to get the words and ideas out onpaper. And then, on the second round of checking my text I drop sayings that sound too
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uncertain to me or run them through a friend to see if they make sense or not. Usually

they do.

6. Proofread

When you have finished writing your article and it seems nearly perfect to you, the nextthing to do is to check it for typos, grammar mistakes, and just some plain weird

sounding sentences.

The easiest way for checking for typos is to use a spellchecker:

1. If you have a word processor, you can use the spell checker that comes with it.2. If you are using Firefox as your web browser, you can use thebuilt-in spell

checker support.

3. Another option for having a spellchecker in your browser is Google toolbar.4. And finally, if you are using WordPress as your blogging platform, you can use

the spellchecking feature built in to WordPress ever since version 2.1.

Checking for grammar mistakes is a lot trickier. What I do is that I usually check the

grammar first in Microsoft Word or in an online tool and then go through it manually.For manually checking your grammar you can use a checklist of the most common

grammar mistakes(heresanother one) or just play it by the ear, depending on how much

you trust your own English language skills.

And of course, if you want to play it safe, you can always ask one of your Englishspeaking friends to double check your article once you have done all in your own powers.

7. Have English-speaking friends who are not afraid tocorrect your mistakes

The best way to learn to sound like a native is to hang out with them as much as you can.

By paying a close attention to how they speak, you will learn the sayings they use, the

slang, and even the jokes that they throw at you. All of this is important in making your

English sound more natural and conversational rather than something learned from abook.

Instant messaging, e-mailing, or even chatting with them face to face, if possible, are all

good ways to learn from friends. And the best part in all of this you can do it whilehaving a great time getting to know new, interesting people.

When you apply tip number five, having native friends to point out your mistakes gets

even more important. Even my gut goes wrong every now and then, and at times like that

I rely in my friends. When they notice something weird in my posts, they let me knowand guide me to the right direction.
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8. Study spelling and grammar

Yeah. I admit it, this doesnt sound like a lot of fun at all. But to achieve greatness, you

have to put in some effort. And in the end, the reward of learning and becoming moreconfident with your writing is really worth it. Go find the books you were using on your

English courses back in school, or if you cant find them, check if there are any goodcourse books at the local library.

If you still want to go one step further, you can enroll to a language course. Just makesure to pick one that is mostly about creative writing, because that will get you moving

faster towards your goal.

But you dont have to go that far for good results. These days you can find pretty much

everything on the web also material for studying English. Check out these links to getstarted:

1. Visual thesaurus: A fun way to improve your vocabulary by finding synonymsand related words. The page also contains word lists and a word of the day. Forexample, today I learned that Sesquipedalian is a fancy word that simply means

long.

2. 40+ Tips to Improve your Grammar and Punctuation: Asesquipedalian list of tips

and tricks to improve your English from the Dumb Little Man blog.3. Dictionary.com: I use Dictionary.com mostly for checking up words that I have

used when Im not sure if they mean what I think they do. But thats not all you

can do with this brilliant web site. They have an interesting feature called reversedictionary that looks up words when you write few words to describe their

meaning, and a good list of further online resources for writers to check out.

4. The Economist Style Guide: The guide book given to all journalists who write forThe Economist. Most of the advice applies really well to blogging.

With online services like these you will soon notice that learning English is indeed a fun

activity that fuels your curiosity and gets you even more excited on your writing.

9. Commas and hyphenation the tricky buggers

Commas are hard. Hyphenation nearly impossible.

The good thing here is that not even the English speaking bloggers always get thesethings right. But does that mean you dont have to worry about them? No. If you want to

be a great writer, you have to try to practice the hard things as well.

Lets tackle hyphenation first: Definitive rules for how to do this right dont even exist,so the trick I have adopted is simply to never do it. When blogging, you can always keep

words in one piece and thus never make hyphenation mistakes.
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Unfortunately you cant get past commas and punctuation that easily. All you can do is to

learn about using them and then always double check your text to see if your punctuation

is correct.

1. Tips on Using Commas at Dumb Little Man.

2. Top 4 Guidelines for Using Commas Effectively at About.com.

10. Relax

Last comes the most important tip of all: Relax, and enjoy your writing. To be a greatwriter, you have to put in a lot of effort, but its not going to happen overnight. So, while

you are practicing, dont panic. Just write the best content you can with the skill set you

have right now. Put it online on your own blog and learn more as you go.

Also, when you think about it, blogging is quite a forgiving platform: many of yourreaders are not from the English speaking parts of the world and wont notice the small

mistakes you make with things like prepositions or commas. Plus, people these days arebusy. They dont have time to stop and read every word you write. While that can beannoying in the sense that you cant get their full attention, it also means that they wont

notice all of your mistakes either.

Relax, have fun, and share your thoughts with the world!
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