Hi everyone, My name is Laure (well... my alias is Laure). I'm a French writer. I'm published in my country but my unattainable dream is to be able to write professionally in English. I'm pretty sure it will never happen but it doesn't stop me from working on it. I only learned English at school and in movies. I read it very well but my grammar is really deficient (sequence of tenses, I hate you). So I started a tumblr which I'm gonna try to update regularly. Two native English speakers told me that the result was "ok", so I'm now taking the plunge and... showing it to people I don't know personally. I really hope I don't sound like a lolcatz. Besides that... I'm in my 30's, I've got two kids, I love movies, archery, hiking, books obviously... and I'm a semi-professional actress. And I'm nervous but very happy to be here
You're already more successful than half of us here, so I don't see why it won't happen. Welcome to the forums!
Thank you Well, I guess I'll eventually be able to speak and write in English without mistakes. But sounding like a native native is something else. We'll see.
Welcome to the forum. Take heart in knowing that it can be done, Laure. I work as an interpreter and only two of the five languages I hold in my brain were learned when I was young. There others were had after adulthood. Your writing looks pretty good to me so far, so it would seem you have the knack of it. Please have a look through the Forum Rules, and the FAQ as a start. Have fun! Wrey
Living in France myself, may I inquire what book you've published? Otherwise, welcome to the forums and good luck
Is it too expensive to have your work translated from French to English? I'm reading "One Hundred Years of Solitude" in English, but its original language is Spanish. I don't think it lost anything in the translation.
Welcome Laure. I only had five years of French class, so I appreciate the wanting to write better in a foreign language. Perhaps I should practice my French with you and you can polish your English with me. Haha. There is a woman on a fan fiction site I frequent who is French, but nannies in America. Her stories, I never would have guessed were from a non native English speaker. Bonne chance.
Thanks all ! Dagolas : I'm sending you a private message. That's not a secret, I can tell anyone who'd ask, but since my English blog contains some autofiction based on real events, I wouldn't like the protagonists to recognise themselves if Google sends them here Wreybies : The problem is I tend to lose my skills when I stop reading/writing/speaking English for some weeks... It gets really frustrating, but I don't give up ! Robert_S : It's not that expensive but still too much for me, so it depends on my publishers. I guess I could translate them myself and get double-checked, but the thing is I really love English langage and I'd like to write my own stories directly in English. It's a totally different mechanism, more straighforward. You can convey quite different emotions with it and it's very interesting. BFGuru : Merci ! The French fanficcer gives me some hope
Bienvenue, Laure! ça va? Welcome to the forums! I also write in English even though it's not my mothertongue either. I suggest you read a lot of novels in English and, of course, write as much as you can And don't worry about mistakes -- learn from them!
Thanks a lot KaTrian ! Why do I feel like every time I "meet "someone from Northern Europe, he/she is able to speak and write fluently half a dozen different langages ? I whish I went in school there
Hello Laure and welcome to the forum! I say that as if I have been here a while but that is deceiving. I am brand new here, and just really wanting to meet some new people who've joined around the same time. I know a bit of Spanish but I am not fluent. In our endeavours to learn new languages, I think it definitely helps to have someone to speak with - in that language - on a daily basis.
Heh, I dunno... In Finland you have to learn two languages, English and Swedish. Many kids also study French, Russian, or German. We're lucky to have pretty good language teaching here, even if I say so myself, being an English teacher in training
Hi RemedyOfLiterature ! Welcome to you ! KaTrian : In France, you have to learn one langage (usually English). Most people learn two (English and Spanish or English and German). But we start quite late (around 12 years old), mostly focuse on literary writing and reading, and work in too big groups of students to really learn if we're not super-motivated.
I have a very stupid question: I decided to totally change my English website and post with my real name. Do you know if it is possible to modify my username accordingly here? If not, never mind, I'll be "Laure" for ever
hi, 'laure'!... i'm glad to see you decided to introduce yourself... i don't know how one would go about changing their username, but you might ask daniel, the site owner... you can reach him here: https://www.writingforums.org/members/daniel.1/ love and hugs, maia
