Hello there! I am new here, and I have a problem: I loooove how English sounds. This is a problem because I want to write my little stories, but I simply cannot write them in my native language because—to be honest—they sound so silly. But in English? Oh boy. In English everything sounds JUST. SO. GOOD. I could not possibly write in any other language. I have thousands of questions though... You see, I know a lot of vocabulary and I have studied the grammar, but the English in my head just doesn't click like it should. When I'm writing something, I know without a doubt how the tense should be in my native language, and if I write something wrong it simply sounds wrong. But in English? It's very hard for me to tell if I'm writing something right or something wrong. Everything in English sounds just perfect to me! I find myself having hundreds of silly questions about verb tenses and prepositions and set phrases that may or may not mean what I think they mean... I need a mentor. Or a BUNCH of them! I hope I've come to the right place. Please help me. Help me write better English. Enlighten me with your native English knowledge!
Kind of a broad request... if you post part of your writing I can show you where the English is wrong, but I can't find a flaw in your actual post here. My impression is that you're already proficient enough. What's your native language, if you don't mind me asking?
My advice to you would be the same as Ray Bradbury's advice: “If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
Thank you for your offer and your kind words. I have already started a thread with a particular problem I'm having while writing a diary style fic. You can find it here: link I assure you, you won't think I'm proficient once you see the bizarre verb tenses of the fragment I posted in the previous link haha Oh, and my native language is Spanish
True on both counts. @Mouthwash has good input for you on the other thread. You do come across as a non-native speaker, @Maksynne, but very fluent--more fluent than many Americans. This forum is a good place for you to learn. I've been here about a week and these folks have helped me a great deal. I'm certain you'll learn well. Yo hablo un poco de español, so I can see where some of the verb tenses can be a pain in the...burro. Conjugation has always been difficult for me with Spanish, because there are a lot of verbs in Spanish. English is its own special hell, mostly because it likes to mug other languages in dark alleys and shake out their pockets for spare words. Welcome to the forum.
Hahaha this had me laughing so much Oh my goodness, do I have an accent in written English as well? Yeah, I definitely think this forum is going to be a great source for learning. I really need natives to teach me how to sound a little less foreign. And hey, if you need any advice en Español I'm here for you!
I would call it "formality." Most Americans (even those of us who write better than our fellow native English-speakers) tend to be more relaxed in our writing. Yours has a sense of formality to it, which is natural when you've learned a second language. In my Spanish classes at school, I was taught how to speak very politely and accurately, so it came across as comically formal to native Spanish speakers. I used what little Spanish I knew to help a Mexican fellow at a gas station once, and he laughed to have a guy speak so formally to him. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes your writing come across that way, but it's not bad. It just seems more exacting than most. I appreciate your offer to help me with Spanish; it's something I'd like to round out so I can speak it fluently. You said English is beautiful, and I feel that way about Spanish. I really enjoy a lot of Spanish music, both for the lyrics and the music itself. Spain, Mexico, and several places in Central and South America are on my bucket list to visit when I'm rich and famous less poor and published.
Yes, I think you are 100% right. Anytime! I speak peninsular Spanish, so if you learnt Spanish in the States it might be a bit different, but seriously anytime. It's funny, just the other day I was comparing two texts that said the exact same thing—one in Spanish and one in English—and I swear, the Spanish text sounded hilarious! haha Anyway, I'm happy that you think so. Spanish can be so beautiful indeed.
Welcome to the forum @Maksynne. I feel your pain mate. I'm not a native English speaker either, and I struggled a lot when I first started writing. I don't have as much problem with it now, English comes naturally to me, but I do still occasionally have trouble finding the proper word for conveying a certain idea or I might goof up with sentence structures and such from time to time. But for the most part I'm proficient and English hasn't felt like a foreign language to me for a long long time. I guess the best thing you can do is practice, by writing. Write and write and write some more and you'll get better bit by bit. That plus getting help from communites like this one is the best way for you to improve. Good luck Also it's kinda interesting to me that you're saying things sound funny in your native tongue of Spanish 'cause for me personally, Spanish always sounds so beautiful when spoken. I've been trying to learn it for a while now, actually, I've been using Dualingo, it's pretty good website for learning languages. Mind you, I'm still very much a beginner but I'm improving, slowly but surely! Would be great to be able to speak it fluently, hopefully someday soon .
@Fernando.C thanks for the encouragement! I'm gad to see there is hope for someone like me. Yes, spoken Spanish sounds really good. Its just that when its written it sounds so old fashioned, like a fragment from "El Quixote" or something ha ha I feel that English is so elastic. You can mold it and shape it and it always sounds cool, no matter if you are writing something set on the middle ages or in a futuristic setting. English is just so... perfect. Oh, and good luck with your studies! If you want to practice Spanish feel free to send me a message
Thanks, I might just take you up on that offer at some point . Likewise I'm always available to help with whatever writing issue you need help with. Just drop me a pm if you need help.
