So, are my English writings readable, of tolerable style?

[Turanil]

Ah, thanks for the encouragements everybody. Also thanks to keep my head from overheating, in telling me that writing a novel professionally requires more than writing posts on a forum. Now I must go and write it down.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

As I can confirm from personal experience.

Same here. I just lack the "umph" to get off my butt and do it. Although a healthy dollop of "Ehh, it'd suck, anyway" also keeps me from starting.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Same here. I just lack the "umph" to get off my butt and do it. Although a healthy dollop of "Ehh, it'd suck, anyway" also keeps me from starting.

Yes, it would suck.



j/k


Turanil: you do write better English than alot of people here in the US. Yes, there's an odd "turn of phrase" here and there but it's not too distracting. Basically, you have to practice and practice some more to get to the level where you could send submissions to various editors. And don't get turned down by the rejection slips. From what I've heard, you'll get alot of those before you get a "nibble". And keep whatever job you have: most writers I know of have a "regular joe" job to pay the bills. It's only a small fraction of published writers who can afford to live on nothing but their writings. Maybe check out "e-publishing"-it seems to be the thing these days to have an e-published book out there...

 

[Psionicist]

I think there are four different camps, divided by spelling (good or bad) and grammar (good or bad). Most non-native speakers considered fairly good in English, by local standards at least, are good at spelling but not necessarily grammar. I am in this camp, I regularly mix up the simplest things such as was/were and the like, and it generally takes me a couple of hours to realize it. I have no freaking idea when to use necessary or necessarily for example, or when to append -s to words. Stuff like that. Unfortunately these things are hard to check. It's easy to google tricky words to figure out how to spell it, and if you are really lucky you can google a whole sentence to see if the grammar is correct, but that's rare. I guess Turanil is in the same boat. His grammar is better than mine mind you, but it's still grammar and that's where the problem is. No easy way to verify it's correct what I know of. :/

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Psionicist: that's why you have at least one other person look over your writing. They should be able to pick up stuff you might miss (and often do!). We do that with our convention's program book. One guy does it and the rest of us edit it.

 

[jgbrowning]

So, are my English writings readable, of tolerable style?

This is a bit strange, but correct. I'd go with "Are my English writings readable and of tolerable style?" A less formal would be "Is my English readable and of tolerable style?"

I spend my time writing and reading stuff in English (mostly on Enworld). However it's not my native language. More than once, some people (native English-speakers) told me that I write in English fairly well. However, I myself cannot check if it is the case or not...

Great start. Using parantheticals well, flows well. I'd never guess you weren't native.

Now it happens that I still intend to write a novel of my own (sci-fi). However, I won't write it in French, as there is almost no public for it in this country... I was thinking of writing it directly in English instead. Nonetheless, writing messageboard posts is one thing, and writing a novel is another... When I look at some English novels and try to see the words used, the grammar, the style, etc., it suddenly looks far less easy that it seemed to me (to write a novel in English) at first sight.

The use of ... is a little too much but fine for a message board post. You could just use a . in place of the ... and it would be better.

So my question is: for all of you who have read many of my posts at one time or another, what do you think of my writing style? Is it poor, just tolerable, or does it look like written by an English native? Do you think my knowledge of English is enough to write a novel?

Thanks for your imputs. If you are harsh with me on that point, I will be able to live with it.

Honestly, this is a great post that no native english speaker would think was written by a non-native speaker (except for the subject matter of course ). The second-to-last line is a bit strange and I'd say "Thanks for your imput" (I know you want many different inputs, but you make input plural without the "s" *I think you can have inputs from a Computer Science standpoint but your asking for a non-technical reason*) but even then it's not so strange that anyone would think about it. I'd just assume you'd made a mistake that any other native speaker would make.

I think you can pull it off. Go for it! Your grammar is probably quite a bit better than mine already.

joe b.

 

[William Ronald]

Turanil, your English language writing skills are very good. In addition to the advice on this thread, perhaps you might want to pick up a very useful book called The Elements of Style by William H. Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. As a former reporter, I found it to be useful for answering some of the grammar questions that I faced from time to time.

Based on your postings here at EN World, I think that you have little to worry about in terms of the English language. I would advice that you find someone who is a native or fluent English speaker to read your manuscript. This will serve two goals. First, the reader can critique your English and perhaps make some suggestions on usage and style. Second, it will give you some feedback on the quality of your writing.

 

[tarchon]

Honestly, this is a great post that no native english speaker would think was written by a non-native speaker

I dunno - am I just reading more closely than everyone else? Turanil's English is pretty good, but there must be a dozen distinct usage quirks in it. Nobody else noticed "or does it look like written by an English native?"
More correct: "...or does it look like it was written by a native English speaker?"
Or potentially: "... or does it look like something written by a native English speaker?"

"More than once, some people [...] told me that I write in English fairly well" is also a pretty strong indicator - very few second-language speakers ever master English tense and aspect, but native speakers would almost use the perfect there, plus there's the partitive use of "some" - very typical of French ESL. "Some" is a source of constant confusion among most French people I know. Normally, we'd say "More than once, people have told me..."

In this case, the difference in aspect ("told" vs. "have told") is due to the non-narrative nature of the statement. If I was recounting some specific event that happened to me at the grocery store last week, I might say "At the grocery store, some people told me that I speak English very well." This, on the other hand, isn't narrating an event but describing a habitual action ("more than once"), which would be "People have often told me that I speak English very well" or (since it isn't placed in the past by the adverb "once") "People often tell me that I speak English very well."

 

[Zenodotus of Ephesus]

So, are my English writings readable, of tolerable style?

What did you call me?




[/Joe Pesci] Just Kidding!




Yeah, you're fine enough for me, Dom.

 

[jgbrowning]

I dunno - am I just reading more closely than everyone else? Turanil's English is pretty good, but there must be a dozen distinct usage quirks in it.

You work for the CIA right?

There are signs that indicate he's a non-native, but I don't know if they'd be noticed by very many people reading fantasy/sci-fi. I'm sure I make more mistakes in my posts, for example.

joe b.