Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tade0 | Hacker News Reader

I have a blog but it's been a struggle to create new entries since I realized that my writing - at least in English - is not amazing - to put it mildly.

I was made aware of that by my friend who studied English for years and also dated a translator (some "expanding brain" meme potential over here), who agreed to correct one of my posts - and correct he did.

I have a lot to say, but just not enough time to write it down and publish.

So yeah, this will definitely land in my CV, but I don't expect it to be useful for anything else anytime soon.

View on HN

Your English is great if this post is anything to go by. Also, I think people are quite forgiving of language mistakes if the content is interesting. Don't let your self-consciousness get in the way of sharing cool stuff!

> Also, I think people are quite forgiving of language mistakes if the content is interesting.

True, but working with English native speakers I noticed that the level of engagement I can get from them depends not only on whether my writing is correct, but also on its style. The same applies to non-native speakers, but to a lesser extent.

Anyway style is something I know I need to work on if I'm to wow someone else than a HR person from a local IT company.

I regularly read blog posts written people who are clearly not native English speakers, and often they choose to not even use English at all (in which case I use a translation service). If you content is useful to me, I am perfectly willing to jump through hoops to get at it. I am much more forgiving of language mistakes than perfectly-written English blogspam.

Have you gotten the same kind of feedback on writing your native language?

It may be that some of the tips you were getting, are just good communication advice, and not specific to just English.

In other words, getting lots of corrections is a very good thing! It's probably the fastest way to become a much better writer in any language!

I read this and some of your other posts. As a native English speaker who's read many technical papers, I think your English is totally fine, full stop. Moreover, it's far from being any kind of barrier for technical writing, where the fine points of sentence construction, grammar, flow, etc. are much less important than a clear exposition of ideas.

Have you considered publishing posts in both English and your native language? Since the software dev world tends to be rather English-centric, it could be a breath of fresh air for peers who share your language to be able to read posts not in English.

But your English seems perfect. What is your blog?

Thanks, that's always nice to hear. Anyway, here goes:

https://wringing.it/

The styling (or lack thereof) is like that on purpose. Like I said I wasn't expecting anyone except for a few friends to see it before I had a decent amount of posts.

I wouldn't give two more seconds of thought to your English writing skills—most of my native English speaking friends can't write this well! I would never have been able to tell that it's not your native language.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com