Forum: Author Hangout

So many of the nuances are missed by English as a second/foreign language courses, such as order of adjectives.

True. The other hard part about writing a good story in English is most people who learn English without being immersed in it end up speaking technically correct English, which is known as being the worst level of English for writing a story or anything entertaining.

True. The other hard part about writing a good story in English is most people who learn English without being immersed in it end up speaking technically correct English, which is known as being the worst level of English for writing a story or anything entertaining.

That's especially true, because what often breathes life into stories are the personal idioms of the language, the clever quips which capture a collective culture knowledge. Knowing 'movie' English is one thing, and will get you a step closer, but knowing how a native culture emphasizes certain things—including what they avoid mentioning—are often powerful. This is especially true if you're trying to capture the tension between characters. It's hard to represent that without knowing the typical 'tics' English speaker traditional reveal during their speech.

There is no way to "Talk like an American." You can talk like a Bostonian, or talk like a Pittsburgher. Only for English audiences is talking like a Yank possible.

Sort of. In general, the 'flat, Midwestern accent' is the one you hear on the news more than any other (faked or real). Tom Brokaw (NBC), Dan Rather (CBS), and Peter Jennings (ABC) all approximated it. So did Bernard Shaw (CNN).

The short-a (as in cat) is raised and diphthongized before nasal consonants. Hence man and can't are pronounced something like ("meh-uhn" and "keh-uhnt.")

Rhotic, meaning the r is pronounced at the end of words like car and mother.

Words like lot and rod are pronounced with an unrounded vowel, as "laht" and "rahd".

And so on...

Words like lot and rod are pronounced with an unrounded vowel, as "laht" and "rahd".

But Americans can't pronounce 't', hence the names Hedy and Hettie are homophones :(

AJ

Just one such man, Tachi, was absolutely fluent after a year - accent, grammar, choice and use of words etc. because he claimed he had a "pillow dictionary"

Lot of military guys I know are very fluent in other languages for exactly that reason. LBFB's were good for teaching languages ... as well as other things.

A reader once

It's very unwise to take the opinion of a single reader as gospel.

I agree with Bruce in that sometimes you write things that, although comprehensible, don't feel right. Correcting them would make your story flow more seamlessly and may even improve the story's score, although at 8.58 with 1548 votes cast, it's not going to make a seismic difference.

AJ

Whose opinion would you suggest to take as gospel instead?

You could accept either mine or your own! (sarcasm off)

Whose opinion would you suggest to take as gospel instead?

No-one - that would be an appeal to authority.

However, if you want your writing to appeal to the widest audience, you need to have some awareness of what that widest audience prefers. I've certainly had individual readers express opinions that are wildly out of sync with the majority, and I would expect that to be true of most of the authors here.

AJ

A reader once bemoaned the loss of the 'foreign flair' in my writing when I reposted the first parts of a story after a native English speaker reviewed and edited it. So don't make the mistake to believe that your view (which isn't especially directed at you or meant to single you out, Bruce) on the propper way to write a story in English is an irrefutable truth.

That's especially true, in the case of Ernest's writings, when you're going for the 'fish out of water' situation of a foreigner bringing their perspective to a story set in the U.S., England or Australia. You don't need to surrender your background, as it adds the flavor that much of us cherish in writing, but you need to learn how to accentuate it by enfolding it into the context.

Trying to write 'American' is tough for those who aren't regularly exposed to the culture, so preserving your 'outsider status' often offers a fresh and unique perspective.

And as much as you had some trouble with it, as many of us will, robberhands, I think that editors can often help interject many of the native idioms and nuanced speech patterns that non-native speakers can't pull out of their hat.

I would like that but I'm pretty sure my editor would just laugh at me.

Mine wouldn't laugh, but there are some things I ask to be edited that just languish, as they don't think they're time critical. Besides, if I asked anyone to edit every forum post, they'd never do anything else! 'D

One good place to look for this, at least for contemporary fashion, would be the on-line stores for clothing retailers in the US, Canada, UK or Australia, depending on what version of English you are trying to target.

That's actually exactly what I do for dresses; but what if I want to know the name of a specific kind of tree? for that I have to figure out where that tree normally grows, then find a sort of knowledge encyclopedia of all the plants that grow in that specific area, and then search until I find the name of the tree. It's different for every subject.

The sad thing is, I could probably get away with not caring so much, but I'm a slave to my compulsions.

It is an extra level of effort. However many of us with English as our native language would have similar problems. To use your tree example, many of us don't know the difference in appearance between an oak and a walnut tree. We would know what the tree we are thinking of looks like, but coming up with its name is another matter.

That's actually exactly what I do for dresses; but what if I want to know the name of a specific kind of tree?

There are smartphone apps for identifying trees, which I'm sure are customizable by language. Of course, you have to live by one in order to take a picture of it first.

I have issues with specific names when describing things.

I use Wikipedia for a lot of research. Want to know about the flora and fauna of an area, Wiki usually has a good answer, the same on clothing, do a search on clothing and it usually has links to various eras and fashions. Same is true for most. The worst case it gives you more information to use when refining the search on the general Internet.

Anyways,these are a few of the prominent problems I've encountered. Honestly, I don't think there's any easy fix to any of them. IMO, perseverance and working harder than a native speaker is the only solution to improving, although having a good editor is an immense help.

1. This is one for the editors, but some volunteer editors will pick up certain things, while others won't, so I'd try a variety of editors, to see which are good at prepositions, as well as having at least a one American and one Brit-English one. Even if they don't catch much, having that expertise on hand can be a godsend.

2. Rather than Google, I'd do a variation on the pillow dictionary, and use a wife, girlfriend or simply close female friend, butter her up on occasion, and use her as a sounding board. As long as she feels appreciated, rather than merely being used, most won't object to the odd-hour phone calls.

3. Editors are not reliable sounding boards. I'd suggest you find (preferrably from your readers, if not then among friends and associates) some beta-readers, who'll ignore typos and obvious corrections but focus exclusively on 'perceptions', things which strike them as oddly phrases, or which raise red-flags. Once you've done it for a while, it'll slowly start to sink in.

4. I've run into a similar spelling problem from my early years reading. I tend to spell longer, complicated words with British spelling, while for everything else I use English. Like you, I had readers comment on it, while my editors mostly ignored it. I started doing global search and replace operations, burning into my memory which spellings were American. That seems to have worked, though I'm sure I lapse without realizing it. If you can identify which British/American words you switch, a quick Google search should quickly address it.

That's a nice way to proclaim the Brits lost their language.

Sorry, poor word choice. I meant "American" rather than the more generic "English". But since ALL of my stories take place in America, I try to keep with the American spelling, even if it's not the spellings I've used for most of my life.

Perseverance is not a word native English speakers, at least those in America, use very often. If it didn't rhyme with reverence (kind of) I doubt I would have ever heard it.

I think most of us are aware of it (i.e. we recognize it when we see it), though as you infer, it's not our list of 'go to' words to describe common things. It used to be more popular, but has largely fallen out of favor, though I'm unsure why.

I checked thesaurus.com. It listed many almost synonyms showing 'continued efforts', but I couldn't find any with the added connotation of 'despite difficulties'.

Over the past several decades 'sticktoitiveness' seems to be the current popular descriptive term. Again, I'm unsure why perseverance dropped out of common usage.

Anyone want to perform an ngram of American vs British usage over the past few decades?

How about 'bouncebackability'?

I encountered that in the context of football, describing a team which is likely to get promoted the season after getting relegated (ie not Sunderland).

AJ

Impressive, one of the most atrocious words I've ever seen.

And yet, it seems to be the most used, not only by legitimate newspapers, but by supposedly intelligent and educated businessmen.

They're almost identical.

Both show a peak around 1800 and then a continual fading. It's as if it could be used as a graph tracking the moral decay of Western Civilisation.

So, in short, the rumors of the use by Brits is largely a false assumption.

Of course, in the age of people living in their parents basements well into their 30s and sometimes 40s, is it any wonder that "perseverance" is an almost forgotten concept? "If at first you don't succeed, why bother, Mom and Dad will always be there, and while they complain about your gaming, they never do diddly about it."

I need to change my pseudonym from "Crumbly" to "Mr. Wilson", as 'the Crotchety Neighbor'.

I need to change my pseudonym from "Crumbly" to "Mr. Wilson", as 'the Crotchety Neighbor'.

It just dawned on me it's the Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace.

I originally thought of Wilson Wilson, the neighbor from Home Improvement.

As an American, I'd use "perseverance", and I'm baffled by the notion that it's not a common or widely understood word.

Again, I seriously doubt that it's not commonly understood, but for some as yet unidentified reason, it's simply fallen out of favor—mostly at the instigation of the business, athletic and support sources. I suspect no one wants to be told that they can only achieve something through hard work, when the alternative is simply 'sticking with it long enough for everyone to finally notice me'.

"perseverance"

... but for some as yet unidentified reason, it's simply fallen out of favor

I would guess that the reason it has fallen out of favor is that a great majority of the population does not feel like they have to persevere. Why bother to try and get ahead when there are so many 'support programs' for those who 'fail to persevere'.

There's also the other side of that coin. When you're on these "support programs" any incremental progress you make is punished by the removal of an even larger amount of the "support".

When my family was young we were stuck in that cycle for a number of years. I had to literally refuse promotions because the raises would cause us to lose more benefits than the raise was worth. As we were already below the poverty level that was unacceptable.

Example: A raise at work would raise spendable income $30.00 a month. This would cause the loss of $80.00 a month in food benefits for a net loss of $50.00. When you're already eating bottom shelf(The cheapest foods you can find).EDIT: When I say cheapest I mean I would sometimes have to make one sleeve of saltine crackers be my entire lunch at work for two days because that's ALL we could afford. $50.00 is a fortune to a family of five. So you tell the boss, Thank you for your confidence in me, but I have to say no.

Darian

When my family was young we were stuck in that cycle for a number of years. I had to literally refuse promotions because the raises would cause us to lose more benefits than the raise was worth. As we were already below the poverty level that was unacceptable.

I was in a similar situation myself when I was younger. Had to live in subsidized housing (they literally paid us $75 per month to live there), was receiving WIC, having to go to the food bank for free food. At the time I was working two part time jobs and doing one job under the table to actually get some cash to try to get ahead and get some luxuries for the wife and two babies.

That's what ended up breaking us up - I had the chance to get a GOOD job, well paying and with benefits. She didn't want to get off the dole. I took the job anyway and she kicked me out. My own self-respect demanded that I at least try. Worked for that company for 14 years, had to pay horrendous child support for the first 7 years (took custody of kids from their mom then, due to her really and truly being an unfit mother), and ended up not super well off financially, but I'm doing okay.

I understand where you're coming from Carl. I think any man wants to be and do the best that he can. It took many years for us to climb out of the hole and nine times out of 10 we still have one foot in it. We at least own our own home and one of our children has graduated college and another is headed that way. My wife is working on finishing her bachelor's. I had a successful career in security. There are people alive today that would not be because of me. I made a difference. I'm still poor. But I can stand with honor.

That's what ended up breaking us up - I had the chance to get a GOOD job, well paying and with benefits. She didn't want to get off the dole. I took the job anyway and she kicked me out. My own self-respect demanded that I at least try.

Self-respect is one thing, but everyone needs to have a certain driving force to keep going, otherwise you're just surviving, barely keeping your head above water without any clue which direction to head.

Although I had a wonderful career, it all came crashing down when I came down with my disability (which had been building for years). Once I finally got the medication under control (i.e. told the doctor I refused to take the medical dosage he'd insisted on), I was able to function, but still couldn't hold a job, and so I turned, like many of us, to writing.

I pursue writing like a man possessed, because without anything else to give me direction, it gives me a purpose, and with that purpose, a desire to leave a mark and make a difference in people's lives. That's why I'm so insistent on the importance of storytelling. Essentially, it's my life preserver, what keeps my head above water now that I don't have a 9 to 5 job and a family to support anymore.

It's fairly soul crushing to think of yourself as 'having nothing of value to offer', and 'living on the dole' as your ex seemed determined to do, robs most of the desire to take charge of their own life. I'm glad you took control of yours. You don't need to well-off to be a success, but simply having a positive view of your purpose in life makes a tremendous difference.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you

( I don't remember where I first heard that one)

It's an old Henry Youngman joke (it's preserved in my always growing epigraph collection).

Henry Youngman

(Imitating a character from Blazing Saddles): "That's HENNY"

ETA: Okay, I looked him up and his given name was actually Henry.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you

Switlik Parachutes ... Good to the last drop.

(Yes, that's the real name of the company.)

Zum Wohl!

A good trick would be to set your first stories in your home country and use first-person narration. That way, your deficiencies will look authentic rather than stilted

Even better, try a slow approach like Ernest recommends. Set your first stories in your home country (after all Do-Overs and Apocalyses can happen anywhere), then then move your later stories to 'a foreigner in America', so instead of the language sounded stilted, it'll sound 'authentic to the character'. That gives you more time to prepare and receive feedback from readers, editors and other authors.

You don't have to master the craft right off the bat.

The tough thing about learning English is in the varying pronunciations and the multiple meanings of words.

Don't forget "read" is both present and past tense of the same word (only context tells the reader which and how to pronounce it). And to confuse it more, there's "red."

"Lay" is present tense when putting something down but also the past tense of "to lie" (recline).

And then there's lead/led, pore/pour, sole/soul, etc. Words that sound the same with different meanings.

The tough thing about learning English is in the varying pronunciations

I work in customer service and was speaking with a lady in PA. Her speech was very crisp and distinct. She was obviously a native English speaker with no noticeable speech impediment. Yet, her pronunciation was so unusual that she was almost unintelligible. It was where she placed vowel emphasis and duration that was so weird. I speak with people from the North East on a daily basis so I know it was not my southern ears that were the issue.

The multiple meanings of words add to the problem.

What makes it especially difficult, are the various idioms, which take those confusing word choices, and runs them over a cliff, taking you with them. Like "I'm coming", "I'm going to explode", "You are so hot", etc.

Those are difficult to pick up from reading books, especially if you prefer non-fiction or historical pieces. For many idioms, you need to regularly converse with natives and hear how they twist the language for their own amusement.

Sadly, things like "sticktoitiveness" and "bouncebackability" are hardly outliers, and continue to be regular parts of speech among many.

I love language; it's endlessly fascinating.

especially English which is mix of several languages as well as multiple variants of some languages due to its history. Some words spell or sound the same but have multiple meanings due to coming into the language from different sources.

polish means to make shiny

I'd better turn the brightness of my monitor down if you polish your stories to make them shiny ;)

AJ

Google pushed me to only one site - a cat with glasses.

I entered the word in Google and got 605,000 hits, including dictionary definitions.

the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values

the gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a culture or group by a person, another culture, etc.

the adaptation of Christian liturgy to a non-Christian cultural background.

From wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enculturation

Enculturation is the process where the culture that is currently established teaches an individual the accepted norms and values of the culture or society where the individual lives. The individual can become an accepted member and fulfill the needed functions and roles of the group. Most importantly the individual knows and establishes a context of boundaries and accepted behavior that dictates what is acceptable and not acceptable within the framework of that society. It teaches the individual their role within society as well as what is accepted behavior within that society and lifestyle.

That said, the answer remains the same: if you want to be a stronger writer, you must exercise your writing muscles.

I agree with the sentiment, but technically, those would be your grammar muscles, while you're trying to become a stronger self-editor. Writing is more plot, pacing and the interweaving of plot. They're all necessary, and you need to master them all, but they're separate tasks that are executed by separate regions of the brain, and you've got to manually switch between one and the other unless you want to muddle them both.

Unfortunately, because we all read what we expect to occur, you can never catch all of your own mistakes. That's why I use several editors, because each catches something different, and each picks up on the errors the others miss. It's not as simple as just 'rereading' you work.

There is a re-wiring process of children's brains that happens at the age of three. If a child has not learned to identify different sounds in other languages before then it becomes impossible for them to distinguish differences later in life.

The study debunked that theory, ten being the decisive age. The report said that it had been thought kids' brains were rewired around the age of five, but that wasn't borne out by their testing.

AJ

In something like 90% of peer-reviewed published medical-related studies, the conclusions of the authors are not borne out by the underlying data.

Whether the study reported in my newspaper is wrong, whether your theory is wrong, or whether they're both wrong is something we can only guess at :(

AJ

Rosetta Stone.

Is she related to Emma Stone and known by the diminutive of Rose?