Oh, I really appreciate your corrections, thank you!
I understand that reading bad English is really annoying for natives. I try to be careful here on HN, but sometimes I do some mistakes.
You're welcome. Personally, I don't understand when people get annoyed by those things. I figure if someone has done me the favor of learning my language to communicate with me, and they've done so well enough that I understand them, why should I nitpick little errors?
I only point out things like this to people who state they are actively trying to improve - because they've done me a favor by being able to communicate with me, and I can return it by helping them at their goal.
That's a good outlook. I can't tell you how much it irks me when someone is annoyed that someone else doesn't speak English well. I always say "at least their English is better than your <other language>".
Invariably, that outlook is expressed by people who happen to only speak one language.
I don't mind when I meet someone in normal daily activities that speaks English poorly. My thoughts on the subject mirror your own.
What _IS_ frustrating is dealing with a customer service representative in an overseas call center that speaks English poorly. How many man hours have been lost in forced communication with foreign contractors in an effort to save a few dollars an hour over an American counterpart? Also, those cost savings to a company like Comcast also damage our economy by not employing Americans in need of work. It's a double-whammy of frustration.
Your English is not "bad". There are some technical grammar issues you'll continue to work out, but the meaning in your writing is perfectly clear. That makes it pretty easy to overlook anything that's not quite correct in your writing.
I know you said you write on a personal / private blog of your own to improve but if you ever wanted another person to look things over and help you work through some of the trickier parts of learning the language I'd love to help out!
It would be nice, but I haven't cogitated to do this before. I write too much personal things, maybe it is boring for other people, moreover I do not know if this is a good idea, once I will be too much exposed. First I would need to check what I wrote.
Well, I don't know what I have to offer to you in terms of a promise that I won't judge you or pry too deeply into your private life but I really have no good reason to do so. I will gladly share with you all that you want to know about me before we get started if you would like. I really just love helping people out, especially with technology. I started out working towards a career in education (with 12 years of experience) but changed over to programming and web development which is my current career. At some point I want to loop back around and teach some sort of technology discipline to come full circle with my original intentions.
For a counter-point, I'm slightly proud of how our (English) language is able to flexibly accommodate a vast array of other-language grammars, while still maintaining understanding and clarity.
The two points that the previous poster highlighted: while perhaps the native-fluent speaker will notice that the phrases have a non-standard form, both sentences are completely intelligible.
Living abroad from the United States has only served to stretch my conception of "proper English" even further.
This really makes me happy. I never left the country, and my first international travel will be to Melbourne in February/2015 where I will can test myself.
I think non-native English speakers think we are more annoyed by it than we actually are.
Any native English speaker who goes online has to be used to English being used very poorly by now, and it is much less annoying when the person making mistakes is a non-native speaker trying to learn rather than a native speaker who is lazy or functionally illiterate.
Everything you've written is completely understandable and most of it is arguably grammatically okay though sometimes phrased in ways that sound unnatural in colloquial English. For example "sometimes I do some mistakes" would be better said "sometimes I make mistakes", though the way you phrased it is perfectly understandable.
For sure! But I can't think like that, because if I do I will be too much comfortable and stop trying to improve it.
I also sell some simple software overseas and, for doing business, if you have a bad grammar or a poor vocabulary, you loose points in the price negotiation. The other part can feel like they are negotiating with a hick.
Furthermore, everything you write on web will be technically forever, you need to delight the readers and poor English can annoy them, as I've already commented.
It often seems like most use on Hacker News gets this wrong (so it isn't surprising people pick up bad habits when learning English) and I regularly have to resist my inner pedant.
If the screw is too loose it could fall off and you might lose it.
