Thread: Plea of a Native Speaker

Originally Posted by kybarry

When you write something like that you are bound to get destroyed for mistakes in your own posts. I wanted to point out that you spelled "Seriously" incorrectly. You also used "you're English" when you should have used "your English." I honestly think it was a productive post (maybe a little over the top), but I wanted to point out the mistakes before someone did it really maliciously. So, sometimes people are trying but simply miss things. No reason to get too angry, in my opinion. I fear this will just discourage people from attempting to write in their target language and that will inhibit learning. Those are my two cents.

"И ты прав тоже!" (из старого анекдота).

Corrected thank you!

That's why I said 95% correct. Everyone typos and I get that (I certainly do that!), but it's when something is full of those sorts of errors that it starts to bug me. You're doing yourself no favors when you write like that. It also makes it harder to catch and correct the mistakes that a native speaker really is helpful for. The small stuff is distracting.

As for discouraging writing, I disagree. The point is not to discourage practice, but to push students to take the time to pay attention to themselves and what they are doing. It takes way longer, but you learn more. For example, when I write in Russian I look up every verb I'm not 100% sure of to make sure it is declined correctly. I've caught a lot of errors that way. It also takes forever, BUT I don't make the same mistake twice (I make new, different mistakes ). I learn more and it frees the native speaker to help me with the trickier grammar. Besides, when you learn a language mistakes are part of the game. I'm 100% okay with that. It's why my list covers really basic stuff (and you can't get more basic than subject verb agreement). I don't expect you to be perfect, but I do expect you to want to try to be perfect (isn't that why you're asking for native speaker help after all?) and to put in the extra effort accordingly.

And it was over the top. That's why it was a rant. I promise I'm not normally that harsh. It was just bugging me and building up...

Originally Posted by sarah37

Corrected thank you!

That's why I said 95% correct. Everyone typos and I get that (I certainly do that!), but it's when something is full of those sorts of errors that it starts to bug me. You're doing yourself no favors when you write like that. It also makes it harder to catch and correct the mistakes that a native speaker really is helpful for. The small stuff is distracting.

As for discouraging writing, I disagree. The point is not to discourage practice, but to push students to take the time to pay attention to themselves and what they are doing. It takes way longer, but you learn more. For example, when I write in Russian I look up every verb I'm not 100% sure of to make sure it is declined correctly. I've caught a lot of errors that way. It also takes forever, BUT I don't make the same mistake twice (I make new, different mistakes ). I learn more and it frees the native speaker to help me with the trickier grammar. Besides, when you learn a language mistakes are part of the game. I'm 100% okay with that. It's why my list covers really basic stuff (and you can't get more basic than subject verb agreement). I don't expect you to be perfect, but I do expect you to want to try to be perfect (isn't that why you're asking for native speaker help after all?) and to put in the extra effort accordingly.

And it was over the top. That's why it was a rant. I promise I'm not normally that harsh. It was just bugging me and building up...

Sarah, I respect where you're coming from, but the amount of mistakes that people make when writing in a foreign language is really related to their learning style, and while I respect your attempt to organize the learning styles of those people who come here, it's not a realistic expectation. As a case in point, I study Russian. I've been learning for three years, and I teach myself. Well, I still make mistakes that a) a first-year student might not make, and b) mistakes I've made before.

This might be aggravating to certain types of people when I work with them, but over three years I've learned that it's absolutely essential to my working style.

For one thing, it's an oversight to say that a person, when encountering a mistake and having it corrected, has the entire problem solved concerning that mistake. The correction could lead to an understanding which is later discovered to be faulty or incomplete. And this is not a fault of the student, but rather directly related to their learning style.

I'm not saying this to pick on you. You seem to be a nice person and I'm sure this was meant only in the nicest way. I'm saying this to inspire more patience in you for those who are making mistakes. It's safe to assume anyone who's earnestly trying to learn a language isn't doing it on purpose.

l/l. kidk