#ESL problems

[hergrandplan]

Why can't colloquailisms be translated 1:1 with it still carrying the exact same feeling

[total-toral]

How the hell am i supposed to know how to pronounce "thesaurus"

[omgellendean]

I changed quite a lot in the post about two Soviet games because it was misleading re: lotto game.

[nondelphic]

writing a novel in english when it’s not your first language fuels my anxiety like nothing else, like am i even using the correct grammar here??? why is my vocabulary so limited??? no publishing company in my country will accept this because they don’t accept english books??? do i need a translator or just a really good therapist??? will anyone ever understand my protagonist’s nuanced emotions, or am i just screaming into the void???

[luc3ks]

they are so cute when they are teens ... 🥹

[drysauce]

i mean it in the best way possible (to u) but wow from what u've been posting ur uni friends sound like fucking cunts. hope it gets better :/

haha well, yeah no i agree with you

the thing is it's not really uni friends. those just either don't reply or reply that they're busy when it's about something esle than school, they're clear with us that they have their own friend groups they value more and outside of the university setting we don't really keep in touch too much. i mean i tried befriending one girl but it eventually backfired at me so i decided it's not worth to spend my time and health on that

the thing that's happening lately is with people i have known before for ~5 years out of which one of them is my rommate. and only around january/february this year it started becoming clear what we stand on. that's probably why the whole thing is so frustrating to me now, especially that situationship with my roommate/best friend that we ended up in. it's such a complicated and multilayered situation at this point that it's just simply more tiring than upsetting

but in any case thanks for nice words, i hope it gets better too

[pomeraniandancer]

How the fuck does this even happen...

There are a number of languages you can search for works in on AO3, including Eald Eanglisc of all things, but the one language on there that really throws me for a loop is...American Sign Language.

Like, is there even a video option on AO3 for this to be possible?

I once picked a really big fanfic collection to search for ASL fics in and the only one that categorized as ASL was *written* in English. No videofile too be seen.

The most you can do in ASL in writing is write English words with ASL syntax. But that's still not ASL. ASL does not have a written alphabet or syllabary.

Genuinely bewildered about how this came about. Can people just post something and write in an "other" language and AO3 just adds that language to the list of languages they have fics written in?

I can't think of any other way that this might've happened, and as much as I adore AO3, this is pretty problematic.

[libellule-ao3]

My grammatical errors are invisible during my countless proof-readings.

And then, after publication, they spring up like children emerging from their hiding place after winning a game of hide-and-seek! 😅

[snarp]

The weird ways 15-to-25-year-old fiction writers use the English language because they don't read OEL books; they learn plot/scene structure from episodic serial narratives that are drawn out for years (usually not purely text-based) and/or require digging through auxiliary materials to piece together important details; learn words and phrases from video content without seeing how they're spelled/formatted in text......... This Will Have Consequences.

[total-toral]

Damn, I wasn't posting in English for just a few days, and it feels like my language skills are already deteriorating.

[fridka]

Feeling.. kinda extremely dejected right now. I was genuinely on a roll with my comic, and I could see it all come together and

And then I had to write out the dialogue.

I genuinely don’t even see the point in continuing right now. My writing skills are dogshit and I feel like I’m pretty much permanently crippled because English isn’t my first language. I have no narrative voice, no local idioms or slang or flavor i can pull from. Instead, everything i write has this air of just, shitty generic standard ESL English

I have SO MUCH faith in this story, but knowing I lack one of the key skills to bring it to life is just.. fuck this sucks

[bronze-main]

Vent under the cut and in the tags

Sometimes it feels like it's never gonna be ok. And I don't know what to do.

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

For the send-a-topic thing: how do you like the trope of "the moment whumpee breaks"?

Thank you for the ask! From this ask game.

Oh boy, how to answer that.

In one way - :D

If I consider the term as giving up, rock bottom, something like that. The moment whumpee begs, even though they swore to themselves they’d never. The moment they give up the last shred of hope they’d held onto and stop fighting. The moment they know death is the only thing that’s waiting for them.

The thing is - for me, that’s a moment. Ok, fine, perhaps a longer moment. But I am only writing (and mostly interested in reading) happy ends, and there will be a recovery, and it will be causing more tooth decay than the rock candy I am snacking on right now.

And I’ve seen lots of posts that talk about “broken” whumpees, as some permanent thing. They will do anything for Whumper. They will never be able to comprehend the world. They will forever remain conditioned, thinking they’re a pet, and so on.

And yeah, I do not like that at all - :(((

(On another note, I don’t really read that genre often, but I also do not like it if it’s used in spy/military/etc settings as “the torture worked and whumpee finally told the truth/gave them everything they wanted” - that’s not how it works.)

[podfic-chicklet]

This!! And twice as bad when you're ESL and get asked to translate it, too🙈

the problem with reading and writing leading to a strong vocabulary is that you tend to know the vibe of words instead of their meanings.

if I used this word in a sentence, would it make sense? absolutely. if you asked me what it meant, could I tell you? absolutely not.

[chelsuh]

If I don't get these facebook posts scheduled today I am reporting myself to the police.

[redvanillabee]

me: *finally learns how to spell manoeuvre*

me: *remembers that my blorbos are american* dammit