Question for non native English Authors, What do you do in this situation?

Avarice_Of_The_Seven · Sunday at 7:11 PM

English isn't my first language, so I face several challenges when writing in English. One of the most irritating and difficult part is that, while writing, I get stuck in a line because a certain word isn't coming to mind.

Sometimes, I just don't know the word that's supposed to go there, and sometimes, I know the word, but I just can't recall it at that moment.

It like: The line is supposed to be 'He ditched his friend and ran away.' But the word 'Ditched' isn't coming to mind at that moment.

I try to solve it with this method:

What do you guys do in these kinds of situations? What kind of problems do you face while writing?

Enkiari · Sunday at 7:13 PM

I use an online thesaurus.
Aint no way I will let that crappy AI rewrite take away my voice.

BearlyAlive · Sunday at 7:13 PM

Look for similar words and then reverse engineer my way to the word that fits the situation best.

Hans.Trondheim · Sunday at 7:16 PM

Avarice_Of_The_Seven said:
English isn't my first language, so I face several challenges when writing in English. One of the most irritating and difficult part is that, while writing, I get stuck in a line because a certain word isn't coming to mind.

Sometimes, I just don't know the word that's supposed to go there, and sometimes, I know the word, but I just can't recall it at that moment.

It like: The line is supposed to be 'He ditched his friend and ran away.' But the word 'Ditched' isn't coming to mind at that moment.

I try to solve it with this method:
View attachment 47273

What do you guys do in these kinds of situations? What kind of problems do you face while writing?

Synonyms and Antonyms of Words | Thesaurus.com

Thesaurus.com is the world's largest and most trusted online thesaurus for 25+ years. Join millions of people and grow your mastery of the English language.

www.thesaurus.com

That site is helpful for selecting the right word because AI will sanitize your writing.

Avarice_Of_The_Seven · Sunday at 7:17 PM

Enkiari said:
I use an online thesaurus.
Aint no way I will let that crappy AI rewrite take away my voice.

The hell? I am just asking for a word, a single WORD

Our_Lady_in_Twilight · Sunday at 7:17 PM

It's actually not just an ESL problem, even native writers run into bits where they just can't get the sentence to feel right. Personally I like to insert tags in block capitals like:

'John said *ANGRY REPLY*'

- so I can easily find it later without breaking my writing flow. So, perhaps you could do the same with the word you want in your native language?

*** Also the industry has a convention for this as well, I believe. Professional journalists typically write TK ('to come') for bits they'll fill in later.

SRB · Sunday at 7:18 PM

I yell at the top of my lungs, so my sister could hear me, and ask her for a translation.

Sunsetinapainting · Sunday at 7:19 PM

I'm an English author and sometimes this happens to me to. But I have a big Oxford dictionary at home I use to look up a word or I ask my sister.

Avarice_Of_The_Seven · Sunday at 7:33 PM

SRB said:
I yell at the top of my lungs, so my sister could hear me, and ask her for a translation.

Sunsetinapainting said:
I'm an English author and sometimes this happens to me to. But I have a big Oxford dictionary at home I use to look up a word or I ask my sister.

Well, I ask my sister for things too, but I can't do that in this situation since my English is arguably better than my sister's.

SRB · Sunday at 7:39 PM

Avarice_Of_The_Seven said:
Well, I ask my sister for things too, but I can't do that in this situation since my English is arguably better than my sister's.

She's a writer too, so we're around the same level of English.

KennyCelican · Sunday at 8:56 PM

Avarice_Of_The_Seven said:
English isn't my first language, so I face several challenges when writing in English. One of the most irritating and difficult part is that, while writing, I get stuck in a line because a certain word isn't coming to mind.

Sometimes, I just don't know the word that's supposed to go there, and sometimes, I know the word, but I just can't recall it at that moment.

What do you guys do in these kinds of situations? What kind of problems do you face while writing?

I have that same problem with words not coming to mind, and I am a native English speaker. For me it's almost entirely not recalling the word I want at the moment.
Honestly? I usually use a synonym until I can recall it. Perfect is the enemy of Good Enough, as it were.

Makimaam · Sunday at 9:04 PM

KennyCelican said:
Perfect is the enemy of Good Enough, as it were.

Very wise.

Dawnathon · Sunday at 9:16 PM

Hans.Trondheim said:
Synonyms and Antonyms of Words | Thesaurus.com

Thesaurus.com is the world's largest and most trusted online thesaurus for 25+ years. Join millions of people and grow your mastery of the English language.

www.thesaurus.com

That site is helpful for selecting the right word because AI will sanitize your writing.

I wish Thesaurus.com worked well for me. I'm always stumped on words that it doesn't like to admit they exist. It heavily favors colloquial words and phrases above accurate ones.

For example, if you look up "bewitch", you will never get "ensorcell" nor "sorcell" to appear in the list. Meanwhile, its overly simplistic definition of ensorcell is literally just "to bewitch". Meanwhile it will weakly suggest phrases like "put the whammy on" and "tickle to death". It doesn't even list ensorcell under the "related words" at the bottom, let alone put it front and center as a suggestion. It clearly knows what the word is and directly correlates the two of them in definition, it's just grumpy and doesn't want you using them.

Thankfully I do know some less common words that fit what I'm trying to write, but it's completely independent of the popular thesauruses. Besides, you still get words hiding under the tip of your tongue. I don't know why they don't even have an option, as far as I know, to "show more" or "suggest unusual alternatives" or whatever. It makes sense for paperback Thesauruses to keep their entries lean and clean, but online resources aren't that limited. At least, some of them aren't.

[EDIT: Spellcheck reminded me that it's an enemy too. It didn't even like the word "bitts". It's not like I'm pulling out the big syllable sillies like umbelliferous xenodocheionology. You'd think it would at least know things that all major online dictionaries agree on.]

Missivist · Sunday at 10:05 PM

As an English speaker, I find WordHippo is good for finding the right word. It's a thing where I know what meaning I want, and I can think of a few words for it, but none of them feel right. So, I try those words in WordHippo, and look for a word with the right meanings, and the right feel.
As a non-native-English writer, I suppose that you could use Google Translate or whatever to find an English word that has the right meaning, technically. Then use that word as a "seed" for finding the word that really fits and has the right feel. The advantage of WordHippo is that it shows different sets of synonyms for the different meanings that a word might have, so have a look around.
The right and perfect word for an occasion is actually known in English as a bon mot, a phrase that was stolen from French because the French had a better way to say it and English is just like that. Sometimes even a thesaurus cannot give you an exact English replacement for a word you know well in another language,

N0xiety · Sunday at 10:38 PM

Not a native english speaker too here. In situations like this, i just roughly explain the word i want and google it or ask AI. Like for 'ditched' i could just google 'Word for standing someone up.' I usually know what the word i want should generally mean, i just can't remember the word itself, so i search like this. It doesn't have to be a perfect explanation, so long as it's close it will give you the results you want anyways. If you remember a synonym, like in this case 'abandon', then it's even easier, just search for synonyms.

TheBestofSome · Sunday at 10:45 PM

I agree with Missivist on this one, WordHippo is the best thesaurus I've found yet. I've run into situations where I can't find quite the right word fairly often, and WordHippo has saved my ass more times than I can count. Highly recommend it to every author out there. (Not sponsored by the way

)

I am a native English author, but as mentioned in previous replies, this is a problem that everyone runs into.

Bald-san · Sunday at 10:45 PM

Avarice_Of_The_Seven said:
English isn't my first language, so I face several challenges when writing in English. One of the most irritating and difficult part is that, while writing, I get stuck in a line because a certain word isn't coming to mind.

Sometimes, I just don't know the word that's supposed to go there, and sometimes, I know the word, but I just can't recall it at that moment.

It like: The line is supposed to be 'He ditched his friend and ran away.' But the word 'Ditched' isn't coming to mind at that moment.

I try to solve it with this method:
View attachment 47273

What do you guys do in these kinds of situations? What kind of problems do you face while writing?

Use grammarly, the only thing Chatgpt is good at is when you close the damn app before deleting it to free up space. At least grammarly will not force slop in your face (only their premium?

laulau20 · Sunday at 11:23 PM

I use google translate. I typed the word in my native tongue that would fit there, then I would look for synonyms if the words didn't quite fit in.

just_darkjazz · Monday at 12:10 AM

Avarice_Of_The_Seven said:
English isn't my first language, so I face several challenges when writing in English. One of the most irritating and difficult part is that, while writing, I get stuck in a line because a certain word isn't coming to mind.

Sometimes, I just don't know the word that's supposed to go there, and sometimes, I know the word, but I just can't recall it at that moment.

It like: The line is supposed to be 'He ditched his friend and ran away.' But the word 'Ditched' isn't coming to mind at that moment.

I try to solve it with this method:
View attachment 47273

What do you guys do in these kinds of situations? What kind of problems do you face while writing?

I know exactly how you feel, I am the same, I've spent entire evenings stuck on a single word. I always try to look it up on wordrefference if I have the word in my native language in mind, it's usually not good enough. Then I look it up on online thesauruses, as others have mentioned. I used to use thesuarus.com but lately Im on a merriam-webster kick because I think the thesaurus website looks a lot worse than it used to. Finally if all else fails I just use a different word and live a comment on my doc so I can revisit it with a clearer mind.

Hans.Trondheim · Monday at 1:44 AM

Dawnathon said:
I wish Thesaurus.com worked well for me. I'm always stumped on words that it doesn't like to admit they exist. It heavily favors colloquial words and phrases above accurate ones.

For example, if you look up "bewitch", you will never get "ensorcell" nor "sorcell" to appear in the list. Meanwhile, its overly simplistic definition of ensorcell is literally just "to bewitch". Meanwhile it will weakly suggest phrases like "put the whammy on" and "tickle to death". It doesn't even list ensorcell under the "related words" at the bottom, let alone put it front and center as a suggestion. It clearly knows what the word is and directly correlates the two of them in definition, it's just grumpy and doesn't want you using them.

Thankfully I do know some less common words that fit what I'm trying to write, but it's completely independent of the popular thesauruses. Besides, you still get words hiding under the tip of your tongue. I don't know why they don't even have an option, as far as I know, to "show more" or "suggest unusual alternatives" or whatever. It makes sense for paperback Thesauruses to keep their entries lean and clean, but online resources aren't that limited. At least, some of them aren't.

[EDIT: Spellcheck reminded me that it's an enemy too. It didn't even like the word "bitts". It's not like I'm pulling out the big syllable sillies like umbelliferous xenodocheionology. You'd think it would at least know things that all major online dictionaries agree on.]

Hmm...well, I guess thesaurus(.)com caters to synonymous colloquial words, which favors many authors like me since it's what we're looking for whenever we write.

Question for non native English Authors, What do you do in this situation?

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