Editing Non-english writters. How do you know that you are written right for english language standars?

[Escriba_Sombrio]

My first language is spanish, not english. I've been writing for a long time, mostly in spanish obviously, mainly in watpad. After years of eating shit in terms of audience a friend of my recommend me Scribble Hub, and i must said that the experience has been better tbh.

But i ran into a problem. I'm not good at english. Been speaking with english-speaking friend for like 3 years by now, and wanted to translated my works so them can read it. Obviously some of them pointed me some mistakes at the time of translating my works. Thing that doesn't translated well to english from spanish, specially the use of dashes in dialogues.

My tool to translate my works is google translator and me reading and ensuring to be at least readable. I can't get the help of a editor to help my, already try that for my works in my original language and i cant get the help.

So, how do you non-speaking english authors here?
Forget to mention i'm open to tips and advice. Want to my works to be better.

 

[simonsighs]

Use grammarly, then read it allowed. Vary your sentences inside the paragraph too.

 

[melcomely]

My source is also being a native Spanish speaker writing in English.

It's unfortunately really hard to get a work to be 'written right' in English just by translating with Google Translate or adjacent tools. It'll do its best, but artistically you'll either lose all of the style of the original Spanish sentence or have something that is 'incorrect'.

Translation is not as trivial as these web tools might try to sell you, it's for a reason that there's still a lot of debate on the various, very distinct translations of many classic authors.

My tip is to avoid automatic translation tools like Google Translate and re-write your work in English, as well as you can. I know it's hard if you're not confident with your ESL, but it'll make you better as a writer if you put on more hard work rather than ask for a machine to do it for you. It'll also make sure your final work is closer to your artistic vision. Also, if you have any books that inspired you to write in Spanish, read their (published) translations in English to get a feel of the style being transposed to another language.


That's what I have to say, I think. It'll take some time, but it'll be worth it. Good luck!

 

[FRWriter]

When the red lines disappear, you've done the ABSOLUTELY BARE MINIMUM.
I consider this to be an absolute minimum requirement, and any author who does not bother performing a basic spell check is not worth reading imo.
It takes literally 5 minutes to do that for a chapter, and if the author doesn't put in the amount of effort, I'll immediately drop the story.
Sadly, there are people who upload hundreds of chapters but can't even get that part right.
There is NO EXCUSE. There are countless ways to do this, using apps/extensions/sites/writing programs or... yes... even the dreaded AI can do it with the right prompt that limits its task to spell checking.

I always recommend Grammarly... imo the easiest and most intuitive tool to use.

Of course, that's just the start... the first step!

Seriously, that's where writing starts, but anyone who does not even clear that step is not putting in the effort and should be shunned and stoned!! (using words only, of course :))

Next, it's about choosing correct and artistic words, avoiding word repetitions, and establishing clear character personalities that do not reset. If a particular character speaks in a certain way in one chapter, you need to keep that in mind and stay consistent. Seriously, this is where it starts, and you can study linguistics for years and still not know everything.

Thankfully, webnovels are known for relatively low points of entry, and you can get away with shitty writing as long as the grammar is okay and your plot makes sense. Still, you'll definitely grow with experience. Just make sure to read as many stories as you can to expand your vocabulary, to make sure you don't write like a certain orange man who has 'the best words'.

Grammarly and similar programs can also help you take the next step by rewording awkward parts, but it's best if you try to learn on your own. You also have to pay for the premium version if you want to use those services.

I think even if your story sounds a little off and weird, as long as you bothered to fix any obvious mistakes, you're certainly on a good path, and people will appreciate your efforts.

At the same time, if you can't finish a sentence without adding a few mistakes, you won't get anywhere, even if your plot is incredible. People won't give garbage a try, which is why you need to do the first step. Everything else is secondary.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

Use Grammarly or EditGpt.

 

[TheNonexistentOne]

My first language is spanish, not english. I've been writing for a long time, mostly in spanish obviously, mainly in watpad. After years of eating shit in terms of audience a friend of my recommend me Scribble Hub, and i must said that the experience has been better tbh.

But i ran into a problem. I'm not good at english. Been speaking with english-speaking friend for like 3 years by now, and wanted to translated my works so them can read it. Obviously some of them pointed me some mistakes at the time of translating my works. Thing that doesn't translated well to english from spanish, specially the use of dashes in dialogues.

My tool to translate my works is google translator and me reading and ensuring to be at least readable. I can't get the help of a editor to help my, already try that for my works in my original language and i cant get the help.

So, how do you non-speaking english authors here?
Forget to mention i'm open to tips and advice. Want to my works to be better.

Read novels in English. Hear and read at the same time. Get used to the flow of it all.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Get a feeling for the language you want to write in. If you can read the kind of stuff you want to write without problem, chances are you're ready to write yourself.

 

[ThaddeusDeVilliers]

I just write sub standard English, that way I am always hitting the correct standards my writing ought to be.

 

[greyblob]

read reputable works

 

[YukieSama]

Short term, LLM would be your best bet i.e claude/chatgpt. It'll obviously lose nuances and things that make your writing you but if you want a readable experience for others then it's okay for that. Long term would be to learn English if you want to write in English. Read books, study grammar, learn vocab.

 

[worksbyindigo]

I speak 2 other languages besides English (and currently trying to learn a 4th one lmao). I did learn it formally, but half of the time my writing is just pure VIBES lol. You're on the right track with talking to an English-speaking friend, but since you're gearing to be a writer, I'd say exposure to written media is your best bet. I was a wide reader of mostly English books up until the doom scrolling illness consumed my soul. That's how I got confident with just vibes, though there will ALWAYS be that bit of doubt present. I use LLMs to check my work grammar/structure-wise because I'm kinda shy sharing it with people I know IRL, but even LLMs try to force their preferred style on you.

As for translation, I don't have much say except look for an actual human being who speaks both languages well, I think? LLMs are still clunky in my opinion when it comes to that bit and YES the nuances get lost! My mother tongue has different words for washing specific parts of the body (face, feet, hands, etc.) but when put into English, it's all "wash" lol. Then again, I don't really write in my mother tongue that much (limited audience).

 

[MFontana]

My first language is spanish, not english. I've been writing for a long time, mostly in spanish obviously, mainly in watpad. After years of eating shit in terms of audience a friend of my recommend me Scribble Hub, and i must said that the experience has been better tbh.

But i ran into a problem. I'm not good at english. Been speaking with english-speaking friend (plural, or just one?) for like 3 years by now, and wanted to translated my works so them (should be 'they' unless 'friend' is plural) can read it. Obviously some of them pointed me some mistakes at the time of translating my works. Thing that doesn't translated well to english from spanish, specially (should be 'specifically') the use of dashes in dialogues. (dialogues should be the singular, 'dialogue')

My tool to translate my works is google translator and me reading and ensuring (it is) to be at least readable. I can't get the help of a (an) editor to help my,. already (Should be capitalized, 'Already') try (wrong tense. Should be past tense, 'tried') that for my works in my original language and i cant get the help.

So, how do you non-speaking english authors here? (do... what? This is a fragment with an incomplete thought)
(I) Forget (Wrong tense. Should be past-tense, and lowercase 'forgot') to mention i'm open to tips and advice. (I) Want (Should be lowercase.) to my works to be better. (Completely wrong sentence structure - Should be written as: "...to make my works better." or could be worded as "to improve as an author.")

For Translation stuff, especially if you're starting out and English is not your native language, tools like Grok and Grammarly can be a huge boon. But they'll only help you get so far.
What you'll really want is a native-speaker to help you as an editor. Specifically, doing Line-Edit work.
As a point, though, you'll want to capitalize the name of every language you use. Every name, and use of the word "I" as well.

Google-Translate is crap, especially for large portions of text. It constantly fucks up the grammar, and often choses the wrong words entirely. (One of my conlangs is Latin-based so I've regularly used google-translate, then had Grok double-check and fix the translations, so I'm familiar with how bad Google-Translate actually is).

Since you have friends that are fluent in English, I'd strongly advise you actually ask them to help you with the translations, and correcting the screw-ups that whatever other tools you are using make. When you sit with them and let them show you where the mistakes are, but actually fix them yourself, you'll start to get the hang of things.

Beyond that, I'd recommend against trying to rely on MTL tools, and focus on learning the language yourself. For your benefit, I also did a quick line-editing pass over your original post as well. Hope this helps. And before you ask, no. I can't be your editor. I've got my own novels that I'm working on writing, and only enough free time for not much else beyond the occasional posts on the forums here.

 

[Zinless]

Write more.

Read more.

It's the same thing with drawing. Write and get feedback from your readers to improve your technical capabilities. Read and learn from your favorite books to develop your own style or prose.