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How time flies! Would you believe it’s been almost two years since I posted the original Non-Native English Writers entry on Scrawlbug?

For those of you who weren’t around then (or have simply dropped in from a search engine query), that post looked at some of the more common mistakes made by non-native English speakers in documents I was editing.

Today, I decided to look at a few more of these common mistakes, in a continuing attempt to help my writing brethren with a different langue maternelle.

“In UK”

An extremely common error made by writers – particularly those in India, for some reason – is treating this country name in the same way as France, Germany and many others. “In France…” is fine; “In UK” is not.

The difference is that “UK” is a shortening of “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, so it needs “the” in front of it or it sounds odd – in the same way as the Dominican Republic or the Kingdom of Brunei sound strange without “the”.

Correct version: “In the UK”

“In all time”

Another very common mistake, “in all time” doesn’t mean anything in English. It is frequently caused by confusion between two expressions: “at any time” and “all the time”. The former is an adverb, another way of saying “whenever”; the latter is an expression of something that happens continuously, throughout a specific period or frequently.

“I can deliver the package at any time” means I can deliver it whenever a person chooses to have it arrive.

“I deliver packages all the time” means I deliver packages continuously or that it is something I do regularly.

“His friends and all”

Adding “and all” on the end of a sentence might seem to make the phrase more conversational and natural (especially to an American audience). In reality, it can confuse your readers and lacks precision.

Take this example: “The problem is due to unplanned spending and all.” What does “and all” mean? It may be clear to you as the writer but there’s no way for your reader to know what you were thinking. If you’re using the expression to cover up the fact that you only have one example of the problem’s cause, you should do more research.

If there is only one item in your list, drop “and all”: “The problem is due to unplanned spending.”

If there are more items and they are all very obvious for your readers, list at least two and end with “and so on” or even “etc.”: “The problem is due to unplanned spending, reduced income and so on.”

“In (a) short time”

This one’s not strictly wrong – it just sounds weird to an English reader. There are shorter ways to say the same thing, such as “soon” or “quickly”.

“I’ll be there soon” or “He did it quickly” are better.

“During that time, a few years ago, I’ve already been (doing something)”

This is a great example of the difficulty many writer experience with “during” and “since”. I know for a fact that time phrases like this drive my lady nuts trying to get them right!

So which is correct here? It depends on what the writer’s saying.

“During that time” means “while that period of time was passing (or will pass)”. The verb used afterwards is always past or future – I was doing something or I will do something. The future tense version often sounds unwieldy in English, though it is still correct.

“Since that time” means “Between that time and now” or “After that time, up to and including the present moment”.

Example: “During that time, I was unhappy. Since that time, I have been happy. You will be shopping tomorrow: during that time, I will get a haircut. “

Without the rest of the original text, it’s hard to tell which form the author wants. Unfortunately, the first part is in the form of a “during” phrase and the last is a “since” structure.

During: “During that time, a few years ago, I was (doing something)”

Since: “Since that time, a few years ago, I’ve been (doing something)”

You’ll notice that I took the word “already” out in both cases. It’s a redundant word in both expressions.

I expect some of you have corrections of my corrections, comments to make or other thoughts… leave a message!

“Trust the computer. The computer is your friend.”

I still remember that excellent piece of irony from the role-playing game Paranoia, designed as a spoof of other games – but immense fun in its own right. It was set in a techno-future where The Computer ran everything, but was unfortunately very unstable. Secret societies, conflicting missions for people in the same group, a Research & Development department that owed more to the Keystone Kops than James Bond… wonderful.

This came to mind because I have been editing again. It was the end of the big “animal species” job (for the moment) and, as I deleted, re-worded and formatted, I thought: “Why is this writer getting their apostrophes wrong?”

A little light bulb lit over my head. Here’s an example of why:

This bird enjoys a diet of fish, insect’s crustaceans and small invertebrates.

If you paste that sentence into your word-processor, the green, squiggly grammar-lines will not appear. However, that apostrophe should not be there. Delete the apostrophe and the grammar-lines appear. Why is that?

It’s because, without the apostrophe, “insects crustaceans” makes no sense. Word thinks that the crustaceans belong to the insects, so it suggests putting the apostrophe in, but what’s really needed is a comma, like this:

This bird enjoys a diet of fish, insects, crustaceans and small invertebrates.

The second example is this:

This animal has a dark breast, while lighter fur covers it’s under parts.

Once again, you can paste that into Word and the software’s happy with it – and once again, it’s wrong. The apostrophe should not be there. But why?

This one’s a bit more difficult. Word reads the latter half of the sentence as “fur covers it is under parts”. Taking the apostrophe out annoys the software because Word then believes that “fur covers its under” – with “under” as a the thing covered by fur – and doesn’t know what to do with the extra word at the end.

The computer is confused because  ”under parts” should be a single word. Depending on which dictionary or style guide you use, the two words need to be concatenated or hyphenated, giving:

“This animal has a dark breast, while lighter fur covers its underparts [or under-parts].”

The lesson to learn? Never trust a computer – and don’t just right-click and accept the suggested changes!

The great thing about the little green guy (apart from being able to wiggle his ears) is that he’s easy to understand, even though he talks funny. Look at some of the things he says and you’ll see why:

“Always with you what cannot be done.”

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”

“Around the survivors, a perimeter create.”

Basically, Yoda turns his sentences on their heads, moves words around and puts them in a different order to normal English. He speaks like someone translating a foreign language literally, without any context.

But – and this is the thing – he doesn’t drop any essential words. He doesn’t make up new words (unlike a certain annoying Gungan). He has something to say. Just about everything the listener needs is there and can be rearranged to form a normal sentence. Importantly, he retains the meaning of the phrase.

So what can we learn from Master Yoda? Two lessons there are, young Padawan.

Firstly, perfect grammar is not essential to understanding. It helps, but unless you’re trying to make a living as a writer, what you have to say may be more important than building a syntactically-correct sentence.

Secondly, your voice can be more important than your grammar. If you’re blogging in a non-native language, you’ll make mistakes – but if you’re consistent and have personality (or green ears that you can wiggle), there’s a good chance you’ll end up with a following.

Don’t be discouraged by the difficulties of language. Don’t be put off by acerbic comments that pick holes in your sentences and ridicule your use of prepositions. Keep writing. As long as you have something to say, people will listen.

And remember Master Yoda’s advice: “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

(With thanks to @speedmouse for the inspiration.)

Some of the documents I’m editing are obviously written by people with English as a second language. This made me think that I should keep track of some of the more common grammar errors that are made by non-native writers. I’m extra-familiar with this, since my partner is French and makes the same mistakes!

So here are a few that appear very frequently, as they appeared in documents about horses (in case you wondered).

I will try to explain each problem, but avoid technical grammar-speak, in the hope that this will be useful to the non-English blogging and writing community!

“This particular type of animal could still be commonly seen at certain parts of England.”

This phrase was used as part of a present-tense paragraph. The “continuing activity” is a frequent stumbling block for many non-native speakers: the idea of having to figure out whether an action was happening and is still going on.

In this case, the phrase above can mean that the animal “can possibly be seen”, but most native English readers will consider the word “could” to be in the past tense. The phrase therefore changes meaning and becomes “could possibly be seen in the past”. That doesn’t make sense in a present-tense paragraph.

The important thing here is that the animal is common – not that people see it. By rephrasing a little, it becomes much clearer. Also, “at certain parts” should be “in certain parts” – this is another common mistranslation. Most languages do, indeed, use “at” – English is just odd in this particular case.

Suggested change: “This particular type of animal is still common in certain parts of England.”

“Most are used for pulling royal carriages for centuries.”

A historical comment, that a particular breed of horse was used for a certain job. Obviously, the verb is in the wrong tense – “are” needs to be changed to “were”.

There’s another problem, though: the placement of “for centuries” makes it sound like the poor creatures had to constantly pull carriages for several hundred years, without stopping!

Suggested change: “For centuries, they were mostly used to pull royal carriages.”

“Its eyes are brilliant and very alluring.”

This is a thesaurus mistake: the author has translated a word like “attractive” or “appealing” (something that is physically pretty), but has unfortunately chosen a word with sexual undertones. The word “alluring” implies sexual attraction, which would – one hopes – not be the case where a horse is concerned.

Suggested change: “Its eyes are brilliant and attractive.”

“A chest that is quite deeper than most.”

Again, an unfortunate choice of translated word. “Quite” just doesn’t work like this. “Quite” is a synonym for words like “fairly” or “very”. Thus, it could be combined with “deep” (“very deep”) but not with “deeper”: a word like “rather” or “somewhat” may be more appropriate. If it’s a significant different, how about “notably”?

Suggested change: “A chest that is somewhat deeper than most.”

“…up to a certain height. On the other hand, these breeds come in colors…”

Another common problem when writing in an unfamiliar language is all those little start-of-sentence phrases, like “Additionally…” or “In general…”. In this case, the author chose “On the other hand”, but it makes no sense in the paragraph, as it was really only there to begin a sentence with another piece of unrelated information.

“On the other hand” presents an opposing argument or fact to the one given in the previous sentence. So, for example, one could say “He is not very tall. On the other hand, he’s not very short!” or “On the one hand, I like the colour. On the other hand, I don’t like the shape.”

Suggested change: Remove “On the other hand” entirely. It’s not needed.

“Because these animals are traditionally bred in areas all around France, they are sought after by many animal lovers”

Here, we have a problem of an inconsistent conclusion. The first part of the phrase simply doesn’t explain the second. They are sought after because they’re bred all over France? Why does that mean they’re so valuable? There’s no logic to the conclusion at all.

Suggested change: Simply replace “they” with “and”. That way there’s two separate statements that don’t depend on each other.

They have been common in the farmlands of France and Belgium.

I struggled with this one for a little while. What was wrong with it? I knew it sounded weird but couldn’t place exactly why – then it hit me: it’s either in the wrong tense or needs more precision.

If it’s the tense, then “They have been common” should probably be “They are common”. An editor would have to go and check that fact before changing it, by the way.

Alternatively, it needs more information. “They have been common” tells the reader absolutely nothing. They were common, but aren’t any more? They have been and continue to be? They’ve recently become common, though they weren’t before? It’s just too vague.

Suggested change: In this case, it was the tense. “They are common…”

“Vivid”

This is one of those words that, unless you’ve run across an incorrect translation before, you won’t think strange. The thing is that most Latin-based languages use the word in a different way to English.

To an English person, “vivid” relates to colour. It can be usedto convey flamboyance or a “colourful” personality as well, but it always comes back to the basis of colour.

To speakers of most other languages, “vivid” relates to being “full of life” or – in English terms – “vivacious“.

It’s what the French call a “false friend”: a word that is close in spelling, but means something else (look up “sensible” and “support” in a French dictionary for a couple of other examples). It’s an irregularity that’s worth remembering!

“In perfect shape” and “Perfectly-shaped”

A result of English sometimes being rather compact, these two phrases have different meanings. Although the first is the literal translation of the second from a lot of other languages, it means something else.

“In perfect shape” is used as an expression of physical or mental condition: “I was in perfect shape for the competition” would mean that the person was  at the peak of their physical and/or mental preparations.

“Perfectly-shaped” is a comment on the physical appearance of something. A perfectly-shaped Greek urn looks exactly like the mental picture one has of the object.

Any more?

Those are just a few of the more common errors I’ve encountered recently. I hope the explanations will help some of my blogging and writing compatriots out there!

I’d love to hear from any non-native English writers, of course. What is the toughest thing for you to get right? Is there a mistake you make every time? Is there something you’ve never understood that I might be able to clarify?

Go on, leave me a comment and let me know!