5 ms·

I wish I could write this well

57 points by kaeruct 5y ago

dzonga 5y ago
well written article. english speaking and writing ability in a population can also signal where I would like the to say the society is headed whether in terms of opening up or just general affairs. also english ability is why the us software industry is so ahead of other countries e.g japan where in the case of the mp3 player they had the hardware but couldn't write could enough software to make an ipod. n in something discussed this past week on hn, about european software - the tech hub countries e.g netherlands, sweden etc have are english proficient.
- ramoz 5y ago
  Is it though? I checked my initial bias of assuming the rest of the blog would be well written after the author declared himself a skilled writer along with the accompanying validation of another person deeming so as well. I was still a bit thrown off guard to come across "grammar" issues with certain phrases. Whatever the proper word is here I'm not sure, but there were some missing words, e.g "ran out steam", as well as weird terms like "iron practices". But also, maybe my tendency to perform psychoanalysis and evaluate reaction to new information doesn't make me a better reviewer so much as a default critic. Anyway I'm terrible with english and probably dyslexic. Just caught up in how I read that thing & my ongoing reaction to it. think too much... Just a blog.... Edit: oh yea, forgot to mention that the lead up and cliff hanger type ending threw me off without an "ah-ha" or laugh
  - Animats 5y ago
    "My ability to write in English came down to jotting down a few lousy sentences and eventually I ran out steam." That sounds more like writer's block. Getting past that requires either discipline or something to say. Incidentally, is it time to retire "ran out of steam" as a phrase? Nobody knows enough about steam locomotives any more for that to be a meaningful analogy. The phrase is usually misused, anyway. Unless the fire in a steam locomotive is built up before approaching a long hill, steam pressure will drop as steam consumption increases going uphill.[1] Underpowered or overloaded locomotives could lose enough pressure to stall on the hill. Some had insufficient power to get started again from that condition. The driver and fireman are expected to "get up a head of steam" before the hill, to avoid that embarrassment. So "running out of steam" really refers to not having enough power due to lack of preparation. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtrkiKo0lFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtrkiKo0lFE
    - michael1999 5y ago
      But if we retire our anachronisms —- steam, sail, animal husbandry, farming —- what metaphors will English have left?
paulpauper 5y ago
Which got me thinking, why do we refer to someone as talented when we know that they weren’t born with this skill? You weren’t born with the ability to speak, write stories or make computer programs. It’s a skill that you have have learned over time, mostly due to spending a lot of hours in that particular field. Except they are born with it. IQ is innate and correlated with relative (to one's peers) writing and math ability. People with talent get more millage for their effort. Someone with a high IQ will grasp concepts faster. http://greyenlightenment.com/2021/04/25/why-talent-beats-grit-growth-mindset-versus-the-fixed-mindset/ http://greyenlightenment.com/2021/04/25/why-talent-beats-gri... Sure, natural capabilities matter when you are competing with the best in the world, but for most people competing with the best is not a part of their daily job. Unless your job is low-skilled, getting a good, high-paying job means having to compete with other presumably talented applicants for that job.
- __s 5y ago
  At the same time, unless you're literally competing (ie tournaments) https://danluu.com/p95-skill https://danluu.com/p95-skill gets into how getting to a high percentile often comes down to getting fundamentals right Of course a lot of people don't have so much disposable time to achieve excellence. High school was an opportune time for me to spend years getting good at programming. But if you can manage to get into the 90th percentile of a skill it should be enough to get an entry position. It's easier to find time to hone one's craft when you're being paid to do it
- swiley 5y ago
  IQ doesn't dictate skills until you get bellow 100. Above that it really only tells you about learning speed.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  I think "talented" is a fine word to use to describe someone who wasn't born with a skill, but who honed their talent with lots of practice. "Gifted" might be a word I would use to describe someone who was simply born better suited for a certain task than others.
- xwdv 5y ago
Sr_developer 5y ago
> Bragging about how I got from zero to hero that is writing lengthy articles written in a foreign language is not the point of this story. And yet I didnt get any other meaningful point.
ibudiallo 5y ago
Here is what I want to say: After 16 years in a English speaking country, I don't feel articulate. But that's hardly the point. What I want to say always gets muddled with words I didn't intend to write. I started a blog because I believed the only way to learn to write well was by writing. After 8 years, I still struggle communicating my ideas properly, effectively and quickly enough. Yet, every blog I read the authors seems to have mastered communication. But then sometimes, something I write becomes popular. I received emails or praise about my writing style. Some will say that "no one could have said it better". If you and I don't feel as articulate, it's because we are the authors. Our ideas change, evolve, and improve. Everything you put down becomes an older version of your thoughts. No matter how good it was, the present you have learned something new to add. I wish I could write well, but even if I did, I'd look back at what I wrote in the past and still say "I wish I could write well".
- robocat 5y ago
  You have to think critically about yourself to improve. As you improve you find more to criticise. I remember one full time ski instructor telling me they thought they had skied three good turns that season! If you were to ask the world champion at golf or tennis how they felt about their form, they would be able to write a treatise on all the mistakes they made.
euske 5y ago
I agree with the talents bit. This article somehow reminded me of Richard Feynman saying that scientists are "just people" who really likes thinking and looking into stuff. Ultimately, I tend to think that one's talent is really an obsession with something. If you can turn your obsession to be something marketable, you'd be successful.
flakiness 5y ago
Maybe this is not the main point of the article, but English as a foreign language can be felt differently based on your main language. Writing clearly is hard but possible, but writing interesting stories is desperately hard and intimidating, if your main language is far from English in its nature. My main language is Japanese. As far as I know, there is no English-writing Japanese tech blogger who is even modestly recognized. I have never seen a tech article written by Japanese here in HN - with a few exceptions. (I think I can probably spot it if I see it - The tech community is much smaller there.) On the other hand, there are several OSS projects or developers which/who are based on Japan but still somehow popular. I agree that the writing ability is very nice to have, but sometimes, it can be more effective to invest the time to purely technical skills. They are often less biased by the natural language skills. The Japan-based authors of a few exceptional posts are exceptional programmers: Their articles are mere by-products of their primary contributions, which are the great code they've written.
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  I lived in Sweden until I was 7, but then lived most of my life in the US and never got any formal Swedish education. I still talk Swedish with a slight American accident and my Swedish writing is definitely very American styled. Regardless of that, I've been told at work that I may be one of the best writers in the company. My only strategy is to keep it rewrite it a couple times and keep it clear and to the point and think about what I'm actually trying to convey. The result is apparently that my writing is basically the best despite the periodic funny (and noticeable) weirdness that I throw in there. So I totally agree with your last paragraph. In my case (as apparently in this one), I'm not writing just for writing sake. As such, the most important thing might just be to get out of the way and the let the subject matter speak for itself.
  - type0 5y ago
    Swedish is so simple in style and so close to English that knowing it might actually help your English writing. English is my third foreign language, it is almost given that I won't be proficient in it unless I devote all my time communicating only in English, which I can't see being feasible.
searene 5y ago
I’m not a native English speaker, either. The biggest challenge for me is to write English sentences without grammatical errors. To do that, you need feedbacks that tell you whether your sentences are correct, that’s especially hard when you neither live in an English-speaking country nor have an English-speaking friend. Online language learning forums help a little bit, but they are not enough if you want constant feedbacks.
- rigel_kentaurus 5y ago
  Not sure if you did that on purpose, but you would say, "you need feedback", not making it plural
- flakiness 5y ago
  Same here. I'd recommend tools like Grammarly or something similar (like spell correction on Gmail/GDocs). They at least catch basic errors. Although many incorrect-but-not-right kinds of errors fall through, you'll feel embarrassed much less often.
- nzmsv 5y ago
  Some feedback: 1) "Feedback" is uncountable 2) The long sentence starting with "To do that" should be split into two after "correct". As written, the clause that follows is completely standalone and there is no conjunction to connect it to the rest of the sentence. 3) This is more of a style thing, but I would expand the word "that" in "that's especially hard". For example, into "getting this feedback". Why? Because "that" should refer to some concept you already mentioned, but there is nothing in the preceding sentence it can meaningfully point to. What's hard? Needing feedback? No, getting the feedback is hard, but that phrase doesn't appear anywhere, so you have a dangling pointer :)
  - searene 5y ago
    Thanks for the feedback!
- _tik_ 5y ago
  Same here. The grammar of my main language is very flexible compare to English. There is no grammatical for tenses and plurals.
elisom78 5y ago
Writing articles is a great way to improve your language skills. The more you practice, the faster you will be able to do it perfectly. As a foreigner, it is not so easy to master all the vocabulary well, but it is possible to understand the terminology and the most common expressions. You can also read different materials to improve your writing skills, for example this one: https://ivypanda.com/essays/writing-process-in-five-simple-steps/ https://ivypanda.com/essays/writing-process-in-five-simple-s...

57 points by kaeruct 5y ago

well written article. english speaking and writing ability in a population can also signal where I would like the to say the society is headed whether in terms of opening up or just general affairs. also english ability is why the us software industry is so ahead of other countries e.g japan where in the case of the mp3 player they had the hardware but couldn't write could enough software to make an ipod. n in something discussed this past week on hn, about european software - the tech hub countries e.g netherlands, sweden etc have are english proficient.

ramoz 5y ago
Is it though? I checked my initial bias of assuming the rest of the blog would be well written after the author declared himself a skilled writer along with the accompanying validation of another person deeming so as well. I was still a bit thrown off guard to come across "grammar" issues with certain phrases. Whatever the proper word is here I'm not sure, but there were some missing words, e.g "ran out steam", as well as weird terms like "iron practices". But also, maybe my tendency to perform psychoanalysis and evaluate reaction to new information doesn't make me a better reviewer so much as a default critic. Anyway I'm terrible with english and probably dyslexic. Just caught up in how I read that thing & my ongoing reaction to it. think too much... Just a blog.... Edit: oh yea, forgot to mention that the lead up and cliff hanger type ending threw me off without an "ah-ha" or laugh
- Animats 5y ago
  "My ability to write in English came down to jotting down a few lousy sentences and eventually I ran out steam." That sounds more like writer's block. Getting past that requires either discipline or something to say. Incidentally, is it time to retire "ran out of steam" as a phrase? Nobody knows enough about steam locomotives any more for that to be a meaningful analogy. The phrase is usually misused, anyway. Unless the fire in a steam locomotive is built up before approaching a long hill, steam pressure will drop as steam consumption increases going uphill.[1] Underpowered or overloaded locomotives could lose enough pressure to stall on the hill. Some had insufficient power to get started again from that condition. The driver and fireman are expected to "get up a head of steam" before the hill, to avoid that embarrassment. So "running out of steam" really refers to not having enough power due to lack of preparation. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtrkiKo0lFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtrkiKo0lFE
  - michael1999 5y ago
    But if we retire our anachronisms —- steam, sail, animal husbandry, farming —- what metaphors will English have left?

paulpauper 5y ago

Which got me thinking, why do we refer to someone as talented when we know that they weren’t born with this skill? You weren’t born with the ability to speak, write stories or make computer programs. It’s a skill that you have have learned over time, mostly due to spending a lot of hours in that particular field. Except they are born with it. IQ is innate and correlated with relative (to one's peers) writing and math ability. People with talent get more millage for their effort. Someone with a high IQ will grasp concepts faster. http://greyenlightenment.com/2021/04/25/why-talent-beats-grit-growth-mindset-versus-the-fixed-mindset/ http://greyenlightenment.com/2021/04/25/why-talent-beats-gri... Sure, natural capabilities matter when you are competing with the best in the world, but for most people competing with the best is not a part of their daily job. Unless your job is low-skilled, getting a good, high-paying job means having to compete with other presumably talented applicants for that job.

__s 5y ago
At the same time, unless you're literally competing (ie tournaments) https://danluu.com/p95-skill https://danluu.com/p95-skill gets into how getting to a high percentile often comes down to getting fundamentals right Of course a lot of people don't have so much disposable time to achieve excellence. High school was an opportune time for me to spend years getting good at programming. But if you can manage to get into the 90th percentile of a skill it should be enough to get an entry position. It's easier to find time to hone one's craft when you're being paid to do it
swiley 5y ago
IQ doesn't dictate skills until you get bellow 100. Above that it really only tells you about learning speed.
oh_sigh 5y ago
I think "talented" is a fine word to use to describe someone who wasn't born with a skill, but who honed their talent with lots of practice. "Gifted" might be a word I would use to describe someone who was simply born better suited for a certain task than others.
xwdv 5y ago

Sr_developer 5y ago

> Bragging about how I got from zero to hero that is writing lengthy articles written in a foreign language is not the point of this story. And yet I didnt get any other meaningful point.

ibudiallo 5y ago

Here is what I want to say: After 16 years in a English speaking country, I don't feel articulate. But that's hardly the point. What I want to say always gets muddled with words I didn't intend to write. I started a blog because I believed the only way to learn to write well was by writing. After 8 years, I still struggle communicating my ideas properly, effectively and quickly enough. Yet, every blog I read the authors seems to have mastered communication. But then sometimes, something I write becomes popular. I received emails or praise about my writing style. Some will say that "no one could have said it better". If you and I don't feel as articulate, it's because we are the authors. Our ideas change, evolve, and improve. Everything you put down becomes an older version of your thoughts. No matter how good it was, the present you have learned something new to add. I wish I could write well, but even if I did, I'd look back at what I wrote in the past and still say "I wish I could write well".

robocat 5y ago
You have to think critically about yourself to improve. As you improve you find more to criticise. I remember one full time ski instructor telling me they thought they had skied three good turns that season! If you were to ask the world champion at golf or tennis how they felt about their form, they would be able to write a treatise on all the mistakes they made.

euske 5y ago

I agree with the talents bit. This article somehow reminded me of Richard Feynman saying that scientists are "just people" who really likes thinking and looking into stuff. Ultimately, I tend to think that one's talent is really an obsession with something. If you can turn your obsession to be something marketable, you'd be successful.

flakiness 5y ago

Maybe this is not the main point of the article, but English as a foreign language can be felt differently based on your main language. Writing clearly is hard but possible, but writing interesting stories is desperately hard and intimidating, if your main language is far from English in its nature. My main language is Japanese. As far as I know, there is no English-writing Japanese tech blogger who is even modestly recognized. I have never seen a tech article written by Japanese here in HN - with a few exceptions. (I think I can probably spot it if I see it - The tech community is much smaller there.) On the other hand, there are several OSS projects or developers which/who are based on Japan but still somehow popular. I agree that the writing ability is very nice to have, but sometimes, it can be more effective to invest the time to purely technical skills. They are often less biased by the natural language skills. The Japan-based authors of a few exceptional posts are exceptional programmers: Their articles are mere by-products of their primary contributions, which are the great code they've written.

CogitoCogito 5y ago
I lived in Sweden until I was 7, but then lived most of my life in the US and never got any formal Swedish education. I still talk Swedish with a slight American accident and my Swedish writing is definitely very American styled. Regardless of that, I've been told at work that I may be one of the best writers in the company. My only strategy is to keep it rewrite it a couple times and keep it clear and to the point and think about what I'm actually trying to convey. The result is apparently that my writing is basically the best despite the periodic funny (and noticeable) weirdness that I throw in there. So I totally agree with your last paragraph. In my case (as apparently in this one), I'm not writing just for writing sake. As such, the most important thing might just be to get out of the way and the let the subject matter speak for itself.
- type0 5y ago
  Swedish is so simple in style and so close to English that knowing it might actually help your English writing. English is my third foreign language, it is almost given that I won't be proficient in it unless I devote all my time communicating only in English, which I can't see being feasible.

searene 5y ago

I’m not a native English speaker, either. The biggest challenge for me is to write English sentences without grammatical errors. To do that, you need feedbacks that tell you whether your sentences are correct, that’s especially hard when you neither live in an English-speaking country nor have an English-speaking friend. Online language learning forums help a little bit, but they are not enough if you want constant feedbacks.

rigel_kentaurus 5y ago
Not sure if you did that on purpose, but you would say, "you need feedback", not making it plural
flakiness 5y ago
Same here. I'd recommend tools like Grammarly or something similar (like spell correction on Gmail/GDocs). They at least catch basic errors. Although many incorrect-but-not-right kinds of errors fall through, you'll feel embarrassed much less often.
nzmsv 5y ago
Some feedback: 1) "Feedback" is uncountable 2) The long sentence starting with "To do that" should be split into two after "correct". As written, the clause that follows is completely standalone and there is no conjunction to connect it to the rest of the sentence. 3) This is more of a style thing, but I would expand the word "that" in "that's especially hard". For example, into "getting this feedback". Why? Because "that" should refer to some concept you already mentioned, but there is nothing in the preceding sentence it can meaningfully point to. What's hard? Needing feedback? No, getting the feedback is hard, but that phrase doesn't appear anywhere, so you have a dangling pointer :)
- searene 5y ago
  Thanks for the feedback!
_tik_ 5y ago
Same here. The grammar of my main language is very flexible compare to English. There is no grammatical for tenses and plurals.

elisom78 5y ago

Writing articles is a great way to improve your language skills. The more you practice, the faster you will be able to do it perfectly. As a foreigner, it is not so easy to master all the vocabulary well, but it is possible to understand the terminology and the most common expressions. You can also read different materials to improve your writing skills, for example this one: https://ivypanda.com/essays/writing-process-in-five-simple-steps/ https://ivypanda.com/essays/writing-process-in-five-simple-s...