<story><title>Software engineers should write</title><url>http://www.shubhro.com/2014/12/27/software-engineers-should-write/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>edpichler</author><text>Oh, I really appreciate your corrections, thank you!
I understand that reading bad English is really annoying for natives. I try to be careful here on HN, but sometimes I do some mistakes.</text></item><item><author>sophacles</author><text>Tangential - Just want to give you some feedback on your comment, since you are wanting to improve your second language:&lt;p&gt;First: you&amp;#x27;ve overcome a big hurdle in learning a second language, I understood what you are trying to communicate, and I did so on my first reading of it. To me, this means you&amp;#x27;re already good at english! (By comparison if I tried in my second language, which is German, I would need a few drafts and a proof-reader).&lt;p&gt;Second: You&amp;#x27;re doing commas better than a lot of native english speakers. That&amp;#x27;s pretty impressive.&lt;p&gt;Third: There are a couple of grammatical&amp;#x2F;phrasing errors I&amp;#x27;ll tell you about in your comment. These are really common errors amongst people who learn English as a second (or Nth) language, and I&amp;#x27;m not doing it to belittle you, but to help your stated goal of improvement.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;I&amp;#x27;m doing it since 09&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2014&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is one of those wierd places in English where the verbs &amp;quot;to do&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;to be&amp;quot; combine strangely with tenses and idioms. I&amp;#x27;m not so sure of the technical way of stating the problem, but here&amp;#x27;s a couple of examples of a more natural way to state it:&lt;p&gt;* I&amp;#x27;ve been doing it since 09&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2014.&lt;p&gt;* I&amp;#x27;ve done it since 09&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2014.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;but something in me tell me that&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is a small one, and maybe a typo, but it is part of a pattern I&amp;#x27;ve seen a lot. Again, not great at the technical grammar terms, but it should be:&lt;p&gt;* but something in me &lt;i&gt;tells&lt;/i&gt; me that&lt;p&gt;(notice the &amp;#x27;s&amp;#x27; on tells).&lt;p&gt;Anyway I&amp;#x27;m always impressed with people who can learn a second language well, and wanted to encourage it and help if can.</text></item><item><author>edpichler</author><text>&amp;quot;Even if nobody reads your essay, writing it will make an impact on you.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;After reading a post in HN (&lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5614689&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=5614689&lt;/a&gt;) entitled &amp;quot;why you should write every day&amp;quot;, I&amp;#x27;ve being doing it daily in a private blog. I do it in English to improve my second language. My main language is Portuguese.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m doing it since 09&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2014. I try to write about my own ideas, because I believe is the right thing to do and it is the best subject to improve myself. It&amp;#x27;s not an easy task, and I do not feel I&amp;#x27;m improving yet, but something in me tell me that I should keep doing it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sophacles</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re welcome. Personally, I don&amp;#x27;t understand when people get annoyed by those things. I figure if someone has done me the favor of learning my language to communicate with me, and they&amp;#x27;ve done so well enough that I understand them, why should I nitpick little errors?&lt;p&gt;I only point out things like this to people who state they are actively trying to improve - because they&amp;#x27;ve done me a favor by being able to communicate with me, and I can return it by helping them at their goal.</text></comment>
<story><title>Software engineers should write</title><url>http://www.shubhro.com/2014/12/27/software-engineers-should-write/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>edpichler</author><text>Oh, I really appreciate your corrections, thank you!
I understand that reading bad English is really annoying for natives. I try to be careful here on HN, but sometimes I do some mistakes.</text></item><item><author>sophacles</author><text>Tangential - Just want to give you some feedback on your comment, since you are wanting to improve your second language:&lt;p&gt;First: you&amp;#x27;ve overcome a big hurdle in learning a second language, I understood what you are trying to communicate, and I did so on my first reading of it. To me, this means you&amp;#x27;re already good at english! (By comparison if I tried in my second language, which is German, I would need a few drafts and a proof-reader).&lt;p&gt;Second: You&amp;#x27;re doing commas better than a lot of native english speakers. That&amp;#x27;s pretty impressive.&lt;p&gt;Third: There are a couple of grammatical&amp;#x2F;phrasing errors I&amp;#x27;ll tell you about in your comment. These are really common errors amongst people who learn English as a second (or Nth) language, and I&amp;#x27;m not doing it to belittle you, but to help your stated goal of improvement.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;I&amp;#x27;m doing it since 09&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2014&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is one of those wierd places in English where the verbs &amp;quot;to do&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;to be&amp;quot; combine strangely with tenses and idioms. I&amp;#x27;m not so sure of the technical way of stating the problem, but here&amp;#x27;s a couple of examples of a more natural way to state it:&lt;p&gt;* I&amp;#x27;ve been doing it since 09&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2014.&lt;p&gt;* I&amp;#x27;ve done it since 09&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2014.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;but something in me tell me that&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is a small one, and maybe a typo, but it is part of a pattern I&amp;#x27;ve seen a lot. Again, not great at the technical grammar terms, but it should be:&lt;p&gt;* but something in me &lt;i&gt;tells&lt;/i&gt; me that&lt;p&gt;(notice the &amp;#x27;s&amp;#x27; on tells).&lt;p&gt;Anyway I&amp;#x27;m always impressed with people who can learn a second language well, and wanted to encourage it and help if can.</text></item><item><author>edpichler</author><text>&amp;quot;Even if nobody reads your essay, writing it will make an impact on you.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;After reading a post in HN (&lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5614689&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=5614689&lt;/a&gt;) entitled &amp;quot;why you should write every day&amp;quot;, I&amp;#x27;ve being doing it daily in a private blog. I do it in English to improve my second language. My main language is Portuguese.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m doing it since 09&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;2014. I try to write about my own ideas, because I believe is the right thing to do and it is the best subject to improve myself. It&amp;#x27;s not an easy task, and I do not feel I&amp;#x27;m improving yet, but something in me tell me that I should keep doing it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>japhyr</author><text>Your English is not &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot;. There are some technical grammar issues you&amp;#x27;ll continue to work out, but the meaning in your writing is perfectly clear. That makes it pretty easy to overlook anything that&amp;#x27;s not quite correct in your writing.</text></comment>