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thirteenandten · 3 years

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hello, do you have any tips for writing in English when you're not a native English speaker? Do you write in English from the start? Love your writing, btw!

Well hi! This was a very nice anon to receive, I'm honoured! And thank you for the compliment <3

So first let me start reminding you that writing in a language that it's not your own is super difficult, because it's not just diferent words and structures, but a whole different way of thinking and understanding the world. So please be gentle and patient with yourself while you do it!

Yes, the stories that I intend to publish in English are written in English from the start. Ever since I started writing my fics in English I took this approach and tbh I think it’s the best one. I reccommend it big time because you surely will write more complex or ellaborate stuff in your native language and then it'll be very difficult/frustrating to try and take that into English. Don't worry if your first stories in English are a bit rough, you'll get better with time! Practice here is key.

You can find the tips under the cut because I’m wordy as hell so it turned out super long.

- When English is not working for you like, I suggest writing down a little summary in your own language of what you want to write for later. Not the actual thing but what you want to tell. The ideas will probably come easier in your native language and then when English is working again, you can go back to it without losing your ideas.

-This one may be obvious but READ A LOT IN ENGLISH. I would especially suggest books written in English by English speakers. But of course, everything helps, including fics. And while you do that, try to stop and pay attention to the language. When something really works for you (a dialogue, a description, a feeling) pause, go back to the words, and notice how it was done. I've been doing this "active reading" lately and it has helped me a lot.

-Similar to the one above: expose yourself to a lot of English. Tumblr is okay but also go and watch videos of native English speakers. Listen to songs in English and take the time to look for the lyrics and think about them. When a word sounds interesting but you are not certain of the menaing, look it up! Even if you don't remember the words exactly for later, the little research will help you either way. Watch movies and series and pay attention to the language and how people talk. That'll also help you to incorporate phrases, jokes and sayings that people use in everyday life. Just expose yourself to English as much as you can and have your writer brain open and attentive!

-Going more into the writing process, those lists of different ways of saying words, or words for different moods or situations are fantastic. Just always remember to check for the word precise meaning and usage before putting anything in your work.

-I highly recommend Thesaurus. It's great for looking for alternative to words (always checking meaning and usage!), but also sometimes you know there's this word that reminds you of this other that would fit perfectly in your text and you just can’t remember the actual word you want. In those desperate moments, I go to Thesaurus, search the word I do remember, and more often than not, I arrive to the one I actually wanted (or sometimes, to another great word I hadn’t thought about!)

-Using a Collocations Dictionary literally saves your life (? I learnt about these dictionaries during uni and I loved them so much I bought a physical one which saved me many times while writing essays. Basically it gives you the prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, whatever that most usually “collocate” (go with) the word you’re looking for.

-Check for spelling whenever you are not certain you are writing a word correctly. And I mean putting the word straight on the Google search bar. If you got a letter (or several) wrong, Google will help you.

-Google combinations of words between quotation marks (”word”) to see if they are actually used by English speakers. I can’t come up with anything better right now, but for example, “seat belt” in Spanish is “cinturón de seguridad” and you could translate that literally to “security belt”. If for some reason I wasn’t sure of which of these combinations the acceptable, I could google each phrase between quotations marks and see the number of results. Usually, the option with more results is the one that is most commonly used and that will be understood more easily. For example, “security belt” throws 316k results, while “seat belt” throws 57million results.

-Use Google Images to look for specific vocabulary you can’t remember or simply don’t know. “Kitchen appliances names”, “parts of a book names”, “parts of the body names” “clothing names”. You’ll get charts with pictures and names and it’ll make your life ten times easier, I promise.

-Decide if you are writing in British or American English... or if you don't care lol. The most sensible thing to do is to pick one, but if you are writing just for fun, you might as well accept that you’ll have inconsistencies in that matter and let it be. If you do choose one English variant though, google the most common differences in spelling AND I highly suggest running Word’s spellcheck after setting the language to the English variant you’re using.

-Needless to say, writing blogs are your friends. They are full of resources, some even specially thought for non native English speakers.

-In general I would say that googling stuff is an excellent strategy when you have doubts: verb conjugations, one words vs the other, anything about English grammar, etc.

-If you feel comfortable with it, getting a Beta reader who is an English native speaker is super great. A Beta reader in general would be fine because someone else may notice a mistake you overlooked (God knows how many "ringed" instead of "rang" I've posted in my life). Also a trusted friend giving a second read can help. Or you reading out loud, if it's not a very long thing, can help you identify if there's something off.

-Be gentle with yourself! You'll make mistakes! You will even post them! My fics, old and recent always have at least one mistake no matter how much I check them. That's fine! You can go and edit them or leave it, and I promise people won't get mad at you (if they do let me know and I'll virtually punch them).

-Finally, practice, practice, practice!

I hope this very long answer is somewhat useful! And do let me know if I can help you with anything else.

Much love xx

#writing #ask #anon #seriously why do i need to write such long replies lol #i hope they are at least useful skjdfhs #i'm not a pro writer by any stretch but i've been writing in english for a long time #+ i am a professional english spanish translator lol #but by that i mean that a) my advice might not be the best and b) it's okay not to be on the same level as someone else #like for sure the first two or three years i wrote in english i wasn't as fluent as i am now #and i've gained A LOT of experience since then with uni and my work #so yeah #writing should be fun

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gunsatthaphan · 3 years

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i love your gifs and wanted to make some of my own too but they always end up very low in quality :( if its alright, can you share where and how you make high quality gifs? thanks in advance!

hi anon!

thank you very much I feel honored that you're coming to me for advice 🥺💕

though I’m not a pro or anything lol I just kind of go along with what looks good and I’m happy when it turns out okay jksdfh but hopefully I can still help you with your request :)

I use photoshop as my only software - after I import the footage I crop the image to the size I want and crop potential logos, watermarks or unwanted subs etc. in the process.

After that I kind of play around with the colors until it looks nice lol sorry I don’t have a more elaborate explanation but that’s literally what I do lol 🙈

Next is sharpening - the methods I use depend on the quality of the video but I mostly end up using a combination of smart sharpening (filters -> sharpening -> smart sharpening) and gaussian blur (filters -> blur -> gaussian blur). After I apply the smart sharpening I often duplicate the layer and add the gaussian blur to the second layer and set the layer-opacity to about 10-20%. That way the image looks a bit more smooth as opposed to just using the smart sharpening which can make the image look a bit hard and edged? If that makes sense lol. I know a lot of ppl work with the Topaz plugin as well but it keeps crashing for me which is why I don’t use it.

But yeah that’s basically it. I hope my explanation makes sense- Additionally I’m gonna link you to some excellent tutorials which have helped me a lot (and still do; they’re all from the bts fandom bc these ppl are literal giffing gods i tell ya):

x - x - x - x - x - x

additionally, there’s this blog dedicated to giffing tutorials which is also very helpful! AAANNDDD last but not least - here is another very good masterpost from another giffing blog :)

hope this helped you a bit anon - there are so many super talented giffers out there that I basically just lurk around and pick up as much as I can skjdfh 🙈

xxx

#giffing #if someone has more links to good tutorials drop them in the comments! :)#anon #ask #doreen answers

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