10 GREAT Tips to Improve English Writing Skills for non-native English speakers

Hi there, this is Harry and welcome back to advanced English lessons with Harry, where

we try to help you to get a better understanding and how to use English in a better way. Whether

it's in conversational English, business English, use of phrasal verbs, adjectives, whatever

it happens to be, we're here to help you.

And today we're going to do something a little bit different. Quite a few of you have been

asking recently about how can you, how can they improve their writing skills. As I always

tell students speaking and writing skills are very, very different. Two very different

skill sets altogether. When you're speaking, it's, of course important to be correct and

polite. But often when we speak something, it's forgotten about quite quickly. Unfortunately,

when we write something, it's there on record. Particularly if we're using email, or some

other form of text, it's there for people to see, and they can read it several times.

And therefore mistakes become a little bit more obvious. And we have to be really, really

careful. And we also have to be really careful how we write, so we might be misinterpreted.

Of course, we can be misinterpreted when we speak. But again, when it's written down,

it's a little bit more in your line of view, and people can comment and remark on it. So

there are different skills needed. When we're speaking to people, we're often speaking to

our friends and colleagues and making little mistakes is not really so important as long

as we are fluent. When we're writing, it can be a formal report, it can be a letter for

a job interview, whatever it happens to be, we really have to be more accurate, we have

to be accurate with our spelling, punctuation. But we also have to be careful with the sort

of words that we use.

Now, there are lots and lots of platforms available and the apps to to help you. I mean,

two of them will be just Google Translate and Grammarly. Lots of you use them. I know

that and they can be very useful at times, but be really, really careful. Okay, because

particularly with Google Translate, it will give you a literal translation. And with English,

there are so many different words you can use. And if you've been watching and listening

to my particular lessons over the last wee while, you will begin to understand that there

are lots of synonyms for different words, but not all of them can be used in substitution.

So you have to be really careful with literal translations because they can look a little

bit silly, a little strange, and not what you perhaps intended when you use it. Okay,

with Grammarly. Usually it's correct. But I have noticed because I use it just to check

in with my students that from time to time, it can actually throw up the wrong answer.

There may be little twists and variations that you have and unless you're a native speaker,

you won't know what they are. So again, just be careful if you use Grammarly. So my recommendation

is not to use either of them. To struggle on at the beginning, to... If you make mistakes,

okay, you make mistakes. But when you get corrected by somebody prep... professional

teacher, well, then you're more likely to remember rather than relying on Grammarly,

or Google translate. Okay.

So I've got a 10-point plan here that will improve your writing, it will help you to

improve your writing beyond what you would have expected. It takes time, but a lot of

the students that I help and I have a specific course that I do with them, that after a few

weeks and a few exercises that I give them, you'd be surprised really, really surprised

how quickly their written skills and the writing they do can improve and quite dramatically.

So number one, start with short and simple sentences. I mean, this sounds really, really

school-type approach, but it really does work. Lots of people come to me and they want to

write really complex sentences or when they do send me a sentence, there's no full stop,

there's no ending to it, it goes on and on. And the problem with that is if you don't

have a proper control on those sentences, you lose control of it. You lose the point

that you're trying to say and there'd be many, many more grammar mistakes than you had intended.

So, the very beginning until you get a little bit more professional in your writing, start

with short and simple sentences or short simple structure, okay. And then you can build up.

And then when you build up, you will see where you can make improvements and where you can

make it a little bit more complex. But start with short simple and I have this K I S S

keep it short and simple. Keep it short and simple K I S S A general rule of thumb that

I use. If you want to state some facts, give some facts then use short sentences. You know,

if you're giving data, use short sentences. If you want to describe something like the

cow in the filed or the dog in the park, you can use longer sentences because you're going

to use a lot more adjectives to describe what you see. The long green shoots of new spring

grass, okay. Or the short-legged barking dog, you know. Whatever it might be, you're going

to use a lot more descriptive words. And therefore with those type of descriptions, you can afford

to use longer sentences. But when you're using facts, the population of the country is 1.5

million. Full stop. There are 50% of the population employed, and 30% of the population under

the age of 18. Full stop. Short, simple sentences. Facts.

Okay, moving on to point number two. Focus on getting your sentences correct. And brush

up on your grammar. So really, really important at a very early stage to eliminate grammar

mistakes. If you eliminate the grammar mistakes, then you can move on start building those

complex sentences that we spoke about, you can start adding adjectives. But if you've

got a lot of grammar mistakes, like the wrong preposition, not using the articles or using

the wrong tense, then, you know, no matter how far you go, your English written English

will always be poor. So we want to eliminate those mistakes at a very early stage. So focus

on getting the correct grammar in all of your sentences. Make sure if you're going to use

the present perfect, that is the right tense to use. If you're using the present continuous

if the right tense to use. And as I said, before you get away with it when you're speaking,

your won't get away with it when you're writing.

Number three, read as much and as often as you can. Apart from enjoyment, you will see

and understand the structure of sentences, you'll see and understand the difference between

a sentence in the written format and a sentence in the spoken format. Okay, you'll get to

understand how people vary, how you begin a sentence to change the way it's written

to make it more enjoyable for the reader, to make it more interesting to write and to

avoid repetition. So read as much and as often as you can. Of course books in English, if

you're writing in English, so to see how authors do it. But don't... don't read classic books

so much. I mean, they're really beautiful books by Charles Dickens, or Bronte or whoever

it might be that you've got an interest in, by all means read them. But remember that

you're writing now in the 21st century, so the books you should be reading, if you want

to improve on your written skills, should be those books that were also written in the

20th and 21st centuries, because, you know, it's really show you modern English, modern

conversational English, how we use reported speech and other aspects and it's really,

really important to, to read, to look at and to learn, okay.

What you can also do point number four is to keep a diary. Okay? Now, the diary is really

important. And this will help you to write short stories in English. So if you keep a

diary, you get used to writing. So it might be a diary, just a few sentences about what

you do every day. Or it might be a diary about what you see every day. But it's a great way

to practice. Now, it might be handwritten diary or... but of course, you can use modern

technology, and you can record it as a Word documents and makes life a little bit easier.

But it's just something that you can refer back to. And something you can use when you

want to write short stories. So you should always try and keep a notepad handy when you're

reading a book or you're looking at the Internet. Because you might want to write down or to

capture really interesting sentences in the book that you hadn't heard of. Or a group

of words or collocation that you've seen that the author has used that might be quite interesting

for you. So you can record that, write it down, and you can use it later on. Okay, and

this is called sentence mining. Okay, so to sentence mining is to find interesting collocations,

find interesting groups of words, find interesting combinations and sentences that you could

use to your advantage later on. We'll say, sentence mining. Keep that in your diary and

keep a notepad where you can keep a record.

Number five, avoid translating from your native or mother tongue into English. This always

causes problems. What it causes is a hesitation. It also causes you to use incorrect words

And then you stop and you start and you get no fluency. So try to think in English, okay.

It might take you a little bit longer again, often, when we're doing written exercises

with my students, I ask them, How long did it take you to write that? And, you know,

if I've given them a short story to write or an essay of a couple of 100 words, it shouldn't

really take more than 25 to 30 minutes, but often, it will take the early learners 40-45-50

minutes, 60 minutes, that's okay. Don't worry about the time it takes at the beginning,

it's much more important to get it accurate, okay. But the more you practice to think in

English, then the less time you will take to write it. So you'll start thinking and

using the words. You'll start thinking and using the collocations. You'll start thinking

and putting the correct structure on your sentences. So try to avoid thinking in your

native tongue. Try to think in English writing English, speaking English, thinking English.

Okay.

Number six. Now, here's an important point when you're writing, particularly from a business

perspective, if you're writing a proposal, or if you're writing a memo, or you're writing

a position paper, whatever it happens to be, be aware of the audience who's going to read

it. When I was a bit younger, and I was writing, I was always have in mind that I'd expect

the most senior person in my office, my boss or his boss, to read. And they may not, of

course, but I always imagined that they would be reading it. And therefore I'd want to write

the best I could possibly write, not just to scribble down something, not just to throw

a few words together, but to write something as clearly and as specific as I could be.

Okay, so I would focus on the grammar, I would focus on making sure that I had the correct

structure in my sentence, I would focus on avoiding repetition, because... and, and also

punctuation, my old boss really, really really didn't like bad punctuation. So to make sure

that you focus on those things, to expect that the person, the most important person

that's in your office, you expect them to read it. And that will help you to focus and

produce better written papers, better written documents, better written emails, okay.

Number seven, this is important, particularly in writing, we have to be really, really careful

about the language that we use. Now, I don't mean here about good and bad language and

swear words, of course. You shouldn't use them, particularly in a written format. But

the register, okay. Whether we're talking about formal or informal, really, really important,

okay. If we're writing a business proposal, a business paper, we should always write it

in a formal way. If we're replying to a client, unless the client has asked us to be informal,

then we should be more formal than informal. If we're writing emails to a colleague and

the next floor, well, then, of course, we can be informal in that way, we don't have

to write everything so formal. So be aware and focused on the level or lack of formality,

in your written papers, in your written emails, in your written letters, whatever it might

be, just be really, really conscious of that. Be conscious of how you address somebody,

you know, if it's somebody you don't know, and you don't know the name, "Dear Sir." If

it's somebody that you're... If you're writing a letter of complaint, then it's going to

be "Yours faithfully" at the end. Not, you know, not best wishes or anything like that.

So really be conscious of who you're writing to, be conscious of why you're writing to

them, and be conscious of whether it's going to be formal, or informal, and get that right

and correct structure.

When we're talking about structure, point number eight, is to make sure that you do

actually have a structure in mind. You know, often when people start to write, they just

start writing. And they have no idea who they're going to write to, why they're writing to

them, and more importantly, how they're going to structure it. So have a think about it

before you write before you put pen to paper foot before you type anything, think about

the reasons why you're writing this email, is it a letter of complaints? So what should

be the the sense of it, okay, that the temperature of your of your letter, or you're writing

a letter to congratulate somebody, so how should you write that? If you're writing an

invitation, how should you write that? Okay, so, really think about it. And then when you're

thinking about that, what should be the tone? Is it formal or informal? Is it pleasant?

Is it complaining? Are you going to be really strong or they're going to be soft words,

how are you going to write that. So when you get that in your mind, then you can start

writing. And you'll find that there'll be a much better flow of words, because you will

have given it some thought. So, have in mind that you're going to have an introduction.

For example, if we're going to write a letter of complaint, we want to tell the person at

the very beginning, why we are writing to them, we are writing to you to complain about

something, okay? Then tell them what you're complaining about. Tell them why you're complaining,

it didn't work, when you bought it, you took it back to the shop, they wouldn't replace

it, etc, etc. So set out particularly and specifically what your complaints are. And

then when you come to the end, tell them specifically what you want to happen, I want this product

to be replaced, I want it to be replaced, immediately, I want my money back, I want

whatever you want, you have to set it out and tell them okay, and then you sign it,

and you may give them instruction, I would expect to get a reply within two days, within

three days, by next week. Tell them exactly when you expect to get a response. So when

you have that in your mind, and you can picture it in your mind, it's much easier for you

to set it out on paper because you can see it. Okay, so don't go into something blindly.

Think about it. Think about the words, think about the tone, think about the the tense,

and then committed to paper, okay, and then you're in a much better shape.

Now, when you've written something like that, particularly if it's a letter of complaint,

what I would suggest is that you write it, and then you walk away from it for 30 minutes,

go back to it and read it and see, are you happy with the way you've written it because

you might have written it much too formal, or you might have written it in a much more

hurtful tone they intended, or you might it might be too harsh, okay, so what you don't

want us to write something, press the button and send it without checking it because there

are bound to be mistakes. And particularly if it's not your native language, okay, so

you should really give yourself a little bit of time to check it, to read it. And then

to send it particularly if you're talking about job offers, if you're writing a covering

letter for a job interview, or a covering letter for a position or a place and university,

don't please don't write it and expect that they will be happy. If it's full of mistakes,

I wouldn't if I got it. And I doubt that the university will be happy because, you know,

they're going to assess you on your English ability and if your written letter gone into

them is badly written, but it's not going to reflect so well on you. Okay.

Now, point number nine then is to perhaps take an English class. If you need one to

work on some of these points that I've mentioned. Indeed, you could do with a second pair of

eyes to look at your written work, somebody that can help you somebody can set you assignments.

What I do with the students I have I start them off, as I said, with some simple English,

I get them to write sentences that will enable me to identify and point out mistakes, and

then I'm able to structure how the future written lessons should go. Okay, so then when

I've gone on from this simple examples, I might give them just four words. For example,

there was a bird sitting on the wall. Then I ask them just to write a little story around

that 80 words - 100 words. And you'd be surprised the mistakes people make, you'd be surprised

how they lack adjectives describe what the bird looked like. But then we can build up

so we correct the first six or seven sentences increase or improve the adjectives we use.

And then after several attempts, we have a really good descriptive passage or short story

to describe the birds sitting on the wall. Or the man standing beside the lamppost outside

the house. Yeah, so just simple situations, but enables you to write in a professional

way, after a while, in a structured way. After a while you've avoided repetition. This is

the really, really key problem with writing is how much repetition there is. And the reason

why there is a need for repetition is the fact that the vocabulary is limited. If you

don't have more adjectives, or more verbs or nouns, well, of course, there's going to

be repetition and it's not your fault. It just, you need a teacher, that's going to

help you. Not to use change, change, change, think think think persuade, persuade, persuade,

you have to use other words to change, to alter, to amend, to adjust, to think, to contemplate,

to mull over. You need other words, other expressions that will help you to write in

a much better clear and informed way. So that's number nine. Take an English class with a

recognised teacher and have another person review that work. Particularly, if it's a

job application, if it's an application for a university course these are really the critical

times when you want your written English to be as good as it possibly can.

And the final point, feel free in the lessons to make mistakes. If you don't make mistakes,

you don't make anything, I absolutely guarantee. Everybody who started off certainly with me

in their in their written English, I allow them the flexibility to just write and write

don't worry about mistakes, mistakes and be corrected. The problem is if you don't have

any thoughts, any ideas to start with all the issues about repetition, all the issues

about unknown words, all the issues, but wrong prepositions, don't worry about it, put them

down, see how you feel. And then the teacher will help you to improve that, how to squeeze

out those little mistakes that you make. And you'll you'll begin to enjoy your writing,

you'll begin to see for yourself, where you have repetition, you'll begin to self correct.

And those are the really key critical steps that you'll have to take when you want to

improve your writing.

Okay, so that's my 10-point plan how you can improve your basic writing skills. They're

not and it isn't rocket science, a lot of it is common sense, but unless you know it,

you can't do it. Okay, so you have to apply it. So have a look at the 10 points that I've

made. If you need any help, if you want any suggestions, please come back to me. Really,

really important, as I said, is to read as much as you can. It's great to read. They

don't have to be huge books, but just to read on a frequent and regular basis, it will really

help you. Okay.

So I hope that this particular lesson, and my 10-point plan will help you. I look forward

to reading your good English in the future. If you need anything else, please ask me you

can contact me on www.englishlessonviaskype. Very happy to help you and very happy to hear

from you. And as always, join me for the next lesson.