If you read my last week post about my pledge to write in English every Fridays, you can find so many mistakes there. That is not a good thing to do, in my own opinion, to post with mistakes. But I make promise to myself to write in English more. I know you are afraid to write in English, to see people commenting on your post to show how many mistakes, but it is part of learning, That’s why I post this How to Write in English, so we, especially I, can learn more about it.
So, if you have had follow this blog since January 2015, perhaps you still remember that on January 5th, 2015, me, Dani and Nita announced the Blog English Club where we can learn English together through challenges. Now it is already May 1st, 2015 – the 5th month for Blog English Club and I was thinking last week, how come that I didn’t feel any improvement on my English? Where did I do wrong? And I realize that I only wrote in English for the English Friday Challenges from BEC. And not even trying to look for another way of learning English on my own.
An ancient proverb said that:
Bisa karena biasa
Or in English is like this: You can do it because you do it often.
Yes.. that’s what I thought, I am not practicing English much in my life – even for writing in English. For example, about blogging – I am doing it frequently and reading many articles about blogging, how to engage more traffic, what kind of article that people are looking for, and so on, but apparently I didn’t do much for English. Before, perhaps I did practicing it during my work at Liberia. As now I am not working there anymore, I seldom use English on a day-to-day life.
How to write in English
That’s why I pledge myself to write more in English – not a short article, I need to engage myself to new form of English articles, reading it and writing it more often. So this is my “How to write in English“.
I hope the infographic can help on making the “How To” much easier to read. Please inform me if there’s a mistake on the infograph.
1. Do not translate from Indonesian
This is the first thing you need to know when you want to write in English. Yes, I know that it is easier to write in Indonesian first. Get all of those ideas on your head in sentences but this is not the best practice to write in English. Indonesian has different grammar structure and usually using a passive form sentences. While in English, you need to do differently. Most of writing in English are using an active form. And believe me, translating from Indonesian to English is much more harder to do – it really takes time.
2. Write in complete sentences
We have to develop a habit to write in complete sentences – at least the simple one: Subject + Verb + Object. If we have difficulties in writing a parent-child sentences type, don’t write it then, just use the simpler one. It will evolve through your habit as time goes by.
3. Consistence in tenses
This is about what type of tenses that you use in your writing. If you are using present tense, use the present tense throughout the writing. But you have to know also what type of tense usually use for each type of writing. For example, for fiction, you have to use past tense form.
4. Re-read your writing
Okay… for this matter I want to take you back to my last week’s post about English Friday is Here. I didn’t re-read my writing. Thus, as you all can see, there are so many mistakes on that one. Re-read or proofread is one thing that you really need to do each time you write, not only for English writing – any kind of writing. Just like when you make report, you boss usually check your report first before submitted to the higher boss, right? That’s re-read and proofreading.
5. Write it NOW
Yes… all those four steps above will be useless if you decide not to write, at the end. I mean, just put yourself into one determination that you want to write it. No matter what happen. Write it, share your knowledge about yourself or even Indonesia through one thing you can, your blog.
Additional tips
I know that many of us afraid to write in English, not because they are not able to write it but mostly afraid of what people will say. Some might say that I am arrogant because I am writing (or speaking) in English. This is a bad environment for people who want to learn. So, one major thing I want to remind those who wants to write in English – BE PREPARED for any statement from surroundings. You have to have great determination to keep on in motion of writing English. Don’t be afraid for something good in your life.
As I mention in the infographic also, you need your friends. Try to ask your friend to remind you if you make mistakes on your writing or even to remind you that you have to write in English. I am sure many friends understand if you ask them about it also. And perhaps you can ask your friend to learn English with you.
Well, that’s how to write in English from my point of view. So, what is your how to write in English?