The title of this thread is 'No Title'

Let’s be ‘picky’ when we learn a foreign language.
I welcome any picky comments when I submit my writing for correction.

What do you think about the above sentences?

Perfect English…You’re a brave person.

@kimo - Ah, aussies/Brits think it’s perfectly normal to use “writing” for the plural.

Edit: @Yutaka - I initially thought some time back that your English was so good you might have been brought up in a bilingual home! That’s why I once asked if you were a native speaker.

I can’t help but think of one of my Japanese teachers many years ago: she felt embarrassed because she couldn’t pronounce the word “whole”. We didn’t have a clue what word she was saying, and finally she resorted to writing the word on the blackboard. We good-naturedly laughed once the mystery was solved, but then she responded by stating how terribly ashamed she was of her English.

We all protested with comments like, “Are you insane?! Your English is incredible!” (Actually, that was my response, lol) I pointed out that she’d only been in Australia a few years, but my European neighbours residing for over 30 years in the street in fact couldn’t speak half as good as her!

I’m wondering if it’s necessary to know a foreign language “perfectly”…I know my Japanese will never be as good as your English! You already have a sophisticated, nuanced understanding of English, including noticing subtle differences (as you’ve said elsewhere) between American/British-Aussie English. What more do you want? :)~

Thank you, Kimojima.
Is ‘writing’ incorrect, or is ‘writings’ better?

Am I right in thinking that ‘writings’ means a group of pieces of writing?

@Julz611 Thank you for your comment.
I feel that my English has weak points in choosing appropriate articles and in figuring out the grammatical number of nouns. ( is this okay?)

I’m off the track ^^, but cheekily I’ve mused that if I placed a sample academic essay on the exchange with an alias pretending to be a foreigner living in Australia (English as a second-language), Americans would jump out of the wood-work and cut my writing to pieces, not just correct my spelling. Apparently we use articles more often, for starters. But American English is not sacrosanct^^ Actually, they would have a field-day just with the paragraph I just wrote ^^.

@Yutaka - Please pick my Japanese writing to death when I start writing! :slight_smile: As for yours, I’ve often wondered why you have to waste so many points on the exchange for perfect or near-perfect English to be corrected. I wouldn’t pay 165 points if I just had one or two words wrong! Just sayin’ :slight_smile: But hey, it’s a (mostly) free world!

PS I’m a dog person:)

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I am breathing. Are these my breathings? I am earning. those are my earnings. I have yearnings. I am yearning.

Yearning, earning. Y are they different words?

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Over here in the Western US, I would have used “writing” and “writings” exactly as SanneT did in her sample sentences.

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“I no longer get
goosepimples …”

But you get chicken skin?

Just a coincidence. First, goose bums is translated as chicken skin in Chinese. Second, over there, Colin without beard reminds me of green chicken.

I wonder whether there is a trend of changing uncountable nouns to countable nouns.
For example, a piece of E-mail is being replaced by an email.
Do u still use an ‘E-mail message’ in the usa? (Don’t be angry! )

I would say “an email” but I wouldn’t use the word “message”. Or I might say, “Email me”. (I am definitely not on the cutting edge however, speech or otherwise!)

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