Mastodawn

Many of the people I do have online conversations with speak English as their first language. I kinda get by but you native speakers really underestimate how hard it is to express oneself in a foreign language. Concepts work differently, metaphors don't really translate, references you have used for decades don't make sense.

Like in German I am actually somewhat eloquent and texts I write don't look like a person with a head injury wrote them.

(Sparked by some of the comments to my recent article about Cory Doctorow telling me how my writing sucks and is unreadable because of grammar mistakes and typos.)

Ashe Dryden 🙆🏼‍♀️🐈🐈‍⬛Feb 22

@tante if I didn’t see you post in German every so often, I would think you were a native English speaker 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Ashedryden that is very kind of you to say

Carina C. Zona Feb 22

@tante I see Ashe already said the exact thing I was about to say. So: ditto. It's not flattery. I genuinely would not have known.

@Ashedryden @tante

Yeah I'm a native English speaker and saw no hint that you couldn't be.

Those people are just too mad online.

@tante now that is just very bad form!

Impertinenzija Feb 22

@tante If ppl are unable to bring up some really valid points against your reasoning, they will go as low as starting to pick your grammar and wording apart. No surprise there. Don't let them get to you.

poleguy looking for lost tools Feb 23

@Impertinenzija @tante I did not know that his article, that I read very carefully and completely, was not written by a native speaker. I appreciated the content deeply.

I was considering adding a comment though about the irony of discussing the use of LLM for proofreading articles in an article riddled with mistakes.

I didn't post a comment to that effect, but it definitely crossed my mind. I did not feel I had a compelling point to make. But it seems others made the obvious jab.

Impertinenzija Feb 23

@poleguy @tante It doesn't matter if it's one's first or second language, everyone makes mistakes, so everything written needs proofreading. But it's become almost a luxury if you're not working in an editor's office or have a publisher getting this second pair of fresh eyes and a well-adjusted brain, or even more. Genius ppl of old used their siblings or wives as unpaid first proofreaders, good Cory has mereley taken the next step and probably trained his LLM on his own works (I assume).

Impertinenzija Feb 23

@poleguy @tante I'm one of the lucky ppl to have at least that one guy in our editor's office, who's quite strict and is pelting me with screenshots. I cringe and curse a lot, but it helps.

Impertinenzija Feb 23

@poleguy @tante I still think the best way to solve this problem as a published (printed) author is by far Don Knuth's approach of giving his nerdy superfan-readers incentive (aka a little treat in form of a cheque with a symbolic amount and a honorary mention in the next edition) if they're first to spot a mistake in "The Art of Computer Programming". But it would be a nightmare on the internet as we know it.

poleguy looking for lost tools Feb 23

@Impertinenzija @tante I often point out typos in blogs to their authors. Typically I do this on blogs that usually have zero typos and that I know/trust/am familiar with the authors. They typically promptly correct the typo and often say thanks.

However, in a post like this where I hit 10+ typos I do not bother.

I'd by stoked if you read one of my blog posts and sent me a message saying I had a typo.

I expect you'd have to read a lot of posts to find one. But maybe I'm wrong. (?)

poleguy looking for lost tools Feb 23

@Impertinenzija @tante

I don't use a sibling or wife as proof readers except for things like resumes or the rare important letters/emails about touchy subjects. But I wouldn't consider them seeing this as an "unpaid job" in which I am unfairly subjugating them unless this were to occur very frequently.

I do however proof read my own work with my own eyes before I publish.

It's quite possible that if I were to write in Spanish (my second best language), I'd have a similar error rate as tante

poleguy looking for lost tools Feb 23

@Impertinenzija @tante But I'm also very much less proficient in Spanish, and almost certainly would be double checking everything with a translation tool. (Likely google translate, because that's the easy path.)

I'd love to get to the point where I thought I could do without google translate checking my work in a foreign language.

But to get there I would want to have years of feedback and a vanishingly diminishing error rate in the feedback results.

But writers must set their own bar!

Elizabeth Ayer Feb 22

@tante This reminds me of that "semantic ablation" article from last week: https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/16/semantic_ablation_ai_writing/

I prefer real character of actual writing, and there's an extra... energy? tension? in English written by nonnative speakers. It gives a glimpse into alternative ways of slicing concepts that enriches rather than depletes the writing.

Screw the naysayers.

Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation

opinion: The subtractive bias we're ignoring

The Register

@elizayer oh that article sounds interesting (and will provide a great excuse for my ideosyncratic writing style ;))

Frisk Fyrste Tofty for Helvede Feb 22

Oh, thank you for this. A lot of long words, but I think I got the gist of it.

Non-native English writer/reader here. I have an easier time conversing with other non-natives than natives. As if we are all very careful that we understand each other, spending extra energy to be precise and check that we are on the same page.

As for Tante's writing, Danish and German are structurally close enough that I do not notice the 'Germanification' - the subtle cues left behind.

lizzzzard Feb 24

@elizayer @tante very interesting, thanks for posting!

BlumenKid Feb 22

@tante you got the point across amazingly well. There were clumsy expressions, but few and far between. Better than I could ever express myself, and I've been learning, reading and speaking english regularly for over 40 years. I guess those people had to attack the form because it was too hard to find fault in the content.

Dźwiedziu Feb 22

@tante One should be weary of purists of any kind.

Alper Çuğun-Gscheidel Feb 22

@tante You should’ve run it through an LLM.

@alper with your responses I am never quite sure if they are sarcastic, an attack or both ;)

Alper Çuğun-Gscheidel Feb 22

@tante They can be all at the same time!

@tante I could read it just fine, people are too picky. 🤷 Also, I liked your point about leaving typos for the user to figure out rather than turning it over to an LLM

Señor Baby, Sr.Feb 22

@tante Not a native speaker myself, but I've dealt with English writing (by native and non-native speakers alike) in different capacities for many years, and yours is both concise _and_ conversational (great! it's a blog, not a thesis). Criticizing you for the occasional typo strikes me as somewhat mean-spirited.

Mathias Lustig Feb 22

@tante Who tf cares about ad-hominem attacks either way? I guess most native-speaker MAGA voters in the US have way worse grammar and spelling skills, written and spoken, so he may kiss your ass with his hypocrisy.

@tante Honestly I'd take people quibbling over how you said something as a compliment, because it means they couldn't find any problem with *what* you were saying.

Andreas Wagner Feb 22

@tante ja, of course they did. That's really cheap shots (is that the correct idiom? there you have it!) along the lines of "see how it'd be better if you just started using LLMs". It's really like kindergarden here sometimes. Don't worry about your English - if I may say so as another non-native speaker with his own idiosyncrasies. Heck, even my German is idiosyncratic.

b-loved dreamer Feb 22

@tante i haven’t read that article in particular but your english is absolutely excellent, both written and spoken. no idea what they’re on about

Thijs van der Vossen Feb 22

@tante as a non-native speaker, your English seems fine to me

disability_flag

@tante What a shitty ad-hominem.

mtnrbq65 Feb 22

That is ridiculous, reading your posts they always come across to me as tightly reasoned, clear and thought provoking. That one in particular made me reflect on my view of his writings, so thank you .

@tante Having an opinion and a voice in the discourse shouldn't be gated by one's eloquence or grammar. If those people were pointing out errors in order to improve your argument, then it was noble, albeit insensitive. If they were doing it to dismiss your argument, then they were being defensive (ok, unwrap why and what they're really saying) or gatekeeping (ignore).

@tante Also, FWIW, I tend to read slowly and spot lots of errors in published texts from English-first writers. I haven't noticed any in yours, which makes me think those people went out of their way to look for errors. If true, that would be acting in bad faith, IMO.

Allan Haverholm Feb 23

@tante Uh-huh. Native Danish speaker here. I notice that English speakers* will react differently to foreigners communicating in their first language, either as a natural thing or as a positive.

Until you present them with an argument that some can't intellectually pick apart and reason against. Then you have terrible grammar and vocabulary. The more *they* disagree the worse *your* language.

* or any language group, really. Your point was just about our current Lingual Franca.

ティージェーグレェ Feb 23

Meh, maybe @[email protected] needs to re-read RFC1855?

I always found this passage particularly useful when interacting with others online:

"Remember that the recipient is a human being whose culture,
language, and humor have different points of reference from your
own. Remember that date formats, measurements, and idioms may
not travel well. Be especially careful with sarcasm."

I thought your piece was pretty much spot on.

Then again, I've been around the block a few times and consider myself a survivor of at least one previous so-called "A'I' Winter" and from my perspective: the next one cannot come quickly enough.

Alas, I seem to be in the: "those who have learned from history are doomed to watch others repeat it" stage of existence.

I'm also a polyglot.

Ich kann ein bißchen Deutsch verstehen. Wirklich, ich glaube Ihnen Englisch ist besser als meinen Deutsch.

Joris Meys Feb 22

@tante
You english is fine. That can one understand. ;-)

(No seriously, from one non-native speaker to another, your english is impressive.)

craignicol Feb 22

@tante as someone trying to learn German, and aware that my grasp is barely functional, please don't lose heart. English is 3 languages in a trenchcoat, and has stolen more from other cultures than the British Museum. Even native speakers get beaten by others for not communicating properly. Gatekeeping is ugly in any language

Alastair Temple Feb 22

@tante you are going yourself a diservice your English is really good, flows well and is understandable (tbh your writing is better than mine as a first language). That said you are right on the underestimating of writing in a second language. I definitely did a little before I moved to Sweden.

Dirk Haun Feb 22

@tante Reminds me of "Do you even know how smart I am in Spanish?"

https://www.imdb.com/de/title/tt4166966/characters/nm0005527/?item=qt4327199

@dirkhaun @tante I was looking for this! It’s so heartbreaking! (Also I thought @tante was a native speaker so you had me fooled! :) )

@tante two weeks ago I had suddenly won the task to translate everything we do in Krav Maga into English for a new participant. It worked out and we had fun together but it was a horror without knowing the domain specific vocabulary so well^^

er4z0r 🇺🇦Feb 22

@leah @tante wait what? You do that too? You are amazing!

@er4z0r you mean Krav Maga? Yes :D Since one and a half years now I think.

er4z0r 🇺🇦Feb 23

@leah yeah. Krav maga and climbing and keeping this whole show running and I imagine you also have a day job. How do you make it all work?

@er4z0r krav maga and climbing is only 2h each each week and chaos.social is only a lot of work once in a while if something fails or needs updates. The daily moderation work is done by @rixx . I would love to have more time to do things but actually it isn't or doesn't feel too difficulty.

mayonnaise Feb 23

to be fair if i typed or wrote anything in another language besides English, it would have "severe cranial trauma" energy to it as well! 💔

@tante it's not the yellow of the egg

Eljorgeabides Feb 22

I have been lucky to work with people who are not in the US. I really need to think about what I am saying when I speak to them to make sure I'm communicating clearly and I never use slang until I hear them use it. (Sometimes I ask if they know the term before I use it as well)

I have so much respect for people who can work in a second language.

Tournesol 🌻🥞Feb 22

@tante the number of times I catch myself using a frech idiom in english that make sense only to french speakers

neocat_melt_sob_heart

@tournesol yeah. I'm basically just writing German with the words replaced.

Simon Hain Feb 22

@tante I speak English quite well, but when reading a psychological book in English i realized that speaking the language and intuitively grasping its concepts are two very different things.
For all the samples, i had to translate them in my head, then imagine how i would react spontaneously - which was not working at all!

@tante As explained very well in one book in the form of two books, written more or less simultaneously by two people in two languages at once (they were conferring frequently):

Douglas Hofstadter: Surfaces and Essences - Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking,

Emmanuel Sander: L'Analogie. Cœur de la pensée.

It’s from 2013 and it’s a real tour de force.

Sven A. Schmidt Feb 22

@tante I thought it was a great article, with points well made. The complaints say more about them than about your writing.

Rens van der Heijden Feb 22

@tante as someone whose third language is German (English second) I can kinda relate to this, especially the concepts part, which seems to only get messier as I spend more time working in German. I still have things that are exclusive to each language (though my Dutch is now so bad that I think people assume I'm a German immigrant when I visit my parents).
Science is an English thing. Politics are a German thing. Cooking is a mix of all of them (none of them particularly coherent).

karamazov1879 Feb 22

@tante Understood. My other language is Russian. Spoken it almost everyday for over 36 years but still face challenges. Even in one's native language there are so many unknown words, more than we know.

@tante as a non-native German speaker I get it. I feel that I have two totally different personas because of it.

Steven Reed Feb 22

@tante
Fwiw, I've been following you for a while and hadn't noticed anything wrong with your English! Of course, my own reading comprehension is declining with advancing age, maybe the two cancel each other out :)