For people whose native tongue is an Indian language, it is difficult to write error-free English. Even those who speak English all the time but live in India cannot avoid the Indian-ness that seeps into their language, both spoken and written.<\/p>\n
For new Indian writers, there is a strong tendency to literally translate from their mother tongue into English.Each language has a specific structure, without which the language would collapse or turn into something ridiculous. For example, in French, most adjectives are placed after the noun, such as \u2018une chaise bleue\u2019. If translated word-for-word into English, this becomes \u2018a chair blue\u2019 instead of what it should be: a blue chair. Imagine reading a sentence like this:\u201cThere were chairs blue, tables of wood, cushions red and music soft playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is how a reader feels while reading English that has been directly translated from an Indian language. The result is confused, sometimes hilarious, meaning.<\/p>\n
You may have read these often:<\/p>\n
Keep a watch on these literal translations.<\/li>\n
English has its own set of idioms and sayings\u2014use them and not the translation of Indian ones. Idioms have a strong cultural and historical root, so they are best used word for word and in the original language.The Hindi \u2018Daal mein kuchh kaala hai<\/em>\u2019 has the English idiom equivalent: \u2018There\u2019s something fishy going on\u2019. Instead of the Tamil \u2018Kazhudaikki theriyuma karpoora vaasanai<\/em>\u2019 use \u2018To cast pearls before swine\u2019. Not all sayings have equivalents, however. The best way to become familiar with what\u2019s available is to read a lot. Looking up a book of English proverbs doesn\u2019t always help unless there are a few examples for each included and the author is a reliable one. Online, have a look at Idiom Dictionary (http:\/\/www.idiomdictionary.com<\/a>).<\/li>\n Veena walked up the path to Mr Wood\u2019s house. She is thinking she should knock but what if he is sleeping? She doesn\u2019t want to disturb him and get him in a bad mood. That is why she could not make a sale. She had irritated him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Is Veena walking to Mr Wood\u2019s door as we read? Or has she already walked and come back after a failed attempt at making a sale?<\/p>\n Double check if you\u2019re switching tenses in your writing without the story demanding it. Sometimes it is necessary to change tenses, say for a time when you\u2019re narrating a scene in a flashback as if it\u2019s happening right before the reader. But if you\u2019re a new writer, stick to a single choice of tense throughout and you won\u2019t go wrong.\u00a0 Once you become confident of using tenses properly, you can try using more than one.<\/li>\n There is a tendency to use exclamations in proportion to the amount of surprise or shock.<\/p>\n E.g. A mountain gorilla was standing before him!!!!!!!!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Another is to intersperse the exclamations with question marks.<\/p>\n E.g. Was the hunk eyeing her?!?!?!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Please. Stick to one punctuation mark. \u201cA mountain gorilla was standing before him!\u201d shows surprise enough. \u201cWas the hunk eyeing her?\u201d will do. Trust readers to get the quantity of shock or wonder you intend. And trust your writing skills to convey the situation so that they do.<\/p>\n English punctuation rules do not accept a combination of ? and ! or multiple exclamations. A few style books have begun to accept one pair of ?! but most do not.<\/p>\n Many new writers like to create an \u2018effect\u2019 by trailing dots after a sentence.<\/p>\n E.g. She stood before him\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026in the black dress he had given her\u2026\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The punctuation that uses dots is called an ellipsis and consists of three dots (\u2026). No more, no less. Sometimes, you want to trail off a sentence and end it that way. Then you follow the ellipsis with a full stop, which then totals four dots.<\/p>\n E.g. And there she waited for him every day\u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Multiple exclamation marks and generous strings of dots reek of amateur writing. Knock them off. These are simple ways to make your writing look professional.<\/li>\n Can you eat a curry with no salt? Similarly, you cannot write without articles. If you\u2019ve forgotten the basics of when to use \u2018the\u2019 or \u2018a\u2019 or \u2018an,\u2019 please pick up a simple grammar book and leaf through it (you can do it with a torch, hiding in a cupboard if you like\u2014but do it). Simpler still, visit a grammar site online, bookmark it and refer to it when in doubt. You don\u2019t visit Taj Mahal, you visit THE Taj Mahal.It\u2019s never too late to learn, and these are simple rules that, when followed, make your writing come alive. The rules exist to help you remember, not to make your life difficult.<\/li>\n Find the repetitious words in the following:<\/p>\n In the first example, when you say \u2018such as,\u2019 you don\u2019t need the etcetera. \u2018Such as\u2019 means this is only an indicative list. In the next, \u2018never\u2019 and \u2018before\u2019 are saying the same thing. If you\u2019ve never seen it, there\u2019s no need to say \u2018before\u2019. In the third sentence, if you\u2019re going to return something, you\u2019re obviously giving it back, so \u2018back\u2019 is redundant.\u00a0 \u2018In case\u2019 indicates a possibility, so use \u2018in case\u2019 OR \u2018may\u2019 \u2013 in case you need it later \u2013 or Keep this money, you may need it later. Red is a colour. Duh.<\/p>\n But new writers love to inject their writing with crystal clarity by providing extra words to help their slow readers. These writers will make you enter into a room, not just enter it, just as they\u2019ll help you exit from the story instead of quickly exiting it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n Here\u2019s a secret<\/strong>: there is no shortcut to writing happiness.<\/p>\n Read that again.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t press a key and make it happen. Anyone can write, but to write well and communicate effectively, you need to put in effort, just as you would for any other skill. Read a lot and read books of quality writing. Reading even prize-winning children\u2019s books can help you build familiarity with the language. Newspapers are not literature, so use those to get the news, not to improve your reading habits.<\/p>\n Write a lot, and get feedback from someone whose English is good, or at least better than yours. Get your writing edited by a professional editor and learn from the feedback and comments.<\/p>\n However, there is one place for weak English, even Indian English, and that is in dialogue. If your character speaks that way, you can use \u2018Don\u2019t eat my head\u2019 in his dialogue. As long as you don\u2019t use it yourself in the narration!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Till a sentence back, you ‘were’ thinking. Suddenly you ‘are’ feeling. You may not realize it while writing and this switch may even sound natural because we often think haphazardly, but while writing, you need to maintain consistency in tense or you\u2019ll distract or confuse the reader about whether something happened in the past or is happening in the present.Take a look at this example:
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