Background of the Course
Anyone trying to learn English will have realized that there are a plethora of resources out there aiming to help them with that goal. The quality of these resources varies from excellent to worthwhile to useless to downright harmful to your English skills. With all this available, you may wonder why we’re putting this resource out there – what do these lessons have to offer that others don’t?
Firstly, expertise. Bryan and Laura are both professional translators and language learners. Bryan is a native Korean speaker who learned English in school as his second language. After immigrating to Canada, he got advanced degrees (Th. M and Th. D) in Canada and is currently working as a freelance translator. He learned many other languages as well (German, French, Japanese, Greek, and Hebrew). Laura is a native English speaker who not only translates but also frequently edits translations done by non-native speakers, so she’s very familiar with the kinds of mistakes that they make. As a language learner herself (fluent in French, Spanish, and Korean), she understands how difficult it can be to learn a new language at an advanced level and how many small details you need to master before you can sound like a native speaker.
Secondly, as translators ourselves, we have written these guidelines specifically to help other translators, so they are targeted precisely to that audience.
Thirdly, while it isn’t especially difficult to write English at a basic level and be understood, it is quite difficult to write English well. This is something that even many native English speakers struggle with. Many English news articles you see online contain errors or are badly written. There are a lot of details that can be overlooked or that aren’t frequently taught, but that will immediately mark your translation as one written by a non-native speaker. We plan to write about some advanced concepts and aspects of English grammar that few other courses out there handle. As Bryan has learned all this himself and Laura has corrected it in many editing jobs, we know what translators struggle with and what stands out, and we’re in an excellent position to advise you on how to make your writing sound better.
Who Will Benefit From This Course
Any and all freelance translators whose native language isn’t English that want to improve the quality of their English translation.
Estimated Duration of Time Needed to Take This Course: 2~3 weeks
Course Table of Contents
Lesson 5: Capitalization and Proper Nouns
Lesson 6: When to Use the Passive Voice
Lesson 7: Mistakes Your Spellchecker Might Miss
Lesson 8: Countable/Uncountable Nouns
Lesson 9: Dealing with Numbers in English
Lesson 10: British vs American vs Canadian vs Australian English
* Lesson 1 and Lesson 9 are available to everyone. You can view them without purchase.
Lessons
Lesson 1: Introduction – Why Are We Doing This?
Free PreviewLesson 2: Commas
“When one must, one can.” – Charlotte Whitton In this lesson, we’ll be looking at commas and how to not only use them correctly, but how to handle them to make your writing more fluent and easier to read. Many commas in English are optional; they are typically used wherever a speaker might pause […]
Lesson 3: Punctuation
“Everything in moderation, and there’s a perfect balance in this life if we can find it.” – Ryan Robbins Semicolon ; One thing I’ll stress repeatedly throughout this course is what I’m going to call the Goldilocks Principle of English. Goldilocks, as you may recall, was a little girl who kept trying until she found […]
Lesson 4: Articles
“Don’t just count your years, make your years count.” – George Meredith Articles are probably one of the single greatest causes of headaches for non-native English speakers, and for good reason; there are straightforward rules, for which all kinds of exceptions are then offered, but then many of those exceptions only apply in particular […]
Lesson 5: Capitalization and Proper Nouns
Capitalization is, at its heart, very basic. We capitalize the first letters of proper names and the first letters of sentences. I’m sure everyone reading this knows that much. But as with just about every other aspect of English, there are lots of finicky little rules that can quickly give your translation an unprofessional look […]
Lesson 6: When to Use the Passive Voice
“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” – Malala Yousafzai English has two of what are called “voices” in grammar, and they are the active and the passive voice. Every English sentence is written in one of these two voices. Read these two sentences and see if you can spot the […]
Lesson 7: Mistakes Your Spellchecker Might Miss
“I think; therefore I am.” – Rene Descartes I’m sure just about every translator out there is grateful for the invention of the spellchecker. It saves us so much time and eliminates so many potentially embarrassing mistakes. However, there are some mistakes that a spellchecker won’t catch, and that’s what this lesson will cover. […]
Lesson 8: Countable/Uncountable Nouns
“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” – Willie Nelson I suspect most readers are already pretty good at distinguishing countable and uncountable nouns; for the most part, this is one of those rare features of English that actually makes some sense. Countable nouns, as their name implies, can […]
Lesson 9: Dealing with Numbers in English
Free Preview“Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” – Julie Andrews Dates The very first thing you need to know before writing a date in English is who your intended audience will be. This is because date and time style varies quite a bit between American and British/European versions. The European style is […]
Lesson 10: British vs American vs Canadian vs Australian English
“Any good teacher knows how important it is to connect with students and understand our culture.” – Adora Svitak As if English weren’t difficult enough to learn already, you probably realized at some point that there isn’t even a single English language! Rather, each country that speaks English (and, in some cases, each region) […]