Earlier this month my blog became 5 years old. I’m very happy to have written my travels for the past 5 years here, but there is this one thing that still bothers me with my blog. Whenever I back read on the blog I cringe at the fact that my English most of the time were off.
One of the main reasons I took up Computer Engineering in college was that I did not like English and I am not a fan writing in that language. I’m a Filipino and whatever people say English is not my natural language.
Maqueregaen Falls in Roxas, Palawan
Why am I travel blogging? And why am I still writing in English?
The goal of my blog is to help Filipinos travel and appreciate the beauty of our country. That goal can only be reached when my knowledge on the places I have been to are read by those who need it when they need it. When they need it, they search it.
I accepted the fact that most of the users in the internet use English and they use English keywords to do search. Writing in English makes my writing somewhat easily searchable. That is the reason why I am writing in English.
Why are you not improving your English?
It might not look like I’m improving on my English, but I’m trying. Really trying. I know that the effectivity of my blog would increase if I wrote good English, that’s why I’m trying to improve it by reading books and trying to double check my grammar, sentence and paragraph structures still my progress is slow. And re-reading my blog posts eats up my time since I am a slow reader. With the work that I have, I only have very limited time to do rereads.
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Why did you start your blog even if you knew you have bad English? Why would you even post them even if you knew it would contain bad English?
When I started planning travels, I had a hard time looking for details on how to get to a destination and what would I expect there. All I saw were just a few details and a lot of description which did not really help in making plans to travel. That was one of the main reasons why I started my blog. To provide superb amount of details for people to know how to travel to places I have been to. And to provide skeleton itineraries and budget on which others would be able to modify to fit the travel that they want.
Do not get me wrong. I need to improve my English but being bad in English will not stop me from writing about my travels.
Would you promise to get better at English?
I am not going to promise you that my English would become better even if I am really trying to. But what I can promise you is that I’ll keep on providing the details that you need to travel. I’d rather be bad at a language that is unnatural to me than not help you get the knowledge I possess that you need to travel.
Which do you need, my good grammar or the details you need to travel? Tell me on the comments below.
As a native English speaker and web editor, your writing is very good, just a few minor tweaks here and there.
Reading your opinion in this article I was expecting much worse 😉
Thanks Greg. We’ll continually improve my English slowly but surely.
There’s no such thing as perfect English not unless you’re a Ph. D in language and grammar. There is always a conflict when it comes to English. ( British English, American English).
Thanks for this John.
Don’t worry about your English. It’s better than most Americans. As long as you get your message across, that’s all that matters. Keep up the good work,
Thank Pol!
no problem with the english as long as the details are accurate.
which would make this blog still very helpful in most cases. 😀
Thanks Wilbert. I have problems on accuracy too because I’m only just one person and I can’t keep going back to place to keep every details updated. But it’s still better to have an old information than no information at all. That’s why I still keep on writing them as detailed as I can even though I know someday it will no longer be accurate.
Can’t see anything wrong with your English. what’s important is the content of your articles.
It still boils down to one question. Were you able to help your readers with the information/experiences that you shared in yout blog?
I know the answer is a big Yes. So nothing to worry about.
I think what you’re experiencing is the usual feeling of every Pinoy who writes. You always feel that what you’re writing isn’t good enough. I also experience that.
But sabi nga nila, you just got to let it go. ANd just do your job.
If our job is to write. Then we write and ship!
Regards,
Jon
Thanks Jon. I have to agree. As long as it helps other people then I just keep on doing it. I’ll continue to write and share my experiences. Keep on helping by writing!
It’s refreshing to find a blogger who is humble enough to admit his shortcomings, although I have to say it’s really not that big a deal given the amount of information and inspiration you give to your readers.
I admire your determination to improve and your humility. I’d take your blog any day over some of the other pretentious and narcissistic blogs out there. Some of them come off as if they’re God’s gift to the reading public.
Keep on doing what you do. You’re good at it. It’s very inspiring.
Travel on! And yes, write on! 🙂
Thanks for this Cecil. What you wrote inspires me to keep doing this. Keep on traveling! 🙂