Getting native feedback on written language

Ask specific questions about your target languages. Beginner questions welcome!
Easily_confused
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Getting native feedback on written language

Postby Easily_confused » Tue May 16, 2017 5:05 pm

Which sites can help me in finding feedback on written language? I'm a German learner and this time around, I want to work on my writing from the beginning to help with my vocab learning through putting it in context.
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jeff_lindqvist
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Re: Getting native feedback on written language

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Tue May 16, 2017 5:50 pm

Lang-8 is often mentioned here. I haven't used it myself, though.
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mouse
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Re: Getting native feedback on written language

Postby mouse » Tue May 16, 2017 10:13 pm

Lang 8 is definitely a good option. However, you may find that many people correct your texts in slightly different ways, which can be confusing. Sometimes it's because there are slightly different ways of saying something, sometimes they are being prescriptive about how an idea should be expressed. That can be confusing.

The better, but expensive, way would be to engage a tutor. That way you get individual advice and you can ask questions.

Personally, in an ideal world I would make use of both.
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Cavesa
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Re: Getting native feedback on written language

Postby Cavesa » Tue May 16, 2017 10:14 pm

Lang-8 doesn't take new registrations.

Italki (the notebook function) works fine, even though the quality of feedback varies.
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Tomás
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Re: Getting native feedback on written language

Postby Tomás » Tue May 16, 2017 10:52 pm

Type in German into Google Translate. Hit the switch button twice. Observe how Google corrected your errors. This is very fast and easy.
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Cavesa
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Re: Getting native feedback on written language

Postby Cavesa » Tue May 16, 2017 10:56 pm

Tomás wrote:Type in German into Google Translate. Hit the switch button twice. Observe how Google corrected your errors. This is very fast and easy.

And not too reliable, especially in some langauges.
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Tomás
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Re: Getting native feedback on written language

Postby Tomás » Wed May 17, 2017 3:13 pm

I'm sure the quality of gTranslate varies considerably across language pairs. I can attest that it is excellent for English-Spanish--as good or better than you will get from the modal Lang8 denizen. I would guess that the quality of English-German is comparable.
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Easily_confused
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Re: Getting native feedback on written language

Postby Easily_confused » Wed May 17, 2017 4:10 pm

Thanks. I've just tried the italki notebook thingy so i'll see how the comments come back.
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sjintje
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Re: Getting native feedback on written language

Postby sjintje » Thu May 18, 2017 11:30 am

Cavesa wrote:Lang-8 doesn't take new registrations.


Really? Are they winding up?

Lang-8 seems pretty quiet where German corrections are concerned anyway. Not merely do most posts seem to go uncorrected, there often isn't even anybody looking at them.
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JonRocket
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Re: Getting native feedback on written language

Postby JonRocket » Thu May 18, 2017 5:36 pm

Hi Easily_confused,

I don't know how effective it is in German, but I have corrected English and had my Spanish corrected using italki's Notebook forum.

I hope it works out for you!
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