[English] Is omitting pronouns seen as tacky or confusing in writing (or speech)?

[Jaleel10]

English is my 2nd language and it isn't something that I have a lot of formal output (writing and speaking) experience and practice in but omitting pronouns is something I do A LOT, and I never know how it's perceived nor is it something I have taken notice of (at least in informal settings). Take this paragraph:

Was checking new listings in your price range. Found two on the west side, both split-levels with 2 full baths. Will be out of town through the 17th and back in the office this Monday. Need your schedule for this week in order to book showings. Am looking forward to hearing from you.

Is it something the average native speaker does? How is it perceived? Those of you who speak English as an additional language, was/is this confusing and do you also at times find yourself speaking or writing like this?

[Gordafarin2]

Native speaker - this is very common in informal writing (text messages, social media), and also in business writing where it gives the impression that the writer is too busy to bother with extra words So it can come off as a little cold or abrupt.
It's also extremely common in speech ("Gonna go to the store - want me to get anything for you?").

Re: your example - It's not confusing to me at all, but seeing so many sentences in a row structured like that was a little jarring for me. I wouldn't use it in every sentence of a message like you did in your example. (Though I couldn't give a reason for that, it's just my 'native feeling'...)

[DaveAgain]

English is my 2nd language and it isn't something that I have a lot of formal output (writing and speaking) experience and practice in but omitting pronouns is something I do A LOT, and I never know how it's perceived nor is it something I have taken notice of (at least in informal settings). Take this paragraph:

Was checking new listings in your price range. Found two on the west side, both split-levels with 2 full baths. Will be out of town through the 17th and back in the office this Monday. Need your schedule for this week in order to book showings. Am looking forward to hearing from you.

Is it something the average native speaker does? How is it perceived? Those of you who speak English as an additional language, was/is this confusing and do you also at times find yourself speaking or writing like this?

Yes we do that in the UK.

You would try not to do it in a formal setting, professional correspondence etc, but it is native use. In the example you cite, email has an informal culture to it, but as you're quoting a sales lead, you would try to not to do it, in my opinion. I would want to be a touch more formal.

We also like to moan about the weather, but that's for super-advanced users only.

EDIT
The last line in your example "Am looking forward to hearing from you" I would change to "Looking forward to hearing from you" rather than "I am looking..."

[Chung]

It strikes me as casual/sloppy/very informal when coming from someone from the USA or Canada. I have detected it with advanced speakers whose native language is strongly pro-drop (I'm thinking of a couple of Polish friends in particular) and by natives of Indian English.

[Elenia]

I do it, but like Dave says, I would probably not do it in a more formal setting. Part of the issue is also that it makes it seem like you don't really have the time (or your paying per letter ) although that might just be a feeling I get, rather than something more general. In informal writing, I think it's fine.

[Gordafarin2]

Part of the issue is also that it makes it seem like you don't really have the time (or your paying per letter ) although that might just be a feeling I get, rather than something more general.

I definitely get this sense too - I have worked with a few managers and CEOs who wrote all their emails like this, like they are too busy to write a whole sentence It's the kind of thing a superior would write to their employee.

[Ani]

Leaving the first two sentences without pronouns looks like you're in a hurry to give the background info, which is nice imo,. I appreciate when people don't waste my time with extra words. The rest I wouldn't leave that way for the reasons already explained.

[rpg]

You can find some discussion of this phenomenon if you google "conversational deletion" or "left-edge deletion". It's not just subject pronouns that can be dropped, but also auxillary verbs and articles (all situation-dependent).

Agree with everyone else's comments re: tone/perception. The paragraph given sounds stilted and unnatural from overuse, and separately I also preferred dropping the "am" in the last sentence on its own (in which case I think "Looking forward to hearing from you." is actually acceptable as a sign-off/goodbye in every register and is very normal). I think ?"Will be out of town..." sounds a bit dubious to me too actually, saying it out loud to myself I much prefer "I'll be out of town..."

[Querneus]

In a business context, I've noticed this sort of omission of an element or two at the beginning of a sentence is sometimes seen in PowerPoint presentations, especially in lists of actions that need to be done. I'd also find this sort of omission acceptable in the raw notes taken quickly during a meeting (for practical reasons).

This is also *the* standard in English for responsibilities under the Relevant Experience (=previous/current jobs) section of resumes. You don't write (under a particular previous job) "I maintained an email list" nor (under a current job) "I am extending a highly parallel application in CUDA", but rather you should write "Maintained an email list" and "Extending a highly parallel application in CUDA". (In contrast, in Spanish, such verbs appear in the simple infinitive, regardless if they're previous or current jobs.)

If you work in programming, this is also the English industry standard for version control commit comments. When a programmer implements a feature and adds it to a common repository, they usually write things like "fix resize window bug" (yes, "fix", not "fixed") instead of "I fixed the resize window bug."

And yeah, where I've worked at, I've seen managers who'd usually write emails to their inferiors this way...

[Querneus]

I drop first person singular all the time when writing informally, but not as often in speaking.

Do other people drop any other pronouns? It doesn’t seem like anyone has emphasized it’s only first person singular that gets dropped, or maybe it’s assumed everyone knows that. (Though maybe other people do drop other pronouns, so I am genuinely asking.)

It's not only 1st person pronouns that get dropped though. Gordafarin2 gave an example above where the 2nd person pronoun gets dropped, "[do you] want me to get anything for you?". I can also think of an example of the pronoun "it" being dropped: "looks like we made it".

You do have a point though. I don't think the pronouns "he, she, we, they" are ever dropped.