Welcome to this mini-course – How to Write Like a Native English Speaker.

This course is for everyone who wants to learn about the mechanics and practices of good writing.

It's tailored for students who have learned English as a second, third, or fourth language.

But again, the course is tailored to help native English speakers who want to polish their grammar and write like professionals.

That said, let's delve into it;

Lesson 1 - Develop an excellent writing mindset.

Successful musicians must learn musical notes and practice like crazy to become maestros. As a writer, you, too, must learn writing basics; you must learn English grammar, semantics, nuances, and idioms. Then you must practice like crazy! 

“Read A Lot Write A Lot!” says Stephen King, the writing maestro.

As you learn the basics and practice every day your writing will improve greatly. That’s the road every successful writer follows.

But there is a price to pay, you in hard work. You will have to work hard to succeed as a writer. This price is paid upfront in cash, and there isn’t any credit.  

Good writing is an art practiced and crafted daily - watered, nourished, and grown by sweat, toil, and continuous rigorous grind.

What’s good writing?

Schools teach that ‘good writing is errorless writing.’ Essays, compositions, and academic papers must be punctuated correctly, have correct spelling, and should be without grammatical errors.

Good writing however is writing to stir up your reader’s soul and awaken her consciousness, it doesn’t always follow the rules and will sometimes break them knowingly.

Learn grammar to break the rules!

All experienced writers break rules because they know how

“But the camel snorted and brayed obnoxiously obviously unhappy...” is a sentence that breaks every known grammar rule.

Starting a sentence with- But, like I just did, is wrong, so says grammar rules. The rules say that conjunctions such as - But, And, However, Therefore, should never start a sentence.

Fragmented sentences, like the sentence above, will make your grammar teacher cringe, but they mirror informal speech — they COMMUNICATE to real people. And that’s the trick to writing well. You write to communicate.

Spice up your words!

You write to spice up words that tingle your readers and hook them on an ecstatic ride. This requires a deftness with words. A mastery of grammar, a knowledge of rules and how to break them!

Words, sentences, and phrases are like ingredients in a recipe. Manipulate them to create a delightful buffet for your reader.

If English is your second or third language, remember you are not a native speaker. You, therefore, do not have the advantages native writers have.

Native writers have familiarity with the language and culture, you on the other hand are swimming in strange waters bruh! You must first learn grammar!

Native writers have a natural fluency and grasp. They grew up speaking the language! That advantage gives them an inherent understanding of grammar, vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and colloquialisms.

But this does not apply to all native speakers because if, as a native speaker, you grew up speaking street slang, you too need to master grammatical rules and then learn how to break them to become a good writer.

That said we are now ready to dive in. Tomorrow's lesson will introduce us to some must-know writing techniques used by professional writers!