Has anyone's grammar ever turned you off from continuing a story even if it was promising?

[Kura]

Depends on the level of it.

Honestly it doesn't have to be perfect for me to understand it, but I still need to be able to understand what is going on.

[paracosmosfiction]

One thing I will say now that I'm thinking about it. I have to have some form of punctuation. And I don't just mean periods and question marks. I've seen some writings where there's no quotations to seperate spoken dialogue from actions. (Or as I like to call it. Total Anarchy. ) Also, commas. I need commas. They don't have to be perfect commas but I need them somewhere. Anywhere. For the love of God just split that giant sentence that never seems to end SOMEWHERE!

[azzy-m]

If the grammar is like, atrocious, then yea I'd probably eventually stop reading. If it's like a few mistakes here and there I don't mind, I correct it in my head and move on. I want to be able to understand the story easily, and it's kind of hard to do when I can't tell what a character is saying

[Maps]

Definitely this too. I read a comic once that where the grammar FELT fair enough, but I could not freakin figure out what was going on to save my life. It almost looked like it had been placed in a translator and published so the plot became tricky to figure out? I don’t even know. To this day I’m still shooketh about that, but somehow I read the whole thing.

[migxmeg]

As long as it's not so terrible that I have to slow down to parse, then we're good, provided story and art hold up!

Edit: I do notice it, though.

[WriterLinXiaolong]

I could stand bad MTL. So to some degree, I probably could stand bad grammar. My own grammar is bad. But if it is to the atrocious level then... I might need more effort to read through it.

PS: In some cases, I prefer bad MTL over bad translation. I am very picky with translation for some reason.

[paracosmosfiction]

I am too. It's the reason why I can't read a lot of Japanese Graphic Novels. I'm sure the story is amazing when read in the native language. But hearing it translated word for word through an editor, you just get the sense that something gets lost along the way.

[vothnthorvaldson]

As my English is pretty bad, I'm tolerant of other non-native speakers mistakes. I actually often find them interesting. Often you can guess people's first language by the type of mistakes they make, or, even more telling, by grammatically correct, but awkward or unusual sentence structures. I feel it teachs me something about their native language and I find it neat.

I'm also tolerant of mistakes due to disabilities such as dyslexia. It is always the same patterns so once I'm used to it I don't mind too much.

I'm however very, very annoyed at errors that I'd call 'trendy', not that they are on purpose, but rather, that they seem accepted because they are so widespread. Their/they're/There being one of them. Completely offputting.
Also, vocabulary mistakes that change the sense of the sentence entirely, especially when both make sense, so it is impossible to know what the person means. If I read any 'defiantly' instead of definitely, I'll definitely stop reading

[Maps]

I notice this for subs and dubs. Sub probably has lost context but feels closer to the original than a dubbed version of any anime or movie/show etc. (Subs all day I’m this case)!

[NickRowler]

It depends. I am not the best at grammar, so I am not too judgy. However, if it is to the point where I do not know what is going on, then I would probably stop reading.

[Panqiuyan]

English is my second language. I can speak it well but I have a hard time converting it into my writing style. i don't know how to fix the issues even if I been living in the USA for a long time.

[domisotto]

I have never encountered a story with awesome plot and characters and terrifying grammar. Bad grammar goes hand in hand with simplistic plot, bland characters, the use of words smirk and yell every few sentences, and chronic inability to chose subject other than personal pronoun or the character name.

There are no drawbacks to good grammar.

Interestingly, I was once honour bound to read a story that had great grammar but characters and plot so, so atrocious that I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I am usually not against self-inserts, but it was mega, uber, epic quality Mary Sue that married the worst of the OP Mary Sue and the Pity Sue. Gods, I can’t convey how bad that story was.

So bad, that I remember finally finishing the last chapter in triumph with as polite comment as I could come up with, and the writer was like, “oh, wait till you check out the sequel!” And that’s when I fondly contemplated moving to man less wilderness without the access to the Internet.

Anyway, that story should have come with the broken syntax, lack of punctuation and confusion of there are and their etc, but it was grammatically sound.

[Rhonder]

Yeahhh, I'll usually only continue on if there are numerous grammar errors if it's either like... a friend's work who I want to support, or if I'm reading for a review or something. I've started many comics and seen like beautiful art and designs with low subs and thought "wow, how does this have so few subs??" only to start encountering frequent grammar and spelling issues and think "ah, that's why".

[Pommie]

i try to push through grammar if its not like the worse, if the grammar and sentence structure is near unreadable then i'd be turned off, but if someones english isnt the best i can grin n bear it

[paracosmosfiction]

I honestly hate when my friends ask me to read their stuff. Not because I dislike supporting them. But most of the time (with one or two exceptions) they don't want an honest opinion. They want me to gush about how great it is. When I'd rather offer an honest opinion on the work to help them grow as a writer.

I had this one friend, I won't include names, but we're no longer close and it started with a review of his work. He had a lot of skeletons in his closet and had a hard time maturing after High School. But that's a separate issue. Long story short, he asked me to review his work and I found it atrocious. Not from a grammar perspective but from a moral perspective. Pointlessly subversive moral ambiguity thrown in purely for shock factor along with rape glorification and blatant misogyny. I was frankly disgusted and I relayed my feelings to him as nicely as possible. I told him upfront he needed to rethink it. All of it. I was polite, but I was honest.

We haven't really spoken since. I don't do that much reviewing of my friends work anymore for that very reason.

[foxnflames]

I can overlook a few typos and issues because we all make mistakes and don’t catch them all, but if they’re abundant, then it’s hard for me to focus on the plot if I have to stumble on sentences. (It’s hard enough to read sometimes anyway because I’m sure I have undiagnosed dyslexia)

Ironically enough, I dropped a book because, while the plot was interesting, the MC was insufferable. That particular book didn’t have a lot of grammatical issues and typos. I read two other books by the same author that were riddled with them and they had compelling characters and great plot.

I will also say that consistent errors (across several stories) irritate me more than a lot of typos.

[paracosmosfiction]

Same though! I am far more forgiving of bad grammar and bad punctuation than I am of bad characters. Even if it's not the MC, if they're irritating enough it can kill a book for me.

[rajillustration]

Oh I can't stand bad grammar. Like I'll allow a little bit--it's an online novel, after all--but if it's distracting and just consistently a problem, then I can't continue. It becomes difficult to immerse myself in the narrative.

[cherrystark]

Yes!!! I understand if you are writing in a different language that isn't your primary language(s), you might not get the grammar right. BUT!!! There are programs to check your grammar, native speakers online that will check your grammar, and so much more. I make assumptions about the author if I can't understand their work.

[DiegoPalacios]

Mostly, yes. The ocassional mistake is tolerable, not everyone is a native english speaker, but when it's too frequent i struggle more to keep reading it.

There are some exceptions, like deliberate bad grammar for the sake of comedy.