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

[AnonymousHouseCat]

Honestly, if it was just an informal thing I wouldn’t mind the grammar and spelling as long as it was still basically understandable. If it were a more formal published thing it might bug me a bit, but I’d still read it if the story was good.

[Pan]

Bad grammar will 100% stop my reading in its tracks. Really good writing is when you aren't consciously aware you're reading a book, and lots of grammar errors do a very good job of reminding one they're reading. If something isn't published professionally I'm totally cool with the occasional mistake (lord knows I have typos, too lol) but a ton scares me haha

[ble]

Nah, but i bet i am the one that turned people off lol. Even using some online translator, is not a guarantee it won't suck.

[indagold]

I have never read a story that was that level of incomprehensible outside of english being someone's second language. At that point you need to get a translator if everything else is amazing cause that can break it.

[paracosmosfiction]

I'm familiar with that standard. Unfortunately, it was not that standard. It was just pure chaos.

[linaket]

I'm one of those ones that are 100% turned off by bad grammar. I could care less about any of the other things, if you can't communicate the story, then the story isn't any good. On the reverse, though, I've also read things that don't necessarily appeal to me personally (the world, story, or tropes) because the writing is good.

This is obviously less of a problem I think for comics, as there is the visual element that helps translate things, but for novels I will yeet without looking back if I don't like the writing style.

[oshirockingham]

Depends on the level of it.
If I can't tolerate it, then it's probably very messed up because English is my 4th language to be fair.

[beta1042]

I think it depends on how bad the grammar is. If it's things like forgetting periods at the end of speech balloons, doing 2 dot or 4 dot ellipses, rare occasional typos, some extra commas, I won't care. As long as I can follow the story and it reads at least as well as most people converse, I am fine. However, if I am finding myself rereading lines because I can't follow, and this happens a lot, I just drop it.

[kmlangleyauthor]

It sounds like most people here have a line they just can’t cross - and I agree with that. I’m not entirely sure where the line is (that’s a lie, I just remembered something I read once ) but it was so much more than just the grammar. And I think that’s generally true for me. If the story is interesting, I’ll stick through the bad grammar (although I might have to be in a specific mood to read it). But if the grammar is bad on top bad formatting, bad characters, and unintelligible storylines, then I’m out

[eloise]

OMG your "your going too die when I put A knife thru you're heart!!!" really made me laugh a lot

[GoldenHoneydew]

yes, I try to be flexible but as someone who didn't really read novels on tapas until i got wattpad I was exposed to some TERRIBLE grammar and it's really painful to read when you know that it's a really young child writing too. Once read a story on wattpad that started with a 6 year old girl stabbing her dad to death with a butcher knife because "she didn't know what a knife was" and within the same sentence it lapsed ten years and the 15 year old girl was being abused by her mom. This all happened in less then 4 sentences and the writing was like this: she was five when it happpened, she saw knife- she took, father? dead.

[ignika1998]

Absolutely, especially if it's in the first chapter. Any grammatical error or typo in the first chapter is an instant drop for me. If the author couldn't put in the effort to proofread the first thing their readers will see, why should I put in the effort to read it at all?

Other than that, I can excuse the occasional typo or grammatical error every once in a while. It's not that big of a deal. Hell, even professional level productions make these mistakes sometimes.

But if it's to the point where lines don't make sense and it's a pain just to follow what's going on, then I won't bother. I understand that a lot of the people who write these kinds of things are ESL. But again, if they aren't bothered to learn the language they're writing in, why should I be bothered to decipher what they tried to write?

IMO they'd be better off writing in their mother tongue. There's nothing wrong with writing something in a language other than English.

[milejdyvan]

Although I agree that a person should learn a language that they are writing in (me being one of those people), I have to just slightly disagree on your line of thought at the end. It's not so simple as to just "write in your mother tongue". It's highly likely that there isn't an audience for their mother tongue on the internet. Heck I don't think there IS an option on Tapas to write in a different language. This would definitely be my case, and also, writing in my language is much harder grammatically than English. This isn't even mentioning the social differences. What if, for example, someone wants to write an LGBTQ story but their country of origin isn't accepting of that? There are a lot of reasons why people want to write in English and it's not simply to do cuz why not.

That's all I wanted to say not trying to argue or anything but wanted to get that out there, since I feel like many times foreigners don't really get the rep that they deserve.

Oh and as an after thought, I have seen atrocious level of grammar from native English speakers too. I would say even more. These people probably never paid attention in school and simply write what they hear. At least with foreigners, there is a much higher chance that they had to learn the grammar first.

[domisotto]

I haven’t written anything in my native tongue for over 20 years. I would actually do worse in my native language as far as the writing is concerned than in English, because I write in English daily.

And, yes, the audience is not there either.

Plus, a lot of people who are reading, are not native speakers either, so it balances out.

[Penni]

Definitely.

If I'm spending so much trying to figure out what I'm reading, it doesn't matter how good the story is because I can't enjoy it.

I'm not going to stop reading for minor things, as long as I can still read with ease.

[NellieVP318]

If I have say, grammar is usually not a high priority for me to read their stories unless it's really bad. After, I have very shaky grammar myself and it's something that I am constantly trying improving on. I try to take considerations if a person's language isn't English and if they have a disability that effects them writing wise.

I know I have a hearing disability which it can sometimes affect my writing sometimes but luckily, I have a person that can help me edit. I do think it all comes down to if the person is trying their best to write their story, grammar may not be their strong point but working on it. With that said, it really depends on the readers on whether or not they should continue reading a story.

[ignika1998]

But I feel like if more people wrote stories in languages other than English, an audience could be created. Sure, it's not always an option, but think about how many people write stories and go "I'll have to write this in English just so I can get readers".

If everyone who had that thought instead decided to write in their own language, I'm sure there would be a much bigger audience for non-English stories. Especially for other common languages like Spanish, French, etc.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't bother writing in English if it isn't their mother tongue. I'm just saying that sometimes people assume that writing in English is the only way to build an audience. And that if more people wrote in other languages that wouldn't necessarily be the case.

[allenT]

Not much. I'm also not so good at grammar. When i read a comic i focus on images and panels first, then dialogues (I skip reading dialogues a lot of times) If one can tell story through images effectively, then it's good enough!

[likhoradka]

Depending on how bad it is, then I'll trudge through anything as long as I like the story. I read a lot of fanfic, so I'm used to unedited works (although I did read an edited, published work that talked about the light of the new moon shining into a room, so...yeah, that was interesting). There'll be a word every now and again where I'll have to look away and take a breath because I was a writing tutor for a couple years. Wary/weary is the main one I have to take a break for.

As long as I'm not getting overly confused with what's going on and the characters don't annoy me, then I'll put up with a lot of bad grammar and spelling. Except wall o' text. I need space and punctuation of some sort.

[CosmicLeon]

Yes and no. Small errors I look over, but a block of text that is so bad that I cannot read the words. Broken English (if it in my native language) is so so. Some times broke English can be funny, but I should still be able to tell what is going on. I also writing style can also turn me off. Like the great Gatsby, not a fan. It is well written yes, but I do not enjoy it based solely on the writing style.(not engaging to me)

But all in all, is it interesting/engaging = Yes, I will read
can I tell what is going on = Yes, I will read

Not everyone has the same level of writing so I don't judge too hard unless it is an academic or professional where that should have been checked.