14 Responses

  1. Tanja
    Tanja at |

    Congratulations on the release of the Common Law Series, Kate. I loved your words on being confused what words to use. I have the same problem. I am not a native English speaker, but I learned British English in School. Nowadays I only read English novels, British or American. It is hard to keep up with the differences, but I consider it a learning curve.
    tankie44 at gmail dot com

    Reply
  2. lisa44837
    lisa44837 at |

    Thanks for the enlightening post. The one thing that stuck out the most for me & made me laugh was the bit about grade schoolers. Here in the US if you wrote about grade schoolers using rubbers you’d have them participating in sex pretty early! We us rubbers as slang for condoms!
    legacylandlisa(at)gmail(dot)com

    Reply
  3. susana
    susana at |

    Thank you for the interesting post! I’m a non-native speaker, so for me it is very difficult to distinguish between Canadian and American usage of words. What I studied was BBC English, so American slang is sometimes difficult for me (Thank you internet for the Urban Dictionary). but I love to learn new terms and usages for words.
    Congratulations on the release. I love your books.
    susanaperez7140(at)gmail(dot)com

    Reply
  4. dee
    dee at |

    Wow, I feel your pain. I am not a native English speaker. In school we used to learn some generic English that doesn’t really work in real life. When I started studying English at university, I was given the option to choose between British and American English. Apart from literature no one really distinguished between the two. You had to get your facts right yourself, because in tests they checked words and grammar according to your “language” choice.
    Now, working in an environment where English is the main language I struggle again, because of the diversity of people. But to be honest, I am at a point where I don’t care anymore.
    Of course I see that it is more problematic for an author, who targets a certain audience. So, I wish you all the best for future books and don’t get discouraged, if there’s something you don’t get “right”. Due to cultural and language diversity a lot of people are probably more forgiving than you think.
    I don’t know about others, if there’s something I don’t get I look it up. Abbreviations and idioms (love to learn new idioms <3) are on top of my "have to look it up"-list. I'm from Europe btw.

    kragthang [at] aim [dot] com

    Reply
  5. James Escol
    James Escol at |

    Sometimes no matter what words the author use, if the sentence construction was equipped well, the message will still come across. On my experience as a reader, I barely get caught in this confusion thing. Maybe it’s my vocabulary that’s speaking on behalf of me or maybe I haven’t come across an author who use otherworldly words.

    And when I do get confused, I’ll just go to Google & the problem goes away.

    Thanks for this awesome post & for coming by here on Love Bytes, Kate! <3I'm

    mushyvince(at)gmail(dot)com

    Reply
  6. Serena S.
    Serena S. at |

    Thanks for the interesting post. As someone whose English is their second language, I have issues to recognize some words but I just look them up and that solves it.
    It doesn’t affect my reading though. The differences make it even more interesting.
    serena91291@gmail(dot)com

    Reply
  7. debby236
    debby236 at |

    As a teacher, I have used all those phrases. There might be other things that I would not understand but that is the joy of reading. You can learn with everything you read.
    debby236 at gmail dot com

    Reply
  8. 16forward
    16forward at |

    I agree with Debby236! I’m an educator and read constantly. Having grown up on a small farm and attended a one room school in South Dakota I’m very familiar with eave troughs, wash rooms, colored pencils, grades and using a wash cloth. I love reading works by non-American authors (such as yourself, Garrett Leigh and Josephine Myles…to name just a few) and everyone who does should expect differences. That’s what makes this world so exciting.
    Good luck on the series.
    dfair1951@gmail.com

    Reply
  9. Trix
    Trix at |

    I’ve always had a bit of a Canada fixation, so it all makes me curious. Do you have to worry about big slang differences between provinces (that is, writing a Newfie vs., say, someone from BC)?

    vitajex(At)aol(Dot)com

    Reply
  10. Lyndsay
    Lyndsay at |

    I have had the same problems but with Australian English to British to American. I think it’s interesting that you can write any of those things and a Commonwealth country English speaker will get the busy, but it’s always an American reader who complains they don’t get it. I think that has a lot to do with exposure and multiculturalism.

    Reply
  11. Lee Todd
    Lee Todd at |

    I think Canadian English and Australian English might have more in common than US English lol

    leetee2007(at)hotmail(dot)com

    Reply
  12. Ree Dee
    Ree Dee at |

    I can’t wait to read this book and the rest of the upcoming ones!
    ree.dee.2014 (at) gmail (dot) com

    Reply
  13. Purple Reader
    Purple Reader at |

    Thanks for your thoughts and congrats. It sounds great. One reason I like reading stories set in a different culture to learn more about it, and it the language differences are done well, then I’m transported.

    Reply
  14. Sadonna
    Sadonna at |

    Great post Kate. Eaves trough is what I learned as a kid – but then it seems like gutters because kind of the “simpler” version as I got older 🙂 I love your writing and can’t wait to dig into this series.

    Reply

Please take a minute to leave a comment it is so appreciated !