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Good day everyone.
It’s not part of my blog about my gaming career.
I'm writing this in regard to improve my English skill, trying to use advanced grammar and lexicon.
Main topic is definition of the success(rofl)
If you have opinions about this topic, we should share it so I can read!
Definition of the success
I strongly believe that successful people have something in common with their mentalities such as desire, passion, tenacity and willingness.
I have met a lot of successful people during my gaming career.
The most discernible things were they are diligence and constancy.
Although, there are many temptations out there, they do what they have to do.
In retrospect, my weakness was laziness, there wasn't certain life pattern, I slept,played and go out whenever I want because there wasn't immobilized(I don't think it's proper word to put in here) plans.
AH so hard I took 20 min writing this...
Is there any tips for writing? I cannot write a sentence long enough because I'm really bad at connecting sentences.
Grammatical corrections would be appreciated.
If you have any questions that I can able to reply, ask me!
Thanks for reading ! :D
twitter : @rainpsy
  
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On November 18 2013 17:06 Rain wrote:
I strongly believe that successful people have something in common with their mentalities such as desire, passion, tenacity and willingness.
I have met a lot of successful people during my gaming career.
The most discernible things were they are diligent and constant mindset.
Although, there are many temptations out there, they do what they have to do.
In retrospect, my weakness was laziness, there wasn't certain life pattern, I slept,played and go out whenever I want because there wasn't immobilized(I don't think it's proper word to put in here) plans.
This is the incorrect form of their/there/they're, you should have used their, which refers to ownership.The people you met had ownership of their diligent and constant mindset.
Also, your writing would flow better without the comma after although.
Hope this helps!
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Best book I can recommend for writing is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.
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On November 18 2013 18:05 SolarSuplex wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2013 17:06 Rain wrote:
I strongly believe that successful people have something in common with their mentalities such as desire, passion, tenacity and willingness.
I have met a lot of successful people during my gaming career.
The most discernible things were they are diligent and constant mindset.
Although, there are many temptations out there, they do what they have to do.
In retrospect, my weakness was laziness, there wasn't certain life pattern, I slept,played and go out whenever I want because there wasn't immobilized(I don't think it's proper word to put in here) plans.
This is the incorrect form of their/there/they're, you should have used their, which refers to ownership.The people you met had ownership of their diligent and constant mindset. Also, your writing would flow better without the comma after although. Hope this helps!
On topic, an alternative is:
The most discernible things were their diligence and consistency.
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United Kingdom1381 Posts
How I would rephrase it:
The Definition of Success
I strongly believe that successful people have desire, passion, tenacity and willingness in common. I have met many successful people during my gaming career and they were all diligent and had a consistent mindset. Although there are many temptations out there, they managed to achieve their objectives. In retrospect, my weakness was laziness. I slept, played and went out whenever I wanted because my plans weren't set in stone.
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Hi Rain!
I would recommend reading online news to help you improve your vocabulary and grammar. BBC and CNN are both very good sources for articles, videos, and radio on many different subjects. I think they both also have English learning sections with materials there. Other good sources include The Guardian, The New York Times (I think you get ten free articles/blogs/videos per month), and The Economist (you get five or six free articles per week if I remember correctly).
By looking at both American and British sources you can get exposure to different styles and vocabulary. These sources should generally have a high standard of writing (in terms of grammar and vocabulary) so you'll be able to read articles with complex sentence structures to help you learn how to connect phrases and sentences. However, I think it's also important to listen to how the language is used and how sentences are formed when speaking in English so you should definitely watch some videos or listen to some audio content. In addition, it's useful to read the news to find out about the current topics and issues that are being discussed in the English-speaking world so when you do go to the US you'll have a lot of things to talk about. (:
Good luck! Hope these resources will lead you to content that is both interesting and educational! (:
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Rain : just read english. Go to english forums, read english news sites, so your brain is used to use english and to form english sentences.
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Here are a few corrections/changes I would make...
I strongly believe that successful people have something in common with their mentalities such as desire, passion, tenacity and willingness.
To say someone has something in common with their mentality isn't quite right. You have a mentality; you don't have something in common with it. Instead, I'd say:
I strongly believe that successful people possess virtues such as desire, passion, tenacity, and willingness.
I have met a lot of successful people during my gaming career.
The most discernible things were they are diligence and constancy.
As already suggest, I would say" Their most discernible characteristics were their diligence and consistency".
Constancy I suppose works well too, but consistency would usually be the word of choice there.
Although, there are many temptations out there, they do what they have to do.
In retrospect, my weakness was laziness, there wasn't certain life pattern, I slept,played and go out whenever I want because there wasn't immobilized(I don't think it's proper word to put in here) plans.
You do not need the comma after "Although". Between laziness and there, you should use a semicolon ; not a comma. Semicolons generally separate two related ideas that could each be their own sentence. In this case you could definitely split the ideas into two sentences and it would be correct, but since you want to learn how to connect phrases, the semicolon should become your friend. (:
Since you are speaking in past tense, say "and went out" rather than "and go out" and then go on to say "because there weren't any concrete plans" Immobilized doesn't sound right; you could also say "there weren't any definite plans".
Reading will definitely help, that's how native English speakers learn how to improve their speech and grammar. News websites are a fine idea. If you have any favorite fun books that you've read or have always wanted to read, pick up an English copy and work your way through it. Keep working at it; you're doing really well and nothing you say is just terribly wrong, so don't get discouraged. Keep writing, reading, and talking. If you ever want to carry out conversations in English, I and probably everyone else here would love to talk to you and help you through it.
Good luck!
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rain, this is a good start. of course you won't be perfect since you are new to this. but do not get so worked up in your errors. Keep doing this exercise everyday and we can help you. but you gotta do it everyday, or it will all go to waste. I say everyday because this is what we did everyday in our schools here.
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A lot of people are recommending that you read more to become better at English—and you certainly should—but knowing how to read English and how to write it are two different things. When you read, you can get away with only knowing the rules of English grammar vaguely, but when you write, you have to know them clearly in order not to make mistakes.
I would recommend that you go back over the basics of English grammar and punctuation, step by step. Articles (a/an/the), commas (,), dashes (—), colons and semicolons ( : / ; ), quotation marks (" "), conjunctions (and/or/but), and prepositions (with/by/of/to/from and so on) are the glue that turn short phrases into long sentences. You need to have the rules for using each of these firmly stuck in your mind before you can write long sentences well.
You've definitely gotten better since you've started writing these blogs, though, so keep at it!
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On November 18 2013 17:06 Rain wrote:
AH so hard I took 20 min writing this...
Is there any tips for writing? I cannot write a sentence long enough because I'm really bad at connecting sentences.
Don't feel bad about this yo! I feel like a lot of native speakers have trouble even with this because they find it hard to put their thoughts in words. For me anyway I have trouble expressing myself! Chin up dude 
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+ Show Spoiler +
Please read it. Cover to cover about 100 pages. I have read parts of it many times. It will teach you clear, simple, effective writing.
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Your writing is very much like mine. I never really paid much attention to grammar, so I tend to use commas where they shouldn't be (I believe that last comma is actually unnecessary). The way I use commas is to designate where a verbal pause would be if I was speaking. So as an example, we can look at this sentence. The comma after "example" is where I would pause if I were speaking to someone. I've never been told this is incorrect, but I also haven't had an English class in about 8 years.
Your "Although," is the same as my "example," because they're both pauses that aren't exactly 2 sentences being separated, just 2 separate thought processes.
As others have suggested, reading journalist websites (CNN) is a great way to see how they use grammar and their writing styles specifically. I'd suggest using the less depressing sites like the onion (a fake news site) where they're pretty good in reporting their (fake) news in a similar style, it's just less sad and more hilarious.
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I'd suggest picking a book/genre and just start reading. Anything you enjoy or find interesting. Like, Harry Potter if you've never read it would be a good start.
Most people on this site speak/understand English grammar at an intuitive level because it just feels right due to their exposure, and I think the easiest way to pick up good grammar without the horror of studying it intensively is to read lots.
On a side note, even native speakers screw up their/they're/there constantly so when you're unsure/confused about which to use look it up.
As a general rule of thumb:
There is used with a location
They're = They are = is used to describe a group of people
Their is used to describe something someone has
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immobilized(I don't think it's proper word to put in here) plans
I imagine you'd like to use "fixed" here (prearranged, not movable), though I also imagine using the word "schedule" is more fitting than plans in this context 
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Surround yourself with english.
Watch a series in english, with english subtitles if need be.
Learn the lyrics to english songs, but ask someone confident in english beforehand if the text makes any sense^^. Journey, John Denver and Bruce Springsteen are artists with good english lyrics.
Read good english, not the stuff you find here on TL or the rest of the internet. Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead", if you like science fiction.
Edit: Oh yeah, try to think in english, look up the words you need to formulate the ideas inside your head.
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On November 19 2013 01:31 Passion wrote:immobilized(I don't think it's proper word to put in here) plans I imagine you'd like to use "fixed" here (prearranged, not movable), though I also imagine using the word "schedule" is more fitting than plans in this context
Even "concrete plans" works well here.
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overall it was really good,everything was understandable.
going to focus on one sentence that you made a few mistakes on. (I'm focusing mainly on clear errors because I'm not an expert in english).
"In retrospect, my weakness was laziness, there wasn't certain life pattern, I slept,played and go out whenever I want because there wasn't immobilized(I don't think it's proper word to put in here) plans."
proper english would either be be "there wasn't a certain lifestyle pattern" or " there weren't certain lifestyle patterns". if your using a singlular form of a word you usually put an a before it. another example would be "I have a house" as opposed to "I have house". Other problem is you use two different tenses( present and past). you use slept and played which are past tense along with wasn't but then you used 'go out' which is present tense. the proper term there is went out. There should be some form of separation other than a comma in the sentence, it's a little long. Also there should be a comma after played since its part of the list. (at least the commas put in for the US apparently in the UK they don't put it there but since you said you were interested in attending a US school it's probably best to put it in.)
in terms of immobilized it means "unable to move/take action" as opposed to definitive, which is what your trying to say. Concrete would have worked well as "concrete plans" is a common english expression for having a specific plan(I know I used plans to define something with plans but its the clearest way I can think to do it. Also the second wasn't should be weren's since your using plans in the plural sense.
Personally I'd rewrite "there wasn't immobolized plans" as "I didn't have concrete plans" because it shows a stronger sense of ownership to the plans as opposed to the way you wrote it, which could be interpreted as no one giving you a plan. Your way still conveys the message but is a little less clear. Tt
Definately get a book on grammer and punctuation though, thy're incredibly useful. (English grammar is very weird so having something to look at is a lifesaver) Immersing yourself in english is also great at understanding and feeling more comfortable with reading and speaking especially in terms of making sentences feel natural. In terms in terms of technically correct writing nothing beats a good Grammar book (assuming your confident in your english reading skills.) try to get one written in more plain english as opposed to a more technical reference guide since your not a native english speaker
elements of style is supposed to be great and something like this should work as well
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iivDRW1.jpg)
Hope this helps
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On November 19 2013 01:22 elt wrote:
I'd suggest picking a book/genre and just start reading. Anything you enjoy or find interesting. Like, Harry Potter if you've never read it would be a good start.
On November 19 2013 03:30 HaRuHi wrote:
Surround yourself with english.
Watch a series in english, with english subtitles if need be.
Learn the lyrics to english songs, but ask someone confident in english beforehand if the text makes any sense^^. Journey, John Denver and Bruce Springsteen are artists with good english lyrics.
Read good english, not the stuff you find here on TL or the rest of the internet. Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead", if you like science fiction.
Edit: Oh yeah, try to think in english, look up the words you need to formulate your ideas inside your head.
This is really good advice! If you want to learn English well, the best way to do it is to read things you're really interested in. Writing about things you're interested in is a really good start and you should totally keep doing that (also, I really like your blogs), but reading the writing of people who are extremely talented is the best way to learn, and your writing can help you practice the new things you learn.
Ender's Game is also a really good book, you should read it if you like science fiction at all =)
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your english is really damn good.
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Trying to be perfect and slow is good.
Trying to just communicate ideas and be fast is also good.
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Thanks for advice everyone!
Although I'm a retired player, thanks for helping me!
I'm watching Breaking Bad with English subtitle. If there are words that I don't know, I search for them.
I hung out with a lot of American and European people recently.
Actually there were't big problems having conversation with them, but when American people talking to another American people sometimes it's really hard to understand because they talk too fast and speak so many slang words :p
I'll keep it up studying English, and thanks for the recommendations about books!
I wish I can have perfect English someday 
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Norway28665 Posts
honestly I don't think you should focus your energy towards reading books on English grammar. I mean, it's good and helpful, and these books are good tools if you need one particular grammatical rule explained or if you observe that rules aren't consistent (very common in English due to all the exceptions) and you need to examine whether what you are observing are actual rules or not.
What you should continue doing and what is absolutely the best way of learning English is to simply use it and reflect around what you are seeing and doing. Insofar as it is possible, immerse yourself in the language, write grocery lists in English, start having your inner monologues in English, write blogs in English at an English-speaking website. Your improvement since the first blog you posted has been very impressive, and evidence of the fact that there's no need for you to change up on anything. In terms of developing your written English you are right on track.
In terms of pronunciation however, you have a harder time succeeding while still living in Korea. And seeing as how you want to move to the US, you want to develop this as well. Watching TV shows is good, but you also need to find a way for you to speak English. Playing computer games while talking English on skype is actually pretty good! (edit: just read your previous post. good! )
One humbling exercise, which you might want to do later, is to record yourself speaking English. It normally sounds much worse than you think it does, but it also lets you identify what aspects of your pronunciation you need to work on. For now though, just use English as much as possible and you will keep progressing.
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On November 19 2013 10:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:honestly I don't think you should focus your energy towards reading books on English grammar. I mean, it's good and helpful, and these books are good tools if you need one particular grammatical rule explained or if you observe that rules aren't consistent (very common in English due to all the exceptions) and you need to examine whether what you are observing are actual rules or not. What you should continue doing and what is absolutely the best way of learning English is to simply use it and reflect around what you are seeing and doing. Insofar as it is possible, immerse yourself in the language, write grocery lists in English, start having your inner monologues in English, write blogs in English at an English-speaking website. Your improvement since the first blog you posted has been very impressive, and evidence of the fact that there's no need for you to change up on anything. In terms of developing your written English you are right on track. In terms of pronunciation however, you have a harder time succeeding while still living in Korea. And seeing as how you want to move to the US, you want to develop this as well. Watching TV shows is good, but you also need to find a way for you to speak English. Playing computer games while talking English on skype is actually pretty good! (edit: just read your previous post. good! ) One humbling exercise, which you might want to do later, is to record yourself speaking English. It normally sounds much worse than you think it does, but it also lets you identify what aspects of your pronunciation you need to work on. For now though, just use English as much as possible and you will keep progressing.
This so much. Written English and Grammar will probably be most useful in school (which I know you are going to do eventually), but the most important part of language is the spoken part. Absolutely make every attempt to watch American television and media with subtitles, and you will learn much faster than if you read a grammar book. Beyond school assignments, everyday communication is what will help you integrate into the culture and really learn the language.
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I am a native English speaker and have a Taiwanese background and have struggled so much learning mandarin throughout the years. So, I feel your pain and also share your enthusiasm towards improving and learning a new language. Obviously I'm the direct opposite since I know English and I'm learning mandarin, but let me just say, I can relate.
Anyways, I heard Breaking Bad is awesome, and I think that watching English TV shows or movies helps a lot. I would like to suggest Friends as another show to watch with English subtitles. The English that they use throughout the show is not very complicated and the jokes and sarcasm is not too hard to follow. A plus is, there's 10 seasons.
Good luck Rain!!! Fighting!
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Reading an international forum like teamliquid is not a good place to learn how to speak correctly either, many of the people here don't have great english at all, and even those that do commonly can't be bothered using it correctly in replies. Reading books is the fastest way to improve written english skills in my experience; you can learn a lot of idioms (which comes in handy in understanding native speakers) and correct sentence phrasing from good books rather easily.
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Definition of success removed THE
I strongly believe that successful people have something in common with their mentalities such as desire, passion, tenacity and willingness.
I have met a lot of successful people during my gaming career.
The most discernible thing about them was that they were always diligent.
Although there were many temptations out there, they did what they had to do. (Removed comma after although, tense matching with my edits)
In retrospect, my weakness was laziness. I didn't have a specific daily routine: I slept, played, and went out whenever I wanted because I had no fixed plans.
Getting into college is tough for non-native English speakers, but I see some pretty solid improvement.
One thing I noticed about Asians (especially Koreans) using English is the misuse of "the" vs "a". I don't know exactly how to go about preventing that, but you do a fairly good job of not messing the two up. Good job on this regard, really.
With your post, there were a few tense things, some style things, and a few things that happen for any learner: not being able to put in words what you're thinking (Applies to me too... Can't speak Korean as well as I'd like to... Shame). The only way around that is by practice, and you seem to be on the ball on this.
Now that you're getting into style, you want to learn some common sayings (or 속담) and idioms. Have fun with these, because people don't use them often these days (but everyone knows about them).
GL
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On November 19 2013 09:29 Rain wrote:Thanks for advice everyone! Although I'm a retired player, thanks for helping me! I'm watching Breaking Bad with English subtitle. If there are words that I don't know, I search for them. I hung out with a lot of American and European people recently. Actually there were't big problems having conversation with them, but when American people talking to another American people sometimes it's really hard to understand because they talk too fast and speak so many slang words :p I'll keep it up studying English, and thanks for the recommendations about books! I wish I can have perfect English someday
As a big fan of Breaking Bad, I commend you for this strategy.
It might also be helpful, to watch some Korean movies and/or dramas with English subtitles. I'm all for the "learn by entertainment" route to language. Although it won't be the fastest, and most likely won't be the most grammatically correct way, it can help with motivation.
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Sorry if someone said this and I missed it, but "success" is a non-count noun, so it only has an article when you are referring to a specific instance of it.
In "the definition of success" you would not use "the" before "success" because you're referring to the general concept of "success".
In "I cannot explain the success of my English training" you do use "the" before "success" because you're talking about a specific instance of success.
Here is a reference about count nouns and non-count nouns.
On November 19 2013 01:03 mishimaBeef wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Please read it. Cover to cover about 100 pages. I have read parts of it many times. It will teach you clear, simple, effective writing.
You can't just read something like this, especially not cover to cover. Memorizing a book of rules like that isn't an efficient or effective way to learn something.
That said, The Elements of Style is a great reference to look at whenever you are unsure about something or to have open while you edit a longer piece of writing.
I agree with the people who said that everyday useage is a much better way to learn. Whoever said to try reading the New York Times and the Economist. I think that learning to imitate fluid prose is both more important and more effective than trying to go for grammatical perfection right away, and between the New York Times and the Economist you will get a really good exposure to fluid prose.
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It helps to read English writing and try writing your own with having somebody available to critique it. Try to find good writing and emulate it.
You can make a list of the main ideas in each sentence, and then rewrite the paragraphs in your own words and see how it compares to the original.
Some authors with excellent style:
Neil Strauss
George Orwell
Hunter S Thompson
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On November 18 2013 17:06 Rain wrote:
immobilized(I don't think it's proper word to put in here) plans.
"fixed schedule" is want you meant to convey.
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I don't like the Elements of Style. Its breaks its own rules and some of the words/conventions have become archaic. Most noticeably for me was the hyphenation of the word to-morrow and the emphasis on using the masculine pronoun like "Everyone has his hat on in the crowd".
Like others said, you can't really go wrong with the New York Times or a similar magazine. Or even browse the general section on TL to learn it! The tone is more conversational than you'd find in the Times and it's more realistic for everyday conversation
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United States744 Posts
I understand from a few people that watching game shows in english helps learn english. shows such as wheel of fortune and lingo and $100,000 Pyramid Game are all about the english language and common words and phrases, i think that might help you.
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One fun way to familiarize yourself with the english language at your own pace is playing english videogames with lot's of text!
Pros:
You'll get a better feeling of proper grammar, because you're drawn into the videogame world: a little bit like a trip to another country.
It's almost like reading a book but more exciting.
It's easier to follow than watching movies, because you can take all the time you want.
Con:
You won't necessarily get better at writing or speaking english, because for this you have actually to write or speak it .
Old RPGs are the games with most english text e.g.:
- Morrowind
- Planescape Torment (!!!)
- Baldur's Gate 2
Modern RPGs have a lot of dialogue as well but it's mostly spoken language with subtitles (like movies):
- Mass Effect
- Dragon Age
- Skyrim
- Fallout 3
Of course, you can try other genres as well. I recommend:
- Grand Theft Auto series
- Deus Ex Human Revolution
- BioShock
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Honestly, to learn english, the easiest is just to watch a lot of tv shows. There's a reason why in Europe we all tend to have an american accent before we have an english one =)
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I think you should just let someone proof read your posts, then let you know what you should correct and why. You're good at SC2 because you corrected your mistakes through trial and error. English and speaking are no different. If you want to improve, let someone tell you what you're doing wrong if you don't already.
I don't suggest reading english books because I think you'll pick up the phrases, but you won't understand their exact implications or why they're formed the way they are which may lead to using them in a context you don't understand.
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Thanks for advices everyone.
I'm currently in China.
I will update my blog with photos!
Have a nice day.
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On November 18 2013 18:05 mishimaBeef wrote:
Best book I can recommend for writing is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.
+1
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On November 18 2013 17:06 Rain wrote:
Main topic is definition of the success(rofl)
Your use of "the" in this location is awkward.
It would probably be more accurate syntactically to write:
The main topic of this blog is the definition of the word "success."
Most of the other issues have been addressed in previous posts.
I am an English tutor and I do a lot of editing for Korean students. If you would like more personal help, feel free to contact me via PM.
As an aside, I would like to thank you for the fantastic games you've played. I have been a fan of yours since Brood War. Rain fighting!~
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EPT![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51q3tYpGjnL.jpg)
