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wm27
Community Member

Can non-native English speaker be a successful web based content writer here?

If so, then please tell me how many such writers are working on upwork today!

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e_luneborg
Community Member

I'm not a native English speaker, and I would consider myself as a quite successfull web content writer. It's not like the whole web is full of just English content, there is in fact a need for content in other languages as well. Writing in English for pay is however something that I would never do. 

 

Even though I would consider my English skills as good, and I have no problem with getting my message across to native English speakers it doesn't make it great. After reading 2 sentences all native English speakers would spot that I'm not native. The same way that I can immedeately spot when someone is not native in Norwegian or Swedish. 

 

Your best chances to succeed is to write in your native language. Not everyone has to be a native English speaker.

________________________
Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy

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35 REPLIES 35
JoanneP
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Md. Waled,

 

For web-based content writing jobs on Upwork, it is not a requirement to be a native English speaker, unless the client has clearly specified it on the job. Your skills and experience will always matter, and most especially, the quality of your work. 

 

~ Joanne
Upwork
petra_r
Community Member


@Md.Waled B wrote:

If so, then please tell me how many such writers are working on upwork today!


 Unless you have the skills to do any given job you can not be successful at it. The main skill of a writer is advanced mastery of the language they wish to write in.

 

If your English is not at that level, you lack the necessary skills to be a writer of anything in English.

 

If I can't code I can not be a programmer. If I can't take pictures I can not be a photographer. If you can't write near flawless English, you should not try to be a writer.

 

 

wm27
Community Member

Hi Petra R,
You mentioned the very logical point, I believe your English writing proficiency is just like the native one, and your profile says you are from Italy.
Now, my question is how could you make yourself a native level writer?
I am still learning to make myself a good writer in English, and I started this mission 6-7 month ago, but before this time frame, I knew English only basic level.
Thanks, Petra R

petra_r
Community Member


@Md.Waled B wrote:

Hi Petra R,
You mentioned the very logical point, I believe your English writing proficiency is just like the native one, and your profile says you are from Italy.
Now, my question is how could you make yourself a native level writer?
I am still learning to make myself a good writer in English, and I started this mission 6-7 month ago, but before this time frame, I knew English only basic level.


 I am actually originally from Germany, but I lived in England and Scotland for over 20 years. You'll also notice that I do not offer English writing services, even though I have written for English print magazines and have a published book out.

My English is not "native", even after 20+ years of living in the UK. On a good day it's probably fair to describe it as "bilingual" I guess.

 

I'm afraid you can't "make" yourself a native level speaker, or at least not without actually being immersed in a native speaking country for many years, if not decades, ideally from childhood, and speaking, dreaming, thinking and living nothing but English.

I applaud your efforts and it is admirable that you are trying so hard. But the cold hard truth is that it will take years for your English to get to the point where you will be able to get away with calling it "fluent" - let alone native level.

 

If you take on English writing jobs with your current level of English it will backfire. You might get away with it with clients who themselves only have a basic understanding of the language, but native or even advanced level English speaking clients will destroy your JSS.

 

Don't give up. Keep learning and keep practising and surround yourself with English as much as you possibly can. Just don't try and sell writing services in a language you haven't mastered yet.

 

My Italian is pretty passable these days, but I would not dream of offering to translate from Italian, let alone write in it or translate into it, even though I live here.

You'll get there, but not this week, or next year, or the year after...

 

versailles
Community Member


@Md.Waled B wrote:

Hi Petra R,
You mentioned the very logical point, I believe your English writing proficiency is just like the native one, and your profile says you are from Italy.
Now, my question is how could you make yourself a native level writer?
I am still learning to make myself a good writer in English, and I started this mission 6-7 month ago, but before this time frame, I knew English only basic level.
Thanks, Petra R


Waled, on my opinion attaining a native level in a language without living in a country where this language is spoken and without using it exclusively is close to impossible. I commend and encourage your efforts to improve your English, but you're way from having the skills to professionally write in this language.

 

You are trying, and the result is a 65% JSS.

 

And why English? Why don't you write in your own language?

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"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless
wm27
Community Member

Hi Sir Rene K,

Thank you for your kind response, but the 65% JSS scores are not for my writing project feedback anyway. I am actually SEO professional, and the English language is an essential part of SEO skills because I do SEO on the English based websites.

 Unfortunately, a client killed me the honest way that I couldn’t know it. The client was Indian; he works under the European & American clients. So, feel yourself about that client! And I think this client was totally **Edited for Community Guidelines**. For this, he gave me private poor feedback; although I finished his projects successfully (the project duration was two weeks).

Note: he (the client) gave me public good feedback too, but it was worthless for my JSS scores because he killed me inside a room.

One more thing, sir, I also do blogging to improve my English skill, and here is my blog site **Edited for Community Guidelines**

Note: I know a guy who is blogging from India and making $50,000 (five figures) every single month, and English is not his first language. Here is his blog site **Edited for Community Guidelines**

I promised 6-7 months ago that I would make myself a good English writer/blogger within next 14 months.

I hope it will happen.

P.S. There is not enough opportunity to do projects in my local language.

Thank you, sir

 


@Md.Waled B wrote:

Note: I know a guy who is blogging from India and making $50,000 (five figures) every single month, and English is not his first language.


 Note: English is a lingua franca in India, home to many languages.

Hi Sir Douglas Michael M,

Yes, and I didn’t see a country where so many non-native English speaker people are living but India, and I know almost 150m people are able to speak English in India.

Thank you, sir.

Practice, practice, practice... There are no shortcuts here. If you are creative, you will be creative regardless of the language you write in. Watch movies, read comic books, books, articles on the web... When you start thinking in English, it will be much easier to write and the quality of your content will be much closer to native level. Also, try to separate UK and US English, as you will have clients from both sides. 

e_luneborg
Community Member

I'm not a native English speaker, and I would consider myself as a quite successfull web content writer. It's not like the whole web is full of just English content, there is in fact a need for content in other languages as well. Writing in English for pay is however something that I would never do. 

 

Even though I would consider my English skills as good, and I have no problem with getting my message across to native English speakers it doesn't make it great. After reading 2 sentences all native English speakers would spot that I'm not native. The same way that I can immedeately spot when someone is not native in Norwegian or Swedish. 

 

Your best chances to succeed is to write in your native language. Not everyone has to be a native English speaker.

________________________
Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy
kat303
Community Member

Not to get off subject here, but just need to comment on how "flawed" feedback is on Upwork. The OP has several jobs already completed, and all but 2 have received 5 star reviews and very good feedback. (the other 2 have 4.8 stars) But yet, he only has a 65% JSS. This shows that clients will give good reviews in public but bad ones if they know it's private.

 

Giving a 5 star public feedback and then giving a very low private one IMO sort of borders on fraud, fake reviews type of thing.

Kathy,

 

Please, note that not only jobs that show on freelancer's public profile because at least $1 was paid on it but also jobs where no money was paid or a full refund was issued count toward JSS. That's why we always recommend that the freelancer only accepts the offer if they are absolutely sure that they have necessary skills and experience to complete the job.

~ Valeria
Upwork


@Valeria K wrote:

Kathy,

 

Please, note that not only jobs that show on freelancer's public profile because at least $1 was paid on it but also jobs where no money was paid or a full refund was issued count toward JSS. That's why we always recommend that the freelancer only accepts the offer if they are absolutely sure that they have necessary skills and experience to complete the job.


 Do you mean that, after a full refund, the job doesn't appear in the profile at all?


@Richard W wrote:

@Valeria K wrote:

Please, note that not only jobs that show on freelancer's public profile because at least $1 was paid on it but also jobs where no money was paid or a full refund was issued count toward JSS.


 Do you mean that, after a full refund, the job doesn't appear in the profile at all?


Yes. If nothing was paid or everything was refunded, no sign of the contract remains visible. It is (as far as the public profile is concerned) like the contract never happened. Whatever impact the contract had on the JSS, however, remains.

 

barada00
Community Member

Hello Waled, here is a very unconventional advice to you: There are 2 kinds of clients who hire freelancers from Upwork or other platforms. Those who want real content and those who want to fill their web sites with some text. Your target clients are not the ones who want real content yet (I'll get to this later).

 

As you well know (I'm coming to this conclusion from the links you shared) there are people who are trying to make money from affiliate sales/links and other people who want to build links for SEO. These are who you should target because they don't care about the content or quality very much; they just want some words used in a somewhat legible text. They pay very low and work with people with language skills like yours.

 

If you'll work with people who want real content you should consider a few things. First of all I want to write here that most people visiting sites in English are not native English speakers. In my country as an example even if we are making a web site for a purely native product the client also wants an English version because they think it will give them some superiority when compared with their competition. So there are some people from my country who write in English, who translate to English without having any problems with their clients. 99% of who reads what they wrote will not be native English speakers.

 

So, if you want to make money writing in English and have less impact to your JSS because your English is not native you should work with people whose mother language is not English and you should be prepared to get paid very low.

wm27
Community Member

 Hi sir Baris A,

Yes, at this moment, my main target is to grab SEO related writing tasks like guest posting, web2.o creation, article submission, community writing tasks, niche related forum posting, Q & A posting tasks (like Quora, yahoo.answer) or even blog commenting, and yes, these tasks are low paid SEO writing tasks, but the guest posting tasks pay higher than your imagination! Many upwork clients prefer to pay for a single guest post is $10 to $100 (sometimes $400-$500 each post but this rate is very rare).

Thank you, sir.

 

versailles
Community Member

Forum posting? Sounds like spamming forums with c**** or posting fake comments to promote some s***** stuff.

 

Yeah, who cares about ethics, as long as one can get few pennies.

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"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless
wm27
Community Member

 Hi Sir Rene K,

Yes, we know spam is everywhere on the web, and for this to get approved a live link from the forum site is nowadays somewhat a bit hard tasks. The client only pays for the live link, and you can’t post duplicate content on the forum site, if you do that, then the forum moderators will ban your account, even they can block your IP.

Most of the upwork clients pay $0.5 (and max, $1) for a live forum posting.

Thank you, sir.

resultsassoc
Community Member

Md, when you can think in a language, and routinely dream in the language, you are ready to begin corresponding in the language. That is sttill very far away from being paid to write in the language. My mother tongue is English; I taught Spanish literacy in Colombia, and did medical school in Germany. I routinely correspond in both languages, and present to Boards of Directors in both languages (as well as French and Portugese). I do not pretend to be a professional writer in anything but English. I write responses ("proposals") in German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian, but not to be a professional writer in those languages.

 

SEO work does require good English. I recommend you stay on the technical side of SEO, instead of writing SEO-compliant content.

Olá senhor Bill H,

Muito obrigado por sua amável resposta.

But, sir, I would like to make myself as an expert writer in English language and want to write anything that the most of the readers want to get to know.

I am also leaning Brazilian Portuguese because I would like to live in Sao Paulo city of Brazil to spend the rest of my life.

And as a follower of the Quran, I am also knowledgeable about the Arabic language.

If you don’t have the total SEO knowledge, then you can’t hope to have enough projects in your hand because most the clients prefer to hire someone who knows the entire SEO very well.

Thank you, sir.

 

versailles
Community Member


@Md.Waled B wrote:

 

But, sir, I would like to make myself as an expert writer in English language and want to write anything that the most of the readers want to get to know.

I am also leaning Brazilian Portuguese because I would like to live in Sao Paulo city of Brazil to spend the rest of my life.

 

 


Lord Waled, you have ambitions. But the means to match them, I dunno. 

 

 

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"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless
wm27
Community Member

Hi sir Rene K,

First of all, I am not a lord, and also I have no unapproachable

 ambitions. I have the right to learn anything that my heart & soul wants. I personally believe the English language is the only one thing that my body wants to make a part of my whole body!

Do you know which things in the world are so much powerful?

-Combination of computer & internet world

-English language

- & The knowledge of the Holy Quran

**edited for Community Guidelines**

So, you can’t call them as my ambitions, but you can call them as my responsibility.

Thank you, sir.

petra_r
Community Member


Md.Waled B wrote: I have the right to learn anything that my heart & soul wants. I personally believe the English language is the only one thing that my body wants to make a part of my whole body!

 You indeed have the right to want to learn a language. Learning languages is fabulous!

However, charging money for something you can not deliver and lying to clients about your skills is plain fraud. You claim on your profile that your English is "Fluent" which is an out and out lie. And fraudulent.

 

 


@Petra R wrote:

You claim on your profile that your English is "Fluent" which is an out and out lie. And fraudulent.

 That would be against the teachings in the previously mentioned book.

-----------
"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless
wm27
Community Member

Hi Petra R,

I didn’t say any lie, and there is no fraudulent in my profile. If you check out most the freelancer profile who’s English is the second language, you will see their profiles are showing the freelancer’s English level is fluent.

I already mentioned my writing services are all about SEO related, and I didn’t bid for the other writing services because I know my two connections will be only wasted if I bid right now, and of course, I will bid in the near future when I will be 100% confidence to write content in English.

I don’t understand what the problems with yours are!

Thanks

 

versailles
Community Member

Your moral compass is seriously broken, Master Waled.

-----------
"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless
wm27
Community Member

Hi sir,

English language talent, you got by the God’s wishes (if you are one of the English native speakers), and the God is helping me to gain that talent. So, please give me this year time, and wait …….and I will show you the talent that you already have if the God helps me.

and now tell me what my  done will make you happy.

Thank you, sir.

versailles
Community Member

May The Force be with you Paddawan Waled.

-----------
"Where darkness shines like dazzling light"   —William Ashbless
petra_r
Community Member


@Md.Waled B wrote:

Hi Petra R,

I didn’t say any lie, and there is no fraudulent in my profile. 

 


Oh please. You claim that your English is fluent. It is not. Therefor the claim is a lie.

You mislead clients into thinking that your English is fluent in order to win Jobs. That is deliberate deception for profit, and in English this is called „Fraud“ 

wm27
Community Member

Hi Petra,

Please just look at the people whose English is not the first language here, and you will see they all would like to show their English level “Fluent level" on their profile. So, why do you not ask them for this issue, and I think you will get your expectation response from them.

And now tell me what my done can you make happy, just let me know it! By the way, there are no such issues with me that you talked about many times here.

Thanks

 

 

Waled,

 

Your English is barely conversational. It is far from fluent. If your justification for lying is that other people do it: as ye sow, so shall ye reap.

 

Success on Upwork depends on selling skills we have, not those we hope to have someday.

 

Best,

MIchael

e_luneborg
Community Member


@Md.Waled B wrote:

Hi Petra,

Please just look at the people whose English is not the first language here, and you will see they all would like to show their English level “Fluent level" on their profile. So, why do you not ask them for this issue, and I think you will get your expectation response from them.

And now tell me what my done can you make happy, just let me know it! By the way, there are no such issues with me that you talked about many times here.

Thanks

 

 


It's true that a lot of freelancers here that are not native English speakers has set their level as fluent (me included). The big difference is that we are not offering any English writing, and we do not write anything like "And now tell me what my done can you make happy" (which I had to read several times just to try to understand the meaning of).

 

Writing in your native language isn't that bad. I'm sure good money can be made from that if you are a good writer. And that's money you can make now. Not in 20 years when you have learned proper English. (Even longer if you're not planning on living in an English speaking country.)

________________________
Freelancing is a gamble - To win you need skill, luck and a strategy
financemark
Community Member

**Edited for Community Guidelines** -  with your **Edited for Community Guidelines** rates, you'll earn tens, if not hundreds, of dollars in 2018.

tlsanders
Community Member

That depends on your definition of successful. There is a market for low-quality, high-volume web content writing. It doesn't pay well, but many writers find a steady stream of work. Probably, though, Upwork is not the place to pursue that market, as there are already more lower-end writers than the market can possibly support.

To the OP, about this:

"I didn’t say any lie, and there is no fraudulent in my profile. If you check out most the freelancer profile who’s English is the second language, you will see their profiles are showing the freelancer’s English level is fluent.

I already mentioned my writing services are all about SEO related, and I didn’t bid for the other writing services because I know my two connections will be only wasted if I bid right now, and of course, I will bid in the near future when I will be 100% confidence to write content in English.

I don’t understand what the problems with yours are!"

 

I don't even know where to begin. People are being helpful and giving you honest advice that you can use to earn an income. About this...

 

 

Non-native speakers who incorrectly list themselves as fluent (when they are not) look foolish to native speakers. They often receive criticism in the forums. If your clients happen to be native speakers this leads to trouble. It may not be as important in some fields, but if the primary skill is language use then it really is a mistake. Keep learning English! But be honest about your actual skills since you really are not fooling anyone.

 

Any client that wants purely SEO content is very misguided! What will happen if a potential customer finds the page in a search then doesn't understand the content? That potential customer will bounce and look for another site. If Google indexes the content there is always a chance a real person (a potential customer) might read it and if it is not well written that client may lose business. Of course, that isn't your concern, that is on the client for making a bad choice.

 

I had several projects where I was hired to edit or rewrite SEO content that was written by a non-native speaker. The client was tempted by the low rates then learned their lesson when they saw the content could actually hurt their business. Sadly, those freelancers probably earned a couple dollars, but they probably did not receive good ratings or repeat business.