I ask myself: how should I write a writing exercise at LingQ?
Or, to be more precise: how much effort should I put into it?
I can just write something, review it once, and submit it to a tutor.
Or I can write it using many tools (and time), and check it very accurately, and submit it.
Another question: Which tools should I use or not use?
A paper dictionary, a grammar book, a conjugation table, an online dictionary, or even Google Translate?
Are these tools good or maybe even harmful for the benefit of my writing exercise?
Sometimes I think I should not use any tools at all to see how my language competence really is. Just write and submit. Using all these tools, it seems to me that I would be lying to myself.
In my view, the act of writing is , in itself, a great way to notice where your gaps are. If you use grammar tables etc. and review your work carefully, this is undoubtedly helping you notice gaps and reminding you of things you have seen or heard in the language but do not yet master. This has the disadvantage of slowing you down, and making it less likely that you will write.
If you just write what comes to your mind, you will find out your mistakes when you get your correction back. If you save the words and phrases that caused trouble, then you should see them again in your reading and in your flash cards. The advantage of this approach is that it does not take too much time and is easier to do.
I tend to follow the second approach, looking up the occasional word ending in Russian so that I will not look too foolish in front of my tutor.
I say, mix the two approaches, but it is most important to write, the more the better. In that sense it is better to just write without reviewing too much,
I tend to agree with Steve, even if I’m not the kind of person who writes what comes to his mind and send it. On the other hand, I don’t check every single word either.
It’s true that what is really important is to write and I’m always sad to remark that many LingQ members (and many language learners in general) underestimate the importance of writing.
I like Steve’s former advice to write (approximately) as I’d speak. It relieves me from feeling guilty about mistakes, makes it easier to wrte here on the forums and - yes - shows the gaps of my speech -
I once wrote simply whatever I thought was correct (after a longish pause of not doing any Swedish). I felt very unkind once I had Jeff’s correction back. My writing was full of the silliest mistakes and it made a lot of work for Jeff; all that simply because I wanted to see how ‘good’ I was. So now I do take a bit more care whenever I write.
