Use Lang-8 to practice writing!

Writing is a skill that's frequently neglected when learning a language. People tend to focus more on reading, listening and speaking.

Writing is a skill that should be very easy to practice over the internet, but what if you don't know any native speakers? Or what if the two native speakers you do know are tired of constantly correcting your writing? ;-)

In this article, I'm going to review Lang-8: a free website where you can have your writing corrected by native speakers!

Read more to find out about this wonderful service!

Getting corrections

Posting the text you would like to have corrected is very easy! It works a lot like standard blogging software, such as Blogger or WordPress.

The corrections on one of my texts. Click for a larger image!

You might be asking, What should I write about? Well, you can write about Anything! You can write about the weather, a movie you just watched, an interesting moment in history or what you did today! I've seen people write about all of these topics and more!

I've been using Lang-8 to get corrections for the transcripts of my videos in Polish. In this way, Lang-8 can help you learn to speak correctly too!

You'll receive an email notification when someone corrects your text. I usually get corrections for my Polish texts in a matter of hours!

Correcting other people's writing

It's also fairly easy to correct other people's writing.

You get a sentence-by-sentence display of the text, which also shows the other corrections already posted. You simply click on the "Correct" link and start making changes!

The screen where you make corrections. Click for a larger image!

One element that could be improved upon: you have to format your corrections manually. My suggestion: crossing out incorrect words and phrases and coloring your text additions in blue. However, it would be nice if you could just make your changes, then the program would automatically format the altered text.

But it's not too bad once you decide how you would like your changes to appear and then get into a rhythm!

Going sentence by sentence is nice because it means that multiple people can correct different parts of the same text. So, if the text is really long and you only have a few minutes, just correct the first part and let someone else correct the next part!

Have you tried Lang-8? What was your experience? Do you have any other suggestions for practicing writing? Please leave a comment!