But, while I have sympathy with your wish for a grammatically correct style, and understanding for your rants to the extent that "own style" is not an excuse for false grammar and spelling, especially not to the extent basic spell checking programs would catch them, I also concede, that there may be people, that feel the urge to put ideas "on paper" in English, simply because they want to share them with a wider or international "audience", thus using a more universal language, which is not their own. (<- this is an eaxample of a German originated, long, long sentence <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> - I apologise! - or is it apologize?)
If you really
want to know, the above sentence is a run-on. Just saying.
I'll point out that a wider audience comes with a price: if you make mistakes, you
will be called out for it, whatever language you choose to write in. If you aren't proficient with the language, then for the love of Eru, get a proofreader/beta-reader.
Another entry on a community I frequent illustrates this very well, and seems appropriate, all things considered:
I'm German myself and I've been writing Fan Fiction in English for a while now. I know a whole lot of other Germans who do, too, and everyone of them has their grammar and spelling checked before anything gets posted. I'm guessing this is an age thing. I suppose you are more likely to not have a beta reader if you are a 16-year-old fan girl...
Personally, I don't have any patience with people who start their stories with "English is not my native language so please bear with me." because imo it's just a bad excuse for not getting yourself a beta-reader.
But it's the exact same thing with people whose first language is not German and who try to put some German into their stories. I can't count how often I've read stories whose authors obviously used Babelfish to translate from English into German.
{snip}
The thing is, there's enough Germans in any fandoms. How much does it take to just ask if there's someone who can help with language and/or landscape? Everyone expects that from people whose first language is not English. But if you talk to an author whose first language is not German but tried to write in German anyway and got it totally wrong, the usual answer you get is: "Oh, I don't care...whatever."
So what I mean is: Since everybody expects "us" to ask for a beta-reader, "we" expect the same from everybody else, too.
Because whenever a discussion like that turns up in German fandom, one of the first things you hear is how utterly disrespectful to other people's culture and language the "I don't care." answer is.
