Tips For Sellers Who Are Not Native English Speakers

[eoinfinnegan]

Also, the issue here is about quality of work, I suggest that you read my post in the tips for buyers section on picking your seller. As I have said before, a level or lots of ratings are no guarantee of good quality. If 600 people thought that the work they got was worth $5 then they will rate 5 stars, it does not mean that they produced work of Nobel prize winning quality. It simply means the work was ok for $5…

[seaniselectric]

Yeah I do understand what you’re saying 100%, in life “you get what you pay for”. That being said, I was under the impression that the benefit of Fiverr was a good standard of work for much less than going through the proper channels, not low quality work for low cost. I’m sure thats not how a lot of the sellers market themselves on here.

That being said, one of the sellers advertisers themselves as “The Number One Copywriting Service in USA” that focuses on generating “compelling content that is 100% unique”. This is the seller that copied most of the article from the BBC.

The other seller advertises the writing gig with a very indepth description of how good their service is and how high the quality of work will be. Unfortunatley, despite the (misrepresented) description, the work was nothing near the quality advertised and promised in the description.

I think I will stick to that old adage “You Only Get What You Pay For” and try and find more time to write the articles myself.

[fitrigwrites4u]

Geez, sorry to hear that.

[eoinfinnegan]

First off - I agree that whatever someone offers is what they should deliver at whatever price they offer it. In this circumstance, you did not get what you paid for as the work was plagiarized and unreadable respectively. That is very different to poor quality work which is poorly written, badly researched or not interesting.
On Fiverr you do get a lot of great services at a fraction of the cost elsewhere. Unfortunately, not everyone offers the same quality of work and you need to do your homework and shop around, just like anywhere else.

At the same time, you know - caveat emptor. Did you really think you were employing the services of “The Number One Copywriting Service in USA” for $5? Anyone who markets themselves like that is either deluded (which can be useful for fiction writing) or lying, neither of which are the type of people you should be ordering from.

I presume you cancelled the orders and/or complained to customer support and did not lose your money? For future orders, I suggest you do stick to that adage, but that does not mean staying away from Fiverr. Most “actual” writers here don’t charge less than $20-50/1000 words. It is still a good rate compared to agencies etc. As a writer yourself, consider how long it takes to write 1000 words of original content including research etc and judge for yourself what price you think is fair.

[sh_services]

nice post sir

[rosebarlow]

I agree with emmaki. It really isn’t a good idea to set up an English proofreading service unless you are a native speaker, even if you think that you are fluent. It just isn’t fair on the buyer; they are trusting you to edit their English correctly and it is very difficult to be sure that you are doing this if you are not a native English speaker.

[rosebarlow]

It is possible to get a lot for your money on fiverr; you just have to search for the good sellers. I’ve found some real diamonds on here. I must admit that it can be difficult to tell which ones are genuine though.

[b1obby]

If people struggle they could seek translation gigs or proofreading or editing gigs to help them. I personally do those gigs and I think it is one of the best solutions as people don’t like to see bad writing, grammar and spelling mistakes! It turns them away from the gig and is a potential buyer loss.

[Guest seme_designer]

good tips

[Guest expertgroups]

You are right . Most times proofreading sites fails .

[eoinfinnegan]

Kinda looks like you are using my post to advertise yourself @b1obby - not really the way to go to be honest…

[misscrystal]

Here is one seller asking why no one buys her gig, and yet has no description but this:

“4-images
Professional Retouching”

That’s it. Maybe they don’t have any advertising in some countries, not sure.

[amazing_nut]

I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m new here on Fiverr. Just wanted to say, if your English is non-native, you could have fooled me. It is excellent. Typos are not as big a problem as word choice and phrasing. Of course, it’s good to have it all correct when posting a gig.

Really, it’s not whether the English is native or non-native. It’s whether the speaker will understand the nuances of the language. Anyone dealing with overseas customer service reps will understand the frustration of speaking to someone who knows English who really doesn’t know English. A buyer wants to know that s/he will be understood.

[amazing_nut]

I will go out on a limb to explain. Everyone makes writing errors. Native English speakers make certain types of errors. Non-native speakers make other types of errors. The problem is not errors in and of themselves.

When a native English speaker makes errors, other native speakers will still understand what they want and what they mean, because those errors are usually errors commonly made by other native English speakers.

When non-native English speakers make errors, they stand out like a sore thumb because the errors are very uncommon in everyday speech. Try reading the poorly translated instruction manuals packed with your electronic goods from China and you will see that they are impossible to decipher. Communication becomes a problem.

Buyers will not want to buy if they believe their needs will not be understood.

[emmaki]

Nah, this is just stupidity at work 😃

[amazing_nut]

I think misscrystal is being nitpicky on some of here corrections, as this is not an academic paper. The style here is more casual, so “Anyone?” is okay.

“I am not a native speaker of English” does stand out. “I am not a native English speaker” is better. Also, “I believe that all professional proofreaders have become as good as they are now through different proccesses” is awkward (and “proccesses” is spelled “processes”).

For misscrystal, the period is inside the quotation marks in American English. It is outside the quotation marks in British English, and the British use single quotation marks. Most customers here are from the United States, so I would put the period inside, like so: “Thanks in advance.”

Fitrigwrites4u, your English is very good. If you were selling a service that did not depend on the written language, I would consider buying it from you, because I do not believe communication would be a problem.

It is just more difficult to be a proofreader than you think. Not only are there many rules, some things don’t have set rules and will depend on the style guide being followed. For many, it is hard enough just to grasp the basics. You’ve done very well.

[amazing_nut]

“Advice from native English speakers . . . .” Oh, I see you caught that.

[amazing_nut]

I’ll bet that a lot of those reviewers were non-native English speakers who couldn’t discern the quality of the work.

Seriously, if needed a website in French and someone did it for me in French, all I know is I got a French website. Five stars!

[emmaki]

It is rather borderline, but at the same time, isn’t it refreshing to see a translator who can actually speak one of the languages fluently–and he doesn’t have any translating gigs. Those who beg for help with sales for their gigs when half of them are German to English or something and their English is execrable don’t really deserve help.

I’d give this a pass since the advice is solid. Also, I enjoyed the Goat Puckers in the review section. I’m a softy when it comes to this kind of language. I’d also recommend that translators use both target languages in their description, especially if they can work both ways. One good way to do this is to use idiomatic language that no machine translation can do without a confusing result, and reflecting that in the other language with the correct idiom. At least, if I was better at languages (I dabble–I would never sell the dabbles!) I would use that approach.

/tangent

[apical_it]

Good tip for new sellers…thanks

[crossart_d]

i really like your post same problems with me…