Keyvan Nayyeri

English is a universal language in our world. Whether we accept it or not, English has been able to find its place among all the communities and the main reason is its closeness with science and technology. Nowadays English words have found their place among all languages and have forced many people to learn them!

While many of my readers are native English speakers, my native language is different. Learning English and using it in my daily conversations and business has become a common part of my life in the past 5-6 years. I love English language, especially American accent, and have had a continuous progress in learning this language and enhancing my knowledge.

This was (and is) something independent from my profession and my need to use the language. Even before coming to this position, I had a serious passion for the language and it is mainly because of my passion to communicate with others. Knowing a new language is doubtlessly a key point in the success in communication.

It’s been over 6-7 years that I’ve been reading English books, sites, blogs and other writings on a regular basis and it’s been also over 3 years that I’ve been actively blogging in English. In this while I also authored many articles, tutorials and a few technical books in English. I never can say that I can reach to a point to be a great English speaker but being better is a goal that I have forever!

All these writing materials have helped me a lot to become better and learn many points in the language. There were even a few circumstances when my readers left comments on my writings and helped me correct my mistakes.

By the way, one of the main styles that I try to have in public writing is, avoiding to use abbreviations and emphasizing on simple and easy to understand language that consists of more common words and simpler structures rather than complex words and structures. I think that everybody has noticed this in all my writings (blog posts, articles or books).

Most likely there were two reasons for this style in my writing. Firstly I wasn’t an English speaker and had a limited knowledge in English words that has been growing smoothly. So there might be some cases where I had to choose simpler structures that I was aware of. Secondly I knew that there are many non-English readers who look for technical material that may not have a deep knowledge in English so I tried to keep this simplicity to allow them read my material easier.

Recently I found myself in a position that obliges me to learn more English words especially the Latin, Greek or French roots of many English words. Dealing with vocabulary in this level is something different from the rest of the story that is beyond the scope of this post! When learning these new words, I noticed how my language can become better and sweeter when I apply diverse vocabularies.

Besides, I also noticed that when I use a higher level of language in my communication, native speakers can communicate with me better than the past even though in the opposite direction I find a space between myself and my non-English audience.

Having noticed these changes, I recently got to think about changing my writing style to a more complex structure. I think that I’m able to write in a different style with more complex structures and uncommon words. On one hand, this may force some non-English readers to get a dictionary and read my posts by spending more time and on the other hand, it both helps me to train my language and to represent my content in a better form for my readers who have a better understanding in the English language.

By the way, which one do you prefer? A simple informal language or a complex formal language? When and where do you want to read more complex writings?