Find Your Writing Niche: Thank you, Great Britain

Istanbul, Turkey

This spring my husband and I spent three weeks in Europe and visited seven countries. We didn’t worry about a language barrier because the rest of the world speaks English. I own several foreign language dictionaries, but the thought of taking one along never occurred to me. Americans must thank the British and their 500 years of world dominance for bequeathing one language on us.
Cities in Greece and Turkey had signs in both their native language and in English. Since most of the Italians, French and Spanish we encountered spoke English, we never had a language barrier. Croatia and Montenegro were so beautiful we were speechless and in awe of the scenic views that we didn’t really have contact with the people. How does this fit into finding your writing niche?
1) Know the rules of grammar: parts of speech, tense, syntax, punctuation, spelling—everything about proper English usage so you can be understood by the rest of the world. Too often self-published writers fulfill their dreams of having a book published, but the books are almost unreadable because of the lack of proper use of the English language.

2) Show the rest of the world you aren’t averse to other languages so use foreign language terms when possible. Some common ones are the French savoir-faire , the Latin deus ex machine, the Italian dolce vita, the Greek hoi polloi, the German Auf Wiedersehen, the Spanish Bienvenido. Dozens more are understandable by English-only speaking Americans.

3) If you are lucky enough to write in a foreign language, submit articles to publications in that language. It can be another lifeline to increasing your income.

Buena suerte! Sretno! Boa sorte!