Writing Clear English When English Isn't Your First Language
By the BP Tools team · 2026-08-18 · 3 min read
Here's a quiet unfairness in how English writing gets judged: people who learned English as a second language often write it more formally than native speakers — longer sentences, bigger words, textbook constructions — and then get told their writing is "hard to read." The instinct that formal equals correct is exactly what school rewarded. On the internet, in emails, in applications, it works against you. The fix isn't more vocabulary. It's permission to write simply — plus a handful of concrete habits.
Simple is not the same as basic
Look at the writing you actually enjoy reading — good newsletters, clear documentation, articles you finish. Almost all of it scores between 60 and 70 on the Flesch Reading Ease scale: short-ish sentences, everyday words, one idea at a time. That's not dumbed down; that's expensive simplicity, the kind that takes editing to achieve. Native speakers aren't better at English when they write this way — they're just less afraid of sounding informal.
You can measure your own writing in ten seconds with the readability checker. If your emails score below 50, they're working harder than they need to — and so are your readers.
Five swaps that instantly clear the fog
- Kill the "utilize" family. Utilize → use. Commence → start. Endeavor → try. Subsequently → then. Assist → help. The short word is not less professional; it's more confident. (Notice that official letters full of "kindly do the needful at the earliest" impress nobody and confuse everyone.)
- One idea per sentence. The 45-word sentence with three commas and a "which" clause? Split it. Full stops are free, and the readability checker will show you your five longest offenders to split first.
- Front-load the point. Instead of two sentences of background before the request, start with the request, then give context. "Can we move Friday's meeting to 3 PM? The client call moved." Done. Politeness lives in tone, not in delay.
- Use contractions. "I'm", "don't", "it's" — school may have banned them; the modern workplace expects them. Text with zero contractions reads stiff to native ears (interestingly, it's also one of the signals AI detectors associate with machine writing — formal-textbook English resembles AI English, which is one more reason detectors falsely flag second-language writers).
- Read it aloud before sending. Or better, let the text-to-speech tool read it to you. Anywhere the voice stumbles, a reader stumbles. This single habit catches more awkward phrasing than any grammar rule.
The email formula that always works
For everyday professional email, this four-line shape is nearly unbeatable: what you want (one sentence), why / context (one or two sentences), what happens next or by when (one sentence), and a plain sign-off. No "I hope this email finds you well" required — a simple "Hi Anita," and straight in is normal now. If writing directly still feels rude, remember: the rudest email is the one that wastes five minutes hiding a one-minute point.
Practice that actually compounds
- Take one paragraph you wrote this week and cut it by a third without losing meaning. This exercise, repeated weekly, rewires your writing faster than any course.
- Check the word counter's keyword table on longer pieces — repeated crutch words ("very", "really", "actually", "basically") show up immediately, and deleting them costs nothing.
- Collect sentences you admire. When an email or article strikes you as beautifully clear, paste it into a note. You're building your own textbook, one honest example at a time.
Your English is not the problem. The costume it was taught to wear is. Take the costume off, one short sentence at a time.
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