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Are Indian tech writer firms as good as American firms?
Subject:Are Indian tech writer firms as good as American firms? From:"Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 4 Jun 2002 09:00:44 -0400
Jill Johnson wonders: <<Are Indian Tech Writer Firms as good as American
Firms? I would think that not having english as your native tongue would
hinder the process as well as speaking more british english vs American
english.>>
Define "good"! <g> Without knowing why you're asking, it's hard to come up
with a really good answer. There's no question that you'll generally get
better English from those who have been brought up in the language, just as
you'll generally get better translations from a native than from a foreigner
with seemingly comparable skills in the same language. But there are notable
exceptions.
I have no direct evidence about technical writers, but the Indian students I
knew in grad school were all highly skilled in English. Not so skilled that
a trace of foreignness couldn't be discerned in their speech and writing,
but certainly better than many native speakers of English I knew. All this
to say that the answer is "it depends". In a country of some 800+ million
people (outdated number alert), it's a good bet that at least some of them
are superb English writers.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
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