Please correct learners of English on this site!
I posted this thread in April, lots of people participated and many said they would from then on help native Spanish speakers out in their learning of English.
But nobody actually does!
Spanish natives leave this forum after a while because they simply don't get the help they need to make it a give and take issue, not only a give-give one.
I am directing this thread to all native English speakers: I have asked several members to please correct three new Spanish natives: Cogumela, Marilo and billstopor.
Cogumela in many of her posts is asking for help:
And feel free to correct my English.
And she gets answers like:
Your English is wonderful, absolutely perfect!
Great English, just a couple of small spelling mistakes
Don´t be sorry. Just a few simple mistakes
And , of course, nobody offered corrections!
As an example this thread, where she got the above answers. After I asked others to help her, she finally got around a dozen corrections.
That does not prove her English is terrible, no way at all, her English is really great, it proves that Spanish native speakers simply do not get help on this site! And what do we achieve with this: Spanish natives leave this site unless their English is really near perfection or even perfect like Gekko's.
You are not doing us a favour telling us how wonderful our English is:
Please correct Native Spanish Speakers, especially when they ask for it!!!!!
22 Answers
Yes, please! All kinds of corrections are welcome (in both languages). Grammatical, stylistic, syntactic, spelling, suggestions... I want to learn! Some of you have already taken the time to correct me and I really appreciate it. It is really useful to me, Thanks!
Edit: I'm deeply grateful to all of you. There is no words, but Wow!
Your kindness is unbelievable! as all the effort and time that you have taken to correct my posts! I'm impressed. Thank you very much indeed, I'm reviewing one by one to edit my post, and I'm taking notes in my notebook for each of the corrections made. Thanks again to Heidi for this thread. And...Echoline, Janice, Marianne, Brynleigh, Amy_moreno, Margaretbl, Nizhoni1 ... and more.... What an enormous work you have done! I appreciate it immensely.
I do correct incorrect English where I see it Heidi, but there are probably many threads I do not look at so I guess this is a situation which will require everyone to play their part. I will gladly continue to correct examples of English that are incorrect providing I understand the technicalities of what is being explained but I have to admit that sometimes what is being discussed is so complex e.g.:the technicalities of some Spanish grammar they are trying to correct, that I do not understand what the person is talking about.
I leave that to people like yourself Heidi, Samdie and Gfreed whose expertise in these matters far exceeds mine ! (I think that honesty humility and wisdom would require such a response!)
I am sure you appreciate that one cannot offer alternative ways of expressing something if you don't understand what they are trying to say.
However, I will continue to help correct mistakes in people's English wherever possible. 
I am always happy to correct the written English of a non-native speaker but I am English and studied the grammar to degree level and I often feel that the way I would phrase a sentence might sound very stiff and pedantic to English speakers in the US. The spelling often differs and how should I correct that. I am very happy to correct posts written in English but it will be to the standard of the Oxford English Dictionary and English grammar rules. I shall not do it unkindly though,as we all subscribe to this site to learn and I believe we have success by helping each other.
Thank you, Heidi, for this post.
As you say, it is crucial that we help our English-learning friends here on the site. Not only those who help us with our Spanish, but all of the members who are learning English.
I understand the point Janice made about not knowing what a person's native language is from his/her sparse profile; however we can make an effort to correct all English mistakes that we notice. This is a learning forum, after all, and if there are people who don't care for corrections, it is my humble opinion that they have come to the wrong place.
Because we have such a great group here on SD, a virtual family if you will, I know that any corrections made to posts will be done in a kind, friendly, and constructive manner.
Okay, let's get to work!! 
Heidita you of course make a valid point - and for those of us who are native English speakers I think it's an important role for us to offer assistance to those using English who are not native speakers.
I must however take a small :p issue with your quoting one of my comments above (from the thread you have linked to), or should I say 'part' of one of my comments and then follow it by saying that "of course nobody offered corrections.
As you can see from the full comment - after the commendation I did actually point out two spelling mistakes and gave the corrections.
Great English, just a couple of small spelling mistakes sp. matches/feel
No biggie but rest assured I do try to offer English corrections when I see errors made.
I believe that I have a good command of the English language. I have a B.A. in English literature and a passion for good grammar, good punctuation and good spelling.
However, I must confess that I got there the hard way -- by learning the grammar rules one at a time and then using them. As a student, writing was not easy for me. Additionally, I was naturally a terrible speller. I struggled to "get out" what I wanted to say, then I learned how to change hats and edit, edit and edit my work. In the end, people often say nice things about my writing.
My proficiency with language does not carry over to Spanish. It is very humbling. I am learning, and it often feels very slow. I really appreciate this website and people correcting my mistakes.
As a result, I often correct people's English mistakes. Because I have enough points to qualify me for editing others' posts, if I see a grammar or spelling mistake in a question, I will often jump in and just correct it. Other times I will encourage the poster to use correct spelling and punctuation. If the mistake is in a post, I will usually comment on it asking for the poster to correct their mistake.
I encourage others to do likewise.
I think it is obvious to see whether a member is a native English speaker and just sloppy or the member is a Spanish speaker who makes obvious grammar mistakes.
OK, I will try to correct the English of anyone that asks for help, but there are people asking for Spanish help here that use atrocious English even though it is presumably their native language, and they would find comments about it offensive rather than helpful.
However, I will try if
that's what people want, but I will refrain from correcting those that do not indicate that they are not native English speakers in their profiles.
Hi Lorenzo, if I did the same, none of the newbies would be corrected.
I think it is obvious to see whether a member is a native English speaker and just sloppy or the member is a Spanish speaker who makes obvious grammar mistakes.
Fact is, there are only four Spanish speaking frequent posters on this forum, not counting the above mentioned who are relatively new to this site.
All the frequent posters I am mentioning speak good or perfect English anyway and do not necessarily count on corrections, but there have been many who have simply left because they answered a lot of questions but did not get any feedback on their English.
As an example this thread, where she got the above answers, after I asking others for help she finally got like a dozen corrections!
This thread is an example where she got the above answers. After I asked others to help her, she finally got around a dozen corrections.
You could also say "As an example, consider (or look at) this thread. . .", but you need a comma after a prepositional phrase when it begins a sentence and the main clause needs a verb. "I asking" is incorrect conjugation and, since it is a new topic, it should be in a new sentence. When you "ask for help", you are asking for help for yourself. "Like" is an acceptable colloquialism as long as you don't overdo it and don't mind that it makes you sound like a teenager--or that people who listened to the song Valley Girl when it first came out will want to shoot you.
I am reluctant to correct people's English because I haven't studied grammar since I was a child, and that was a long time ago. Also, there are many dialects and what some consider incorrect others will find perfectly acceptable. However, I will try if that's what people want, but I will refrain from correcting those that do not indicate that they are not native English speakers in their profiles.
I have been making corrections using the comment section. After the corrections are made, I delete my comment. In the future, I will leave the comment. I can see how you or anyone else would not know that errors had been pointed out and corrected.
I also must admit that I have been slacking off a bit lately and could do more. I will be more astute in the future.
Could everyone please use a capital "I"? A small i is incorrect when referring to oneself. It drives me dithers.
Also, can you tell me; if someone has indicated that they are fluent in both English and Spanish; do they want to be corrected in their English?
I have a tendency to send PM's for corrections and this is probably a bad idea. For one, Heidi, you don't see it and it makes me look like I don't do my part but more importantly it is only teaching the forer and no one else who reads the post. I will change that.
I did not see your original thread, Heidi - nor am I an all-too-frequent visitor at the site -- just terribly glad that you are all here when I get a chance to come around.
I do pause, though, before posing my own questions and first try to answer others, even first clicking to the "Unanswered" tab.
However, I refrain from correcting English for the simple reason that - as you might suspect - there is a lot of English one could correct! ...and perhaps 80% from native speakers.
The greater problem, however, is that I would not presume to recognize from avatars and/or "screen" names what a poster's native language is. On the other hand, I will often enough send a private message with some correction even if I know the speaker to be a compatriot. Sometimes, too, I have learned through context, etc., that the author of a post does not speak English as his or her mother tongue (not necessarily Spanish, by the way.)
I do this all the time for my colleagues from countries in other countries and - indeed - my own experience with most co-workers in e-Mails and other correspondence in another language proves your point. I, too, ask to be corrected and never am.
S I am more than happy to make a conscious effort to seek out our friends' posts and offer my advice. I can have a look through the "Members" page or in profiles when I suspect an author is Spanish-speaking. And when I have Internet access, (which is not always), I am happy to answer and provide help from a direct query as well.
I hope I can be of help!
I do try to correct as much as possible, but I sometimes feel a little awkward if I am not known to the person so do so very tentatively in the comments section. I am also quite happy to be corrected in Spanish and English . I shall make a concerted effort in future to look for spelling and grammatical mistakes .
On the whole, the only differences that I see are that the non-native English speakers make mistakes (when the do, indeed, make mistakes) that are different in kind from the mistakes made by natives. However, with few exceptions, they make fewer mistakes (of English) than the "supposedly" native speakers. (perhaps because they are being more careful).
If one were to extract all of the examples of bad English from the forum (without regard to who made them), I am convinced that the majority would have come from posts by people who should know better (so-called "native" speakers" of English).
From my point of view, the advantage to correcting natives is that it require less effort/explanation (usually they have actually heard/been taught the rules but simply have not bothered to apply them). The disadvantage is that they will, almost certainly, ignore the corrections and continue in their "evil" habits".
Non-natives, on the other hand, mostly want to learn English (and of those that do, most actually aspire to learning "grammatically correct" English). They are far less likely (than native speakers) to say "I don't care if it's incorrect. That's the way I've always said it."
In the future, I will try to concentrate on the posts from non-natives, since they are more likely to benefit from (take to heart) the corrections.
I try to correct any errors I see - however, it would be very helpful if we could see at a glance from the profile which language a user is trying to learn. Unless we know a user, it isn't always obvious if their English is just a bit sloppy or they are students of English. Thanks for the important reminder.
