The first TextHacks English edition (he, she it, das s muss mit)

Filler words, adjectives and short sentences (sponsored Post)

Hi and welcome! This week with a special edition: the first TextHacks English Edition. So: If you have friends or acquaintances who don't speak German, please forward this edition to them. I have translated 16 basic hacks and was surprised that most of them work in English.

Sponsored Post

My hack for this? DeepL! I got to try out DeepL Pro this week and here you can see the result, which took me five minutes and translated so strongly that I'm seriously thinking about starting a TextHacks English Edition. 

What do you think about an Englisch newsletter?

My first 16 English TextHacks

1. First think about your headline and your teaser. If you have problems with this, it's usually because you don't know exactly what you want to write about and will lose the thread.

2. Write your subheadings first. This way, your text will automatically have a structure and you will assign a topic to each paragraph. 

3. What applies to paragraphs also applies to sentences. Please do not overload. One topic per paragraph. One new piece of information per sentence. 

4. Record a voice message in which you tell a friend about your text. Then type it up. This way you write simply and in your own style. 

5. Filler words that you should finally delete: also, still, very, really, basically, just.

6. Reduce your word pictures. Writing simply is always more important than writing beautifully. If you use more than one metaphor in three paragraphs: choose one. Or zero.

7. Avoid adjectives that remain general: different, special, big, small, perfect. Everyone imagines something different or, if in doubt, nothing at all.

8. Show, don't tell. Don't write that the party was "fantastic". Or that the bride and groom were "very happy". Instead, describe a scene and be as specific as possible. Better to write: The people didn't leave the party until the sun had already risen again. The bride and groom thanked their guests so often that the food almost got cold. 

9. Use short words rather than long words.

10. Make sure that your sentences don't always have the same structure, but vary them. Negative example: He has built a house that will be finished in March. He had a baby who won't go to sleep for hours in the evening. Better: He built a house that will be finished in March. His baby won't go to sleep for hours at night.

11. What helps with this too? Asking questions. What is just as effective: Use colons. As we can see from the last two sentences, questions and colons automatically lead to variance in the sentence structure.

12. If you use a lot of commas in a sentence, your sentence will probably be too long and convoluted.

13. Only use words that you would use in everyday life. If you are deeply involved in the topic yourself (and would use your nerd words in everyday life), then the following applies: only use words that people would use in everyday life that have nothing to do with your topic.

14. Read the text out loud. The places where you get stuck are probably too complicated or convoluted.

15. ALWAYS shorten your own text at the end.

16. If you are unsure whether you can shorten it, do it immediately. If it's really important, you don't have to think about it.

PS: Wir switchen einmal back to German. Bei DeepL könnt ihr neuerdings DeepL Write ausprobieren und eure Texte von einer KI vereinfachen lassen, auf Rechtschreibung und Grammatik prüfen lassen oder den Stil auf “diplomatisch” oder “geschäftlich” umstellen. 

Ich hoffe, ihr hattet Spaß mit dieser englischen Ausgabe und wer weiß, vielleicht wird daraus ein neues TextHacks-Projekt. With kind regards und nie vergessen: HE SHE IT DAS S MUSS MIT.

🎈Anne-Kathrin