Is it possible to write copy in English without being a native speaker?

My guess is you will have answers telling you it's not a problem. It depends on your fluency in English. It's true the US may be a 'bigger market' - but it's the market everyone targets, too.


If your English is stilted or doesn't sound "American" it won't be an easy market to get into. If you are fluent in written English - different outcome.

It's not simply a question of the language. To write effective copy, you need to understand the market. That means knowing something of the culture and motivations of your audience. Is that going to be an issue for you?
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May I ask where you work? do you work in some physical office for example or just from home but you live in Germany?

You can do it, but it's hard to master the skills. Language is a skill, and you need a lot of practice to keep yourself sharp at your fingers.

And I don't mean only writing, which you should practice a LOT in that language you want to be good in.

You also need to constantly:
- Read books in that language.
- Listen to audiobooks/podcasts in that language.
- Watch movies in that language (without subtitles).
- Engage in conversations in that language with people that are native (this is optional).

Otherwise, it will be very hard to hone your skills.

But yes, it can be done!

I've had some great non-native english content writers work for me in the past. English needs to be really up there though.

Yes, it is possible - I've been doing it for years. Needless to say, you need to master the English language to have a shot.
I was bilingual, to begin with, and started learning English at a relatively early age - I was around 11 - and continued doing so (both at school and with a private tutor) for more than a decade.

I only started writing professionally in English about five years ago and to date, I've written almost 10,000 articles (plus 200 articles on a now-defunct health blog - I am a one-man content mill) - most of them were average, a handful of them was called "great" by the bloggers publishing them, and I've certainly written quite a few awful pieces of content as well.

In my line of work, though, quality is often secondary but this doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue perfection. Learning new terms - not just "dictionary" terms but colloquial ones as well - is vital. Although I have a pretty decent vocabulary, I constantly learn new words, new sayings, new figures of speech, new phrasings each day. I listen to many English-language podcasts, read a ton of articles, browse through Reddit a lot, and use a grammar checking tool to correct my typos and other errors (even after five years, I still err an awful lot).

If you are serious about making a living writing in English, I can only give you V. I. Lenin's words of advice: "To Learn, to learn, to learn". Never stop learning. Write a lot on all topics and have others read and criticize your writing. And don't stick to "official" dictionaries only - Urban Dictionary is your friend!

It depends on your fluency and the niche. For example, I wrote lots of copies about Amazon Tools, but I'd never ever write anything "serious" about health, for ex.

Yes, you can, but you need to consider your efficiency in the English language if you want to really pump it up. There are free tools that can help like Grammarly. There's also another one that checks it for you and gives a correction if there should be any, this one is a paid service but I forgot what it's called. I'm not trying to discourage you, think of it as a challenge or an upgrade of your arsenal of skills. After all, this is something one can always learn.

Practice, practice and practice writing some more. Spend hours daily reading English. Immerse yourself in English; you'll get there. Immersion works well, but you need to keep at it daily, practicing your copy writing game.

Let me tell you one thing . Native English doesn't means you can write well. Even they don't know the grammar rules and sentence structure but only those who paid attention to the LANGUAGE. That said , study the language rules , practice and you will be fine.

Sometimes non-native English speakers do better job, than natives. Mostly you need to know cultural patterns and marketing trends.

It should be your least of concerns, if you write decent english (your post is written well enough) you should do fine, dont forget that you'll learn along the way too.
People are hooked up with your offer itself and not the language. Maybe i am wrong but I have done some of copywritting myself and there wasn't any problem (im not english obviously). Most of the people are too dumb anyway and they can't write or read well even being native english. Just my 2 cents. No hate please

The "average" American reads and comprehends at about a fifth grade (10-year-old) level.

While your English cannot be gibberish - (Check 2/3 of the posts on this forum) it is by far not the most important element. Can you write copy that sells? A lot of Native English speakers write flowing, flowery prose that doesn't sell a thing. As long as your English is passable, it's your skill at selling through print that will make or break you.

You can always do what some ad agencies do.... redirect your English sales copy to an English-fluent copywriter for a second opinion lol.

I'm kidding (kinda). Go and learn the English language. If you want this to be a major/main source of revenue for your business, then it's worth the learning curve to master the English language.

yes you right.

Your English seems to be very good. It is possible: go on dealing with this stuff, man.

Oh, but I'm sure you can do it.

Have to agree, it's definitely possible ... might need a little help with some grammar but the free online translation services are pretty good.

I've literally trained hundreds of writers across my career and I have writing tutorials on most of the freelancer sites since I was so highly rated years ago (I was the #1 grossing global copywriter on Elance from like 2007 to 2011). Your question here isn't a matter of "can I be a writer"...anyone can do anything if they're willing to work hard enough at it. The real question is if you're willing to work hard enough to reach that next level.

From your original description, it sounds like you're taking the "easy" path and focusing on sites like iWriter where quality doesn't necessarily matter....that's not doing you any favors though. If you're aiming for quick, easy assignments and not doing everything you can to make it epic good quality that engages your readers, then you're training yourself to be a lousy writer. Are you asking yourself why clients would want your articles or how it would matter to the end reader? How much research are you doing? Stuff like that matters big-time and you have to master it to reach higher levels of income.

For instance, I started out on the Yahoo Contributor Network in like 2003 purely as a hobby- I'd write about the Miami Dolphins since I'm a fanatic over the Fins. The articles paid like $3-5 each so I definitely wasn't doing it for the money...I just thought it was cool that I could buy the family pizza each week off my "professional writing career". LOL! And back then I was a lousy writer....there's 10,000 things I've learned over my career that make sentences work. But I still did really well because I was writing about something I was super passionate about. On average, I'd spend 3-4 hours on those $3 articles and edit through them 5 times before submitting.

And guess what? Over time those $3 articles became $25 articles...then I was offered $100 an article by Yahoo to be a featured NFL contributor. It wasn't due to my writing quality though...it was about the engagement my writing created and their overall rankings. My passion for the Dolphins showed on the page and readers followed me because of it. Then other offers started flowing in naturally since I had "made it"...even though I hadn't realized it at the time.

So to directly answer your question, you have maybe a 10% chance of becoming a decent English copywriter from Germany. But if your focus is on quantity over quality then that percentage falls to zero because you can't create engagement if you don't care about your consumers. I've gone on to write for dozens of Fortune 500 brands, hundreds of household named products and thousands of small businesses all over the world. Heck, I worked with a tech start-up in Dubai last year that found me organically in search (how, I have absolutely zero clue!). All of that came from passion though and doing everything I could to "wow" my readers....no matter what industry it happened to be.

That means the question ultimately falls back to you- are you ready to ditch the "content mill" mentality and spoil your readers? Will you spend 3 hours researching a $5 article because quality matters to you? If you want to get better at writing, it's the same process as getting better at baseball or playing saxophone....you have to make a legitimate effort and polish your craft.

I hope that helps!

My non-native speaker friend has a website that targets a largely English speaking audience. He makes over $5000 a month. I wish he would hire a proof reader though. His weird English must put off so many customers...

Hey Stefan! you do not need to be a native english speaker to do well in writing english, just need to be the best english writer and no one will ever assume where do you come from except from english speaking countries. But you might want to have some of your best quality articles as testimonials if you are writing articles for clients just to convince them about your high quality works.

I do find some troubles in finding cheap good article writers, and when they are cheap, they come from india or nigeria but there is one person from india, which is one of my writer, who can write perfect english! he is still my blog writer now because of his expertise and commitment to write new articles.

I think its alright. Jump into the US market and see how it goes. Learn and Grow.

Just go to upwork and search for editor. using search features set it for USA only. then when you post your job let them know your native language is not english and you want it to read easily for english audience. They are not that expensive.

people on this thread suggest just learning the language but one thing you need to realize, and is something many of us take for granted, is that the english language, especially American english, is one of the hardest languages to learn.

al

Yes, it is possible, but since market is lower take in account that for example it's not that common language like English, so your average pay per word will be in German. Even something in Russian will probably be higher and they charge per character, not per word. So think twice.

I have the same problem as the forumites You (kk075) answered. I was surprised at how much you invested in this answer, and even more amazed by the pure energy of your answer. When I read your post until the end, I suddenly had tears in my eyes. On the one hand, diligence is the mother of success, and on the other, you answered using written "emotional intelligence" (a fashionable expression, few people know the practice). Great was my surprise when the master of the word, who taught copywriters, descended from his Olympus and gave the direction of development and such a charge of optimism only to beginners! At the same time, "organic" synergy arose and this post became the highlight of the branch. Thank you so much for the tip! Dear kk075, I'm Your Fan!

Yes, it is possible to write copy in English without being a native speaker.

You must be proficient in grammar and spelling for american readers to be entertained with your copy writing otherwise they will not follow you because of lack of professionalism.

To help you here you should get Private Label Right (PLR) content in English language on the niche you wish to write about. Then all you have to do is rewrite the copy with your own words.