It might be a good idea to mention that English is not your first language, at the beginning of your longer posts.
For shorter posts, it is probably worth your time to spend an extra 1 or 2 minutes making sure the capitalization and grammar are correct. But, for longer posts, when you are expressing more complicated ideas, spending too much time reviewing your writing style would damage your train of thought. It would probably suffice to say, "Sorry if my English isn't so great."
There's a HUGE difference between a native English speaker writing a thoughtless post with bad style, and a non-native English speaker writing a thoughtful post with bad style.
I think a lot of HN people are sensitive to writing style because it's a useful way to decide whether or not you should bother reading something. If a comment is very poorly written, it is more likely (but not definite) that the content is also poorly imagined.
The problem is when there are "false negatives" such as yourself--people who are carefully thinking through their ideas, but are not as well-versed in writing style. Help the community cut you some slack; advertise the fact that English is not your first language when you do not have the time or skill to make your posts perfect. :-)
For shorter posts, it is probably worth your time to spend an extra 1 or 2 minutes making sure the capitalization and grammar are correct. But, for longer posts, when you are expressing more complicated ideas, spending too much time reviewing your writing style would damage your train of thought. It would probably suffice to say, "Sorry if my English isn't so great."
There's a HUGE difference between a native English speaker writing a thoughtless post with bad style, and a non-native English speaker writing a thoughtful post with bad style.
I think a lot of HN people are sensitive to writing style because it's a useful way to decide whether or not you should bother reading something. If a comment is very poorly written, it is more likely (but not definite) that the content is also poorly imagined.
The problem is when there are "false negatives" such as yourself--people who are carefully thinking through their ideas, but are not as well-versed in writing style. Help the community cut you some slack; advertise the fact that English is not your first language when you do not have the time or skill to make your posts perfect. :-)