Writing is a good way to practice your Vietnamese. Whether you keep a diary or write topical short essays, it’s important to get your writing corrected by a native so you can learn and improve.
You might not want your friends or your teacher to correct everything you write. Especially if you write quite often! If so, that’s where a website like lang-8.com can help. You can write something of any length, any title, any topic and native speakers will be able to read and correct it. They often also include explanations for their corrections or provide alternative ways of saying something.
In return you should read and correct journal entries written by other people learning your native tongue.
My experience
I always get corrections quickly, within 24 or 48 hours. I usually get a lot of corrections on my essays because there are many more native Vietnamese users than there are people like me learning Vietnamese.
If you get so many corrections that you find it hard to go through them all, consider making your journal entries only viewable to your friends.
If you’re not sure what to write about, we’ve got plenty of ideas.
Over to you: Do you get your writing corrected? Have you used lang-8? Tell us in the comments!