I've been making a concerted effort to use the site Lang-8 to get some written feedback about my Spanish and my French. Even though I'm much more comfy with French than with Spanish, I get way more 'This sentence is perfect' markings for my Spanish entries than I do for my French attempts. I'm not sure why that is; perhaps Spanish is a little more flexible? A little more forgiving of grammar mistakes?
Though I don't want to generalize, it also seems that it's easier to use irony when writing in French than it is to use it in Spanish. When I try to use a bit of humor in my Spanish on Lang-8, it falls flat. Usually I have to spend several sentences trying to explain what I meant. When I'm writing in French, on the other hand, the irony and humor just seem to flow. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm just more advanced with my French studies. I am able to develop more complex ideas and thoughts because I have the requisite vocabulary and knowledge of structure.
At any rate, the site has been helpful to me and I feel I've made a bit of progress in both languages. It's also very satisfying to be able to return the favor of someone correcting my entries by in turn correcting theirs. The most helpful editors are those who don't just mark the mistakes and add the correct version, but those who take the time to explain their corrections. I try to do this also when I edit others' work.
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