Why We Created Nativish: Making Fluent Writing Easier

The Inspiration Behind Nativish

Nativish was born out of a love story and a personal need. I, Claire, am a French native who has been living in the United States for years. I didn’t plan to stay in the US that long, but I met Brian, an American, and changed my mind. We got married and had many wonderful adventures together, and it’s only the beginning!

Claire’s Challenge

I work at an American company where I need to write content for the website and emails in English. Even though I am fluent, writing at a native level in English is challenging and time-consuming for me. I often second-guess my grammar, sometimes my spelling, but mostly, I wonder if my writing sounds truly idiomatic. This is a common issue for many professionals working in a language different from their native one. I’ve tried numerous tools, including writing assistants and translation tools, but none could really help translate my thoughts into perfect English. Translation tools are frustrating with their literal translations, and I can already convey my thoughts better than what they produce. Writing assistant applications (Grammarly, WordTune, LanguageTool…) are good for grammar and spell check, but they don’t help make my writing 100% idiomatic. I needed something better!

Brian’s Story

My husband, Brian, has a deep love for languages. He speaks Russian and has a pretty good grasp of Arabic. Since we met, he has become fluent in French. However, he feels he needs immersion to truly master the language. Living in the U.S. makes this challenging, as we mostly speak English at home. He often feels self-conscious when writing messages to my family and often asks me to proofread his messages before sending them… Not ideal. I’ll admit French is a tricky language to learn!

The Solution: Nativish

Faced with these challenges, we recognized the need for a tool that helps people attain native-level fluency in writing. So we created Nativish, a writing assistant specifically focused on the challenges of operating in a second language. Beyond spelling and grammar checking, Nativish is geared towards issues faced by non-native speakers, such as idiomatic expressions, cultural references, and tone, which other writing assistants don’t fully address. We’re able to catch these kinds of issues thanks to a combination of traditional natural language processing techniques and newly available large language models.

Nativish was developed to make work and family communication easier. We made it to help ourselves initially, but hopefully it will also help other language learners, expats, and professionals who frequently need to write in a language other than their native one.

How Nativish Can Help

Nativish is designed to assist anyone striving to write fluently in a second language. Whether it’s for professional emails, website content, or personal messages, Nativish makes the process quicker and less stressful. Our goal is to help users write confidently and sound like native speakers. Psst, here’s a secret: I used Nativish to help write this post!

Try Nativish for Free

We hope you find Nativish as helpful as we do. Create your account for free and see how it can make your language learning journey smoother.