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This is very good advice. I think my problem is I try to sound more "intelligent" and well-spoken. Maybe that's because English isn't my first language. In any case, the most annoying thing for me is to not be able to tap into my inner thesaurus. When I read other people's articles, comments and book I often find myself thinking "why did I not use that turn of phrase in my previous blog post".

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I can sympathize with you, as I shared the same woes. Don't torture yourself though. Quite often the ornamental form simply hides the lack of intellectual depth in the content. Free yourself from such thoughts and the rest will follow.

I really recommend "The Economist Style Guide". Please read through it, then read again to see how it was applied to itself (!). Then write a short passage, and revise it to adhere to the recommendations -- don't be surprised if this will need several passes though!

You will be surprised how much this can improve your writing, but also structure your own thoughts.

Trying to sound intelligent can actually have the opposite effect. I like the quote "If you can't explain something simply then you don't understand it well enough."

As for picking up idioms, I think it's something that happens gradually as you are exposed to more writing by native speakers.

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