I'm not a native speaker, but somehow I assumed my English level to be decent enough for me to offer my help with an English text written by a Japanese colleague. I've fixed the most glaring errors, the few that I could find anyway, and at this point I'm pretty satisfied, but there is still this one sentence that lingers.
So, please tell me exactly how weird does this following sentence sound in your beautiful native ears:
My motivations, the things that always encourage me, are not only that I love my own hometown, but also that I want my children to love their own hometown too.
What I'm mostly concerned about is the use of "my own hometown." and "their own hometown". At first it sounded strange to me. But after some research it now sounds completely normal to my ears. (As in, I have no clue at all anymore.)
- Isn't the "own" there to add emphasis on whose hometown it is? So "my own hometown" makes it completely redundant? But maybe the usage is still okay?
- After reading it my mind suggests that "my hometown" and "their hometown" may be separate places, but I don't think this is what the author intended. Do you intercept that meaning as well, or is it negligible?