| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | What makes *someone* a native speaker? Thread poster: sdvplatt
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Ryan Shevlane 
United States
Local time: 11:43
Member (2021)
Portuguese to English
+ ...
| It's in the word itself | Sep 12, 2021 |
The word "native" comes from the Latin "nativus", meaning "innate, produced by birth" (https://www.etymonline.com/word/native). So you are a native speaker if you were "born" into it, i.e. speaking it from your earliest memories.
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Now that the OP is visible:
ProZ uses a peer verification system with audio recordings on a chosen subject:
https://www.proz.com/native-language-verification/
I have my doubts, since as I said, translation is about writing, not oral skills, but it seems to be working.
Personally, I have learned my target language at home, not at school (let's... See more Now that the OP is visible:
ProZ uses a peer verification system with audio recordings on a chosen subject:
https://www.proz.com/native-language-verification/
I have my doubts, since as I said, translation is about writing, not oral skills, but it seems to be working.
Personally, I have learned my target language at home, not at school (let's call it homeschooled) so having to produce a native school certificate would rule me out. So that would not cut it.
A reliable automatic (with no human involvement) native language verification seems like a (distant) wet dream.
[Edited at 2021-09-13 09:35 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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sdvplatt wrote:
Some ideas
A school leavers certificate from a standard school in the country with X as its primary language.
What about international schools? IB language
Whatever being a native speaker means to me or to anybody else, it has absolutely nothing to do with schools or certificates.
sdvplatt wrote:
I am designing a system which looks at testing this remotely and without the need say for a direct interview
What makes someone a native speaker e.g. the purposes of proof-reading documents?
Show me a few hundred words of text you've written or talk to me for five minutes and I will be able to determine with great accuracy whether or not you are a native English speaker.
However the idea of writing computer code to automate that process is daunting, to say the least.
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What I keep wondering is why you would want to automate this process, and who could possibly save enough time using it to make it worth developing.
It’s a shame you have chosen the “inclusive” format, which prevents a normal discussion by limiting everyone to two comments. Maybe you should open it up as a normal thread?
Korana Lasić wrote:
of course you aren't native or bilingual if you started learning the language in secondary school. In, "at" implies something else.
And here we have a clear example of what makes someone non-native.
“At school” does not imply anything else at all.
Most educated standard British English speakers over a certain age have yet to migrate to the American usage of “in school”.
Which option you should use in a translation of a play, for example, would require a judgement on the age and background and character of the speaker. Only a true native who still lives in their own country will be properly qualified to make that judgement.
Which is not to say they won’t still get it wrong…
[Edited at 2021-09-13 09:50 GMT]
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| Speaking for myself | Sep 13, 2021 |
I was born in Lisbon, lived, studied, worked, married and mothered 3 children in Portugal until one day I went to Brussels for a job and stayed there happily for 30 years, so I speak French with a slight accent (when I was in France, I was often asked if I was Belgian) and write fluently but that fact doesn’t make me French native at all (by the way I translate exclusively into my native language, European Portuguese).
| | | | | It's impossible to write anything but superficial remarks in this thread... | Sep 13, 2021 |
Victoria Britten wrote: Korana Lasić wrote:
I also think that if someone thinks, dreams, and makes love in a certain language, that's a good indication of them being native speakers of it. Some people do this in more than one language and that makes them bilingual.
I gave birth (twice) in French, not lapsing into anything else at any point, but I started learning French at secondary school. I am indeed (functionally) bilingual, but definitely not native.
Edit: Let me first apologise to Victoria for correcting what seems to be a perfectly acceptable use of prepositions. This sure is an example of me putting my foot in it and that's all this is an example of. Unless anyone else wishes to claim that a grammar blunder renders one non-native? In which case please do make that claim so everyone will understand you are not a serious or competent linguist.
@Chris According to what you've said, if one's grammar has been Americanised together with millions of non-American English speakers under a certain age that makes one a non-native. You also identified most Americans as non-natives since so many of them will've been unaware of the "at school" as used by Victoria. I know what you wanted to say, but this is what you've actually said.
You've said some quite questionable things during your time on this forum, Chris, but this post definitely takes the cake, or rather takes the biscuit, as you "true natives over a certain age who still live in *your own* country" would prefer it.
If I were less serious about linguistics I might say that phrases like living in "their own country", when you wanted to say living in their native country are an example of you not being a native speaker of English. However, I cannot do that as I must make sure that what I say makes sense, in general and linguistic sense as well.
The fact that correcting my mistake wasn't enough for you but you had to make a comment unsupported by linguistics or common sense trying to belittle and insult me certainly isn't any testament to whether I am or not a native English speaker. I am considering suing you and potentially everyone who agreed with you for defamation. You will all be notified in due course if I decide to do that.
[Edited at 2021-09-18 08:43 GMT]
| | | | Joakim Braun
Sweden
Local time: 20:43
German to Swedish
+ ...
| Forget education | Sep 13, 2021 |
sdvplatt wrote:
Some ideas
A school leavers certificate from a standard school in the country with X as its primary language.
What about international schools? IB language
No, what nonsense. Education means nothing.
sdvplatt wrote:
Does one have to be able to read native language accent free?
Preferably, but doesn't mean all that much (unless the jobs involve interpreting). Plenty of immigrants have an accent, but speak correctly and write at native level. And define "accent". Do you know all the dialects of your own native language?
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 21:43
Member
English to Turkish
| Going a bit off topic | Sep 13, 2021 |
Joakim Braun wrote:
Do you know all the dialects of your own native language?
Why does one have to know 'all the dialects of their own native language'? What's the point?
A person living in Leeds will probably tell apart a Cockney from a Scouse, but they will definitely 'know' a native UK English speaker with no distinctive accent when they hear one.
As for defining accent, I'd say it's something an outsider cannot (or find it very difficult to) imitate.
It takes real talent to imitate an accent. Some US or British actors can do convincing Aussie, Canadian or South African accents, but I have yet to see a non-native English speaker (say a French or Danish) do a convincing Aussie or British accent.
The same goes for native English speakers trying to do foreign accents. See, for example, Viggo Mortensen's attempt at Russian accent in Eastern Promises.
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Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 20:43
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Interpreters and an accent. | Sep 13, 2021 |
Joakim Braun wrote:
Preferably, but doesn't mean all that much (unless the jobs involve interpreting). Plenty of immigrants have an accent, but speak correctly and write at native level. And define "accent". Do you know all the dialects of your own native language?
Plenty of interpreters have an accent.
I can easily tell apart a regional accent and foreign accent (in my native language).
| | | | expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 19:43
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| In reality, everybody has an accent. | Sep 13, 2021 |
An "accent" is the way we sound when we speak a second, third language, etc. (we often replace sounds of the foreign language by our own language sounds, and quite often we have troubles with sounds that don't exist in our native language), and when we speak our native language (if I am speaking to someone from Lisbon, my accent will be immediately identified).
"En bref"... there are two different kinds of accents: the accent of a "foreign" language, and the accent of our "native" language... See more An "accent" is the way we sound when we speak a second, third language, etc. (we often replace sounds of the foreign language by our own language sounds, and quite often we have troubles with sounds that don't exist in our native language), and when we speak our native language (if I am speaking to someone from Lisbon, my accent will be immediately identified).
"En bref"... there are two different kinds of accents: the accent of a "foreign" language, and the accent of our "native" language. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:43
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Muphry's law | Sep 13, 2021 |
Ice Scream wrote:
judgement.
Hmmm. Most native English speakers of a certain age might prefer "judgment".
| | | | | RE: Muphry's Law | Sep 13, 2021 |
Tom in London wrote: Ice Scream wrote:
judgement.
Hmmm. Most native English speakers of a certain age might prefer "judgment".
Thanks to you, Tom, for reminding us the Muphry's Law - not to be confonded with the Murphy's Law - applicable to translators but not only, which is a derivative of the latter and which states: "If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written."
Good to read this kind of rare expression into such a relevant context under the pen of a connoisseur.
Well done!
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 20:43
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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sdvplatt wrote:
What makes someone a native speaker e.g. the purposes of proof-reading documents?
Given that many educated native speakers make mistakes in their own writing and are unable to spot mistakes in the writing of others, you should ask yourself whether your test for nativeness is truly there to improve quality or merely there to improve how your clients perceive your product.
After all, since many of your clients will firmly believe that a native speaker is always better, it would be in your interest to tell them that you have checks in place to favour native speakers.
However, if you really think that you're going to improve quality by giving preference to native speakers, then your next step is the can of worms we're all talking about: what makes a speaker a native speaker? Every person who uses the term have their own definition/interpretation of it.
| | | | | Native speaker plus | Sep 14, 2021 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Given that many educated native speakers make mistakes in their own writing and are unable to spot mistakes in the writing of others, you should ask yourself whether your test for nativeness is truly there to improve quality or merely there to improve how your clients perceive your product.
That's a good point, and especially so in the face of a trend I've been noticing where increasing numbers of people who feel at home in the translation market (with quite a few of them carrying university degrees) couldn't care less that they are consistently producing nonsense in their own language when translating. And they usually don't hesitate to translate into other languages either. I've seen English distorted beyond recognition by translators from many countries, not just Russians or, say, Asians, but I don't know how bad the situation is with native English speakers who, while being perfectly native, may well be ruining English like so many Russian natives are ruining Russian. English offers more potential for simplifying things (like using just a handful of verbs with modifiers for all sorts of actions), so I guess the trend is not as pronounced out there. Can't say for certain if this is an actual trend, it's just that more and more people are becoming more vocal and grabbing more opportunities. But I doubt that the mere fact of being a native speaker amounts to much in our trade (as long as you don't have plenty of well-paid work you can perform comfortably without venturing into fields you don't know how to write about)
| | | | | It's about the cultural references as much as anything | Sep 14, 2021 |
Being a "native speaker" and being fluent or bi-lingual are two different things.
To be a real native speaker you need to have grown up in your native country and been exposed to its culture' i.e. it's nursery rhymes, music, TV, theatre, films, food, etc.
You need to know the language's idioms and slangs and understand the different registers - it's so much more than speaking the language fluently.
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