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Meaning of "bilingual" | ||
Tags: Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 9 of 16 30 October 2014 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, I think "tvåspråkig" in Swedish is usually reserved for people who are native
speakers of two languages, too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 16 30 October 2014 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||
Seems like the definition might be looser in different languages than others? A French person once described me as "bilingual", which I felt was ridiculous considering my far-from-perfect French, but she just meant it in a very broad sense of "knows two languages". Whereas to me it means near-native proficiency in both, regardless of how and when they learnt them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 11 of 16 30 October 2014 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | ||
I pretty much agree with that. Plenty of kids grow up with two or more languages but only become effectively native in one of them. Lots of adults move to a new country and speak incredibly well after a number of years. I think the ability in the language outstrips the circumstances in which it was learned. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 12 of 16 31 October 2014 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Dutch the sense is identical to the Swedish one. I grew up speaking two languages
which is why I state that I am bilingual. I have also seen a French person call me "bilingue" before (with regards to my French). But I rebutted and said "no, that doesn't work for me at all". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4861 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 13 of 16 31 October 2014 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Funny to notice that some French people have used the term like that, because in my
experience, in Mexico the term is used similarly (if one knows two languages, he or she is "bilingüe"). Is this some sort of romance-germanic divide? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 14 of 16 31 October 2014 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | ||
Well the OED says:
Literally having two tongues sounds sort of fun. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 15 of 16 06 November 2014 at 3:26am | IP Logged | ||
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It would seem most elegant and consistent with the international consensus to use "bilingual" to refer only to people
with two native languages, and "knows two languages" otherwise. I'm afraid this is futile prescriptivism, though, and in actual English usage "bilingual" can have either meaning. If you want to make this distinction and be sure you're understood, given the current situation in English, you have to say things like "native bilingual" or "fluent in a second language." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5764 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 16 of 16 06 November 2014 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've always understood 'bilingual' in the sense that it's used in the UK, that is a
person who has two native level languages, usually due either to having parents with two different mother tongues, or to living in an immigrant family where one language is spoke at home, and another in school and outside of the family. I've just come back from two years living in France and I can confirm that the term "bilingue" is widely used to refer to anyone who is fluent in a foreign language, sometimes even where the person barely has basic fluency. Although how much of that is down to exaggerating on the CV, as opposed to an actual difference or misunderstanding of the meaning, I don't know. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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