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How native is native? | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6129 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 25 of 32 24 November 2011 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I suppose there is a vast realm of sports team knowledge that Americans are supposed to be aware of. Especially American football has an endless number of quirky and arbitrary rules that make no real sense, and that's not even getting to player and team names. I'll bet your example kid here was equally out of sync with American culture if he's spending a lot of time in Norway and with Norwegian parents. It's possible to be in the middle between two cultures and not completely fluent in either one.
To me, the Nordic cultures, are a race, or maybe a tribe that has a blood relation and language combined and if anything is not exactly right, you're out. I think America is more of a class structure based on skin color, language, wealth, and cultural knowledge too, but if you get enough of these things right, you will fit in. At least this kid, I suppose, he learned the language. The fact is, he's always going to be the 'almost a Norwegian' his entire life so it makes sense to deal with this sooner rather than later. It's worse when the parents try to protect children from this kind of experience I think. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6155 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 26 of 32 25 November 2011 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This distinction gets more obfuscated by the situation of Irish. While I'm a native of Ireland, and grew up learning the language from the age of three to eighteen, I wouldn't class myself as a native speaker. I would be a very competent speaker, but I don't think initially in Irish. When I'm conversing in Irish, I will start thinking in it, but English is my normal default. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| anjathilina Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6608 days ago 33 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Spanish, Mandarin Studies: Hindi | Message 27 of 32 25 November 2011 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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My husband's brother's wife is from India. I think she gave a useful way around this
whole debate (although she didn't intend to) when I asked her about the languages she speaks. She told me that her family was unusual in that they spoke English even at home (her schooling was in English as well), but that "you can say my mother tongue is Gujarati." To me, this conveyed a lot of information about her cultural background and heritage while acknowledging that her stronger language is English, and that there are certainly things that she can express in English that she wouldn't be able to in Gujarati (after all, she got her PHD in the US). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5859 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 28 of 32 28 November 2011 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Sofrid Cristin, what you are describing is certainly what I and many Singaporeans have experienced over the years! I do not have to leave my country to generate the similar scenarios, as the language policy of this country has generated many people who never mastered a language. I shall not turn this into a bashing thread, but I have written about the faults in my other thread, should you be interested. As I have mentioned in other threads, I do not consider myself to have a native language at all. Let me explain my situation using the question you have raised here:
I fail this criteria seriously. I have problems in expressing myself the scientific, economic and any other complicated subjects in Chinese, but I can write these same subjects in English for my essays in university. Often, I just cannot produce the word I need when I was discussing these topics with my friends from China, and ended up mixing English terms into the conversation. My friends would, of course, tell me the correct term that I should use. I felt it embarrassing that I cannot use my native language fluently. On the other hand, my English is not perfect either. I often mispronounce words and spell words wrongly. I also do not enjoy English literature at all, as I do not understand the native idioms and set expressions used in literature. But I have no problem enjoying Chinese literature, as my mother has read to me the classics and explain them to me when I was young.
Thus, what is my native language? Strictly speaking I have none, but I have chosen Chinese as my native language in my profile. It is hard to choose English as my native language as my mother knows nothing about it. Chinese is the language I have affinity with my mother, and makes me comfortable at home. Furthermore, I enjoyed the Chinese literature and stories which my mother told and shaped my being today. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6663 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 29 of 32 02 December 2011 at 2:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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For me, "native language" has always been synonymous with mother tongue and first language.
I can't help but think of the experience of one of my younger brothers. He was born in Korea and was adopted at an age when he would have been a babbling toddler. He was raised speaking nothing but English. As he got older, he became curious about his roots and Korean culture. He learned Korean in his early twenties. He started spending time in a nearby larger city where there were immigrant Koreans. He says he never felt accepted; he was culturally Canadian and didn't have all the cultural knowledge or ways of acting that Korean immigrants around him took for granted. He eventually spent a year in Korea, teaching English as a second language and improving his Korean. He told me that Koreans would look at him funny when he spoke Korean; his Korean face didn't match the imperfect Korean coming out of his mouth and it seemed to unnerve everyone he spoke to. He likes to cook fusion Korean dishes and he enjoys Korean films and music--in addition to Western fare. Korean is his "first" language, but it's like he speaks it uphill; at least that's what native speakers of Korean have said. He seems more at ease in English, and he's probably more culturally Canadian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5338 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 30 of 32 02 December 2011 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Although a different angle, this reminds me of a Korean guide colleague of mine who was partially raised in Brazil, because his father was a diplomat there. His Portoguese was as far as I could hear perfect, and he could without effort explain how a Norwegian stave church was built and the different symbols in the church. Since most of us were struggling with that vocabulary in any language, we were all duly impressed. Since he and I were the only ones under 25 (most of the others were 50+) we hung out a lot, and I once asked him how come he didn't ask for Brazilian citizenship, since for all practical purposes he was fully Brazilian. He just looked at me and smiled, and said" I am Korean on the inside, and I am Korean on the outside, so why would I want to change my citizenship?" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ppfarj Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4956 days ago 5 posts - 8 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English | Message 31 of 32 27 December 2011 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Solfrid Cristin, as a Brazilian myself, I'd have say that your Korean friend's statement has a lot more to do with his own perceptions of identity than of his Brazilian peers' opinions on him. Brazil alike Canada/US/Argentina/etc is "a new nation", and received immigrants from all over the world: Portugal, Italy, Germany, Japan, Africa (slaves), Middle East, and so on. The difference is that our immigrants somewhat mingled over there. It's simply impossible to tell whether someone is Brazilian based only on superficial looks. On the other hand, even though it's such a massive country, its people share a lot of cultural traits: language, body language, habits and manners, etc. We are also quite aware of some regional differences, since we're pretty mixed and diverse. I like to believe we're also very welcoming and accepting of differences, that is, if you absorb the "basics" of our culture, and speak the language like a native (Brazilian accent inclusive), your are certainly to be accepted as one of us. If not, you'll always be a gringo - which is not so bad, since we don't have anything against foreigners. Said that, I've got a French friend who moved to Brazil when he was about 15 to live with his French dad and his Brazilian stepmother and siblings. After a few years living there, he wasn't a "gringo" any more...he became one of us, BUT even though he had no accent whatsoever and behaved as an average Brazilian guy, I remember that he couldn't grasp some things between the lines.. but I only found it out because I got curious and asked him if he knew some stuff I was talking about. I'm quite sure he has eventually caught up, and he seems to be quite settled over there. Occasionally he visits his mother in Nice, his home town; apart from that one could only tell he's a "gringo" for speaking in French with his Dad who after over 30year still retains a slight French accent. Another curiosity, is that you won't find as many ethnic "ghettos" in major Brazilian cities as in the USA/CANADA/UK. Apart from many cultural differences, most immigrants are assimilated.. I've never seen any Muslim women wearing scarves or men wearing turbans or "exotic" clothes in the streets, for instance. As for the definition of native speaker, I'd say one's native language is that one he has used to communicate with parents his since he was born. You are a native speaker of your mother tongue. All the other languages you may acquire in life will be native- like at their best. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6787 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 32 of 32 13 January 2012 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't think there is such a thing as a native level. Yes, I know we like to throw
that term around all the time, but if you think about it... There is no test you can take to prove that you're native. We don't even try to test people on this. Language testing only applies to foreign language competence, and those tests have enough methodological flaws as it is. If you pass C2 that means you have the highest level of foreign language skill that we care to vouch for, but it makes no claim about a native level. What natives get, in contrast, is two decades of schooling where they have to pass lots of language tests in their early years and later their degree of language competence is tested indirectly as applied to other fields like the study of literature, history, science, law, journalism etc (some more linguistically demanding than others). So a native does not take such a test, and beyond a certain age there is no direct language testing at all. So how does a native check if other natives really are native? Well, they don't. They define whatever they perceive as "native", it's a definition not a classification. How does a native check if someone without the birth right is native? They make a judgment based on their impression. If this person has an accent that's all but imperceptible, seems to use the language as well as I do, and I can't see any real flaws, then I'm satisfied. I'm inclined to define this person as native, but there is no concrete standard that I'm applying, it's my gut feeling. If I'm native that means people "feel" that I'm native and the more people I can convince the more robust my status is. The wisdom of crowds... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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