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Ever busted a non-native speaker? | ||
Tags: Error | Advanced Level | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 34 02 September 2012 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I wonder how often somebody assumes somebody else is non-native because that person speaks another dialect, comes from another social group or has a mixed linguistic background.
To illustrate this last possibility: there are many second or third generation immigrants here in Denmark who speak Danish with something I would call an accent - but they have lived here all their lives and probably spoken Danish concurrently with some foreign language all that time (except maybe as babies where they only had the company of their parents - which may be a crucial fact). Languages can be spoken in many different ways, and that includes even 'small' languages like Danish. For really international languages the number of 'lects is much larger, and the result is that your average Joe can't possible be aware of all the different variations. If you know what Scottish or Caribbean or Indish English sounds like you may be able to identify a person as a speaker of that dialect, but without doing a brain scan: how do you distinguish a native speaker with a dialect you don't know from a non-native speaker who had lived in a Anglophone neighbourhood (though not yours) for forty years and learnt the local way of speaking extremely well? Edited by Iversen on 03 September 2012 at 8:20am 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4828 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 10 of 34 02 September 2012 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I suppose that informal language in any language changes relatively quickly as well, so if you learn a language at a particular time, but don't "keep current", you might sound a bit fossilised after a while. But this can happen to native speakers who have been out of their native environment for a long time. One of my teachers of German who had been in England for probably at least 40 years used to say that when she went back to Germany and met friends and relations, they told her that her slang was out of date. :-) No German would ever take her for a non-German though. Edited by montmorency on 02 September 2012 at 10:35pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4699 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 11 of 34 02 September 2012 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's the Dublin accent. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Amun Triglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 5058 days ago 52 posts - 72 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, French Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 34 03 September 2012 at 1:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I once had a Math professor from Ireland who has been living in Holland for over 30 years
and sounded very much like a native, but what 'exposed' him is that he sometimes made gender (de/het) mistakes which natives almost never make. Edited by Amun on 03 September 2012 at 1:55am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 34 03 September 2012 at 8:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Most Danes also distinguish their genders (we've got two), but some Jutish dialects only have one and these people may make errors in genders. It is not that they aren't fluent in Standard Danish, but their dialect spills over and influence their Standard Danish.
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| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4912 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 14 of 34 03 September 2012 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Last night I was at my friends house and his new roomate is supposedly from California. The kid, at first seemed to
speak English perfectly, then started saying weird stuff. He was messing up some plurals and just looking for like weird words. I asked the kid where he was from, and he said Cali, so I said where are you from originally, he said he was born in Cali, his dad was native hawaiian and his mom was Thai. But he couldn't speak Thai just understand it and respond brokenly. I didn't dare ask him why his English sounded asian influenced/non-native, but regardless it struck me as very odd. Albeit his roomate, the one I'm friends with is from Beijing and sounds like it, so maybe he had just been hanging out with real Asians for too long! PS. If anyone can give me any plausible theories as to why this kid doesn't sound native at all let me know because it's really confusing me. I doubt he would lie about English being the only language he speaks! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Amun Triglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 5058 days ago 52 posts - 72 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, French Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 34 03 September 2012 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It could be due to his social circles. For example, in certain urban areas in Europe you find second/third generation migrants who speak the host country's language as their first language, and often only language, yet still retain a slightly 'foreign sounding accent' because their former language left a slight alteration in their speech pattern. Even if they don't use the language anymore hints of it can get stuck in a community. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4671 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 34 04 September 2012 at 7:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
My theory is that one of of his parents spoke to him in accented English when he was growing up. In order to have native pronunciation, I've heard that it's best for the parents to speak their own languages to their kids, but I might be wrong about that. Are there any native Russian speakers here who've busted non-natives? Curious to hear what gives away the best non-native speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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