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Passing as a Native

  Tags: Native Fluency
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
35 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5  Next >>
LorenzoGuapo
Triglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 6449 days ago

79 posts - 94 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: French

 
 Message 1 of 35
14 February 2011 at 4:40pm | IP Logged 
How many of you try to learn your target language to the point of passing as a native? Also what have been your experiences? Yes I am aware some languages this is not possible just becuase of the overall demographics of the target language speakers so when they look at you they can tell your a not a native, however with two of my target languages Spanish and Portuguese I have been asked if I was from a Spanish or Portuguese speaking country and when I tell them I am not then they immediately ask where my parents are from although my parents are from the US also.
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polyglHot
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5071 days ago

173 posts - 229 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 2 of 35
14 February 2011 at 6:27pm | IP Logged 
I can pass for a native in English and Norwegian.
Sometimes people think that I am German or Russian, maybe I can keep it up for about 5-10
minutes, on airplanes for instance.
Unfortunately due to my blondeness I cannot pass for Indonesian or Spanish that'd be cool
though.
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Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5339 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 3 of 35
14 February 2011 at 7:03pm | IP Logged 
I have several times passed for Spanish in spite of my blondness, and I think one of the proudest days of my life, was when I within the timeframe of 10 minutes was asked by a Spaniard if I was Spanish, by a Frenchman if I was French and by an American if I was from the US. They had however just heard me say a couple of sentences and did not expect me to speak their language, which is probably why they came up with such an extremely favourable evaluation.

Spanish is however the only language where I have been able to pass as native for any lenght of time, in addition to my mother tongue, Norwegian.
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Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5852 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 5 of 35
14 February 2011 at 9:00pm | IP Logged 
It has happened to me quite often that people ask me which nationality I have when I speak Dutch and they know that I live in Germany. I am used to clarify that I have a German passport. For example yesterday I was phoning for the first time with somebody in Dutch, who already knew that I live in Germany. The first question was, which nationality I have, the Dutch or the German.

Fasulye
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6016 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 6 of 35
14 February 2011 at 9:41pm | IP Logged 
I always aim to confuse. :-) My ego gets a great boost when I tell Spanish people I'm Scottish and they don't believe me.

It's great fun, but that's not why I do it. I've always intuitively felt that I can understand something better if I can do it myself. I also find that the more naturally you speak, the more naturally people speak back to you -- and if you want to learn to speak the language properly, you have to hear the proper language, so you have to get speakers to talk to you more naturally.
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Phantom Kat
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5068 days ago

160 posts - 253 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Finnish

 
 Message 7 of 35
15 February 2011 at 1:51am | IP Logged 
I could pass as a native American more than likely due to learning English as a child. I actually have to convince people I'm Mexican because of my light skin and the habit of talking like a book (hey, I write fan-fiction in my spare time, so sue me). Funniest instance was when a guy insulted me right in my face becuase he didn't think I knew Spanish. Loved his face when I showed him I did. :P

- Kat
1 person has voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6016 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 8 of 35
15 February 2011 at 11:40am | IP Logged 
Phantom Kat wrote:
I could pass as a native American more than likely due to learning English as a child.

I'm guessing as a Mexican you mean Pueblo rather than Ojibwa, Cree or Mohawk....


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