Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Bilingual ?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
36 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5  Next >>
Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5381 days ago
3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 9 of 36
15 April 2010 at 5:57am | IP Logged 
Smart wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
I think you are refering to being native in 2 languages.
To which the answer would be
that you aren't. I can pretty much say that I am equally comfortable in English as I am
in French (my first language), even though I didn't learn English until I was a teenager,
but I'm not an English native and wouldn't label myself as such.

I always thought that the double asterisk on this site was reserved for people who were
natives in 2 languages. I don't think it denotes a near-native.

Bilingual/Trilingual area. Therefore, I am bilingual.

What do you mean? You are bilingual no doubt, but not a native in both.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Smart
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5339 days ago
352 posts - 398 votes 
Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French
Studies: German

 
 Message 10 of 36
15 April 2010 at 9:00am | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
Smart wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
I think you are refering to being native in 2 languages.
To which the answer would be
that you aren't. I can pretty much say that I am equally comfortable in English as I am
in French (my first language), even though I didn't learn English until I was a teenager,
but I'm not an English native and wouldn't label myself as such.

I always thought that the double asterisk on this site was reserved for people who were
natives in 2 languages. I don't think it denotes a near-native.

Bilingual/Trilingual area. Therefore, I am bilingual.

What do you mean? You are bilingual no doubt, but not a native in both.

Well... what makes native except the language being spoken by 50% or more of the population in the area? I mean, does one have to grow up speaking the language (from 3 or so?) I thought one is considered native if the language is dominant as a first language of many many many people and the language was learned via interaction with fluent speakers.

In your scenario, an Anglophone living in Quebec(all his life) who learns French at 11 fluently is not a native. I think you are incorrect...
1 person has voted this message useful



Delodephius
Bilingual Tetraglot
Senior Member
Yugoslavia
Joined 5403 days ago
342 posts - 501 votes 
Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech
Studies: Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 11 of 36
15 April 2010 at 12:03pm | IP Logged 
My situation is that my mother tongue is Slovak, but I started to learn Serbian the same time as Slovak i.e. when I was a baby. I grew up with both of the languages and I can speak them more or less equally well. So I make a difference between Slovak as both my mother and native tongue and Serbian as only my native tongue.
1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5381 days ago
3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 12 of 36
15 April 2010 at 12:59pm | IP Logged 
Smart wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
Smart wrote:
Bilingual/Trilingual area. Therefore, I am bilingual.

What do you mean? You are bilingual no doubt, but not a native in both.

Well... what makes native except the language being spoken by 50% or more of the
population in the area? I mean, does one have to grow up speaking the language (from 3
or so?) I thought one is considered native if the language is dominant as a first
language of many many many people and the language was learned via interaction with
fluent speakers.

In your scenario, an Anglophone living in Quebec(all his life) who learns French at 11
fluently is not a native. I think you are incorrect...

Your example is a great one and such an Anglophone is indeed absolutely NOT a native,
by any definition of the term (except yours).

According to your definition of native, anyone who lives in a place where a language is spoken is going to become a native when he becomes fluent.

Edited by Arekkusu on 15 April 2010 at 3:46pm
2 persons have voted this message useful



Smart
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5339 days ago
352 posts - 398 votes 
Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French
Studies: German

 
 Message 13 of 36
15 April 2010 at 7:37pm | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
Smart wrote:
Arekkusu wrote:
Smart wrote:
Bilingual/Trilingual area. Therefore, I am bilingual.

What do you mean? You are bilingual no doubt, but not a native in both.

Well... what makes native except the language being spoken by 50% or more of the
population in the area? I mean, does one have to grow up speaking the language (from 3
or so?) I thought one is considered native if the language is dominant as a first
language of many many many people and the language was learned via interaction with
fluent speakers.

In your scenario, an Anglophone living in Quebec(all his life) who learns French at 11
fluently is not a native. I think you are incorrect...

Your example is a great one and such an Anglophone is indeed absolutely NOT a native,
by any definition of the term (except yours).

According to your definition of native, anyone who lives in a place where a language is spoken is going to become a native when he becomes fluent.

No. if there is over 50% of the population who have the language as their first language, all are fluent.... then you can become native...
1 person has voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5381 days ago
3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 14 of 36
15 April 2010 at 8:27pm | IP Logged 
Sorry but that is not the definition of native. You cannot become a native speaker. You are a native speaker of the language when you learned it from birth because it's the language your parents spoke to you. In some rare instances, a person might also be a native in a language other than his or her parents' language(s), but only if there was sustained contact with speakers of the language from birth (presumably until adulthood).

If a Québec Anglophone only starts learning French at the age of 11, the fact that he lives in a French-speaking province (or town) is irrelevant. If his parents spoke English to him, if he went to school in English, that child is not and never will be a native speaker. He may learn to speak like one, but you can't become one. That would be called near native.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Smart
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5339 days ago
352 posts - 398 votes 
Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French
Studies: German

 
 Message 15 of 36
16 April 2010 at 12:11am | IP Logged 
Arekkusu wrote:
Sorry but that is not the definition of native. You cannot become a native speaker. You are a native speaker of the language when you learned it from birth because it's the language your parents spoke to you. In some rare instances, a person might also be a native in a language other than his or her parents' language(s), but only if there was sustained contact with speakers of the language from birth (presumably until adulthood).

If a Québec Anglophone only starts learning French at the age of 11, the fact that he lives in a French-speaking province (or town) is irrelevant. If his parents spoke English to him, if he went to school in English, that child is not and never will be a native speaker. He may learn to speak like one, but you can't become one. That would be called near native.

What is the purpose of the linguistic designation "native fluency" then ?
1 person has voted this message useful



LatinoBoy84
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5575 days ago
443 posts - 603 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French
Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian

 
 Message 16 of 36
16 April 2010 at 12:56am | IP Logged 
I was born in Latin America and raised in the US. Spanish at home/church English everywhere else growing up. I consider myself native bilingual...granted I did speak
Spanish first.


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 36 messages over 5 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.7656 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.