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Why lie about native English speaker? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| pitwo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5941 days ago 103 posts - 121 votes  Speaks: French*, English | Message 25 of 43 06 July 2011 at 3:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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There are others too, like "good on you!"
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| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4833 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 26 of 43 07 July 2011 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I thought of putting English as my native language, since I moved to the US as a child and attended school and college there, but then decided on selecting Russian, as that is the language in which I can feign written and verbal fluency for the longest time.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5793 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 27 of 43 07 July 2011 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
Indeed, Señor Esmíth. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Rob_Austria Heptaglot Groupie Austria Joined 4784 days ago 84 posts - 293 votes Speaks: German*, Italian, Spanish, French, English, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Croatian, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic (Written), Turkish | Message 28 of 43 18 August 2011 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Does anyone know the German equivalent...?[/QUOTE] In German I might say 'fair zu jmdm sein' or 'jmdn fair behandeln' You are right, one can use both expressions but I would not use them in the context given. I'd translate "to be fair on/to others" as "anderen gegenüber fair sein". Example: This is not fair on his brothers = Das ist seinen Brüdern gegenüber nicht fair. If you said "seine Brüder fair behandeln", the meaning might be slightly different. Besides, you would have to change the construction of the sentence. But as I said, the expressions you mentioned are both correct and valid, I would just not use them in the context provided by the asker. Honestly, I am astonished at how well many forum members speak and write German as a foreign language. If it were not my mother tongue, its grammar would probably drive me crazy ;-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| AriD2385 Groupie United States Joined 4632 days ago 44 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 29 of 43 18 August 2011 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have never heard the phrase "fair on..." or any permutation thereof (and my English is very much home grown!). I might have heard "good on you" before, but if so, it was probably in a British or Australian context. Perhaps that indicates why, outside of pure grammatical rules, it can be difficult to judge someone's language usage when it can vary across countries and regions within countries. I could travel to many places in the US and learn new turns of phrase and "cool" ways of saying things that are just a result of regional differences and fads.
But with respect to the question asked, I can see certain situations (as have been explained above) where someone might put "native English". It would seem to depend on when and how they started learning English, how long they've been exposed, etc. And for me at least, in reading language proficiency descriptions, I got the impression that "native fluency" is something that can be reached without the language actually being your native language. It seemed to be more of a description of mastery rather than an indication of the first language you ever learned. Edited by AriD2385 on 18 August 2011 at 11:36pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Barrabbas Newbie Joined 5843 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Studies: German | Message 30 of 43 19 August 2011 at 3:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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| LondonKiwi Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4983 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* | Message 31 of 43 21 August 2011 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm a native English speaker (born/brought up in NZ, lived in London for 20 years).
"Fair on.." is a natural expression for me (though not to the total exclusion of "fair to..", which also has its place). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| misslanguages Diglot Senior Member France fluent-language.blog Joined 4628 days ago 190 posts - 217 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 32 of 43 21 August 2011 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Do people really do that? Wow, that's a bit sad. I mean, there is such a thing as "fake it till you make it" but that's just pathetic.
I believe in being honest at all times. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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