| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183] > | Should “native language” claims be verified? Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
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| I have absolutely no personal interest in this verification or non-verification | Jul 28, 2012 |
Just the approach is basically funny, and it looks like a kindergarden kind of thing. What would the L1 of the thread starter be? Have you ever thought about it? Malaysian? Portuguese?I have spent over three quarters of my life in an English speaking country, learned English at the age of three, and have spoken it for most of my life. Both of university degrees (one in creative writing) are in English and this is the only language in which I ever worked, not just as a translator but in litigatio... See more Just the approach is basically funny, and it looks like a kindergarden kind of thing. What would the L1 of the thread starter be? Have you ever thought about it? Malaysian? Portuguese?I have spent over three quarters of my life in an English speaking country, learned English at the age of three, and have spoken it for most of my life. Both of university degrees (one in creative writing) are in English and this is the only language in which I ever worked, not just as a translator but in litigation, creating pleading for the United States courts and writing newspaper articles. I have works published in English, and of course, English is my native language, even if my mother spoke mostly Polish to me when I was a baby. Polish is another one of course, as well, although I could not write dissertations in it. I could translate a dissertation from Polish, or Russian, in some fields related to my education, but not the other way around. My father was a native speaker of Lithuanian, yet I don't claim Lithuanian as my only native language based on my father.
[Edited at 2012-07-28 17:06 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ty Kendall 
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:31
Hebrew to English
| I'm glad you find deceit on a "professional" site funny | Jul 28, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
Just the approach is basically funny
It's not really a laughing matter in my opinion. Although as a non-paying member, I suppose you aren't as invested in the site.
What would the L1 of the thread starter be? Have you ever thought about it? Malaysian? Portuguese?
I might question her L1 if her posts frequently contained (non-native) errors, even the slightest errors...but they don't....so I've not been given a reason to question her L1.
Both of university degrees (one in creative writing) are in English
This is the kind of thing that makes people question an L1 claim.
Also, having a degree in a language is in no way evidence of being native in it.
Edited to be less harsh.
[Edited at 2012-07-28 20:45 GMT]
| | | | Nuno Rosalino
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:31
Member (2012)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| Kindergarten indeed. | Jul 28, 2012 |
Ty Kendall wrote: Both of university degrees (one in creative writing) are in English This is the kind of thing that makes people question an L1 claim. Also, having a degree in a language is in no way evidence of being native in it. Quoted before it was edited to be less harsh, edited to reflect the new degree of harshness. [Edited at 2012-07-28 20:45 GMT]
And, if memory serves, you messed up your your's and your you're's, your reign's and your rein's and I'm sure you've made plenty other mistakes, those are just the ones that come to mind; but, oh, I forgot - when you make mistakes they're "performance" mistakes - when other people make mistakes they're immediately not who they claim to be, the liars.. - I mean, they HAVE to be lying, right?..they made a mistake, they're surely not native!
Let me quote Mr. Jon Stewart here - "Mr. Romney, hanging your attack on a person's slight grammatical misstep is what people do in an argument when they're completely f----d and they know they have no argument."
Seriously, play the ball, not the man (or, in this case, woman).
[Edited at 2012-07-28 22:37 GMT]
| | | | | I am not questioning Lisa's native language | Jul 28, 2012 |
I am just surprised that a person born in a non-English speaking country, whose mother's L1 is unknown, would start this kind of a tread. No, Ty, I don't have any higher education really in any other language than English. There might have been one course or two at one of the universities where I studied in another language, but the language of instruction was English. I lived in English-speaking country before that, and basically I haven't written anything more serious in a language other than ... See more I am just surprised that a person born in a non-English speaking country, whose mother's L1 is unknown, would start this kind of a tread. No, Ty, I don't have any higher education really in any other language than English. There might have been one course or two at one of the universities where I studied in another language, but the language of instruction was English. I lived in English-speaking country before that, and basically I haven't written anything more serious in a language other than English, except Swedish, perhaps, since the age of fifteen. So, I just wanted to stress is again that you cannot really go by any simplistic definitions of a native language. Most of the people I know who moved from Russia or Poland at the age of ten or fifteen, don't usually even speak their L1 well. I speak many languages well because I love them. See, I am really a fully multilingual person, because even my parents and grandparents spoke a few different languages. The problem of a native language in the American society, and probably in other societies as well, is a very complex one. What would be the native language of some children who were born in the United States, but their mothers just spoke Spanish, or another language. There are a lot of children like that. I personally think, that the native language criteria should all together abandoned. Clients can ask specific questions before they make a decision who the job should go to. As a general criterium, it does not make that much sense. From a certain point of view, my Russian is even better than my Polish - especially with regard to legal language, which I have specifically studied for years. I mostly translate from Russian. I know Russian literature much better than Polish. And Lithuanian, I really love, but my more practical from a professional point of view legal or business vocabulary is really limited.
I only like one solution to this problem, that people should be allowed to declare as many languages as they want to, but they could be asked to explain briefly why they consider the languages their native -- just like one sentence. My mother spoke X, my primary eduction is in Y, my higher education is in Z, I have lived most of my life where X is spoken. I have only worked in places where Z was used, etc. I have best writing skills in X. I have the best accent in X and Z.(this might be important for voiceovers).
[Edited at 2012-07-28 21:20 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| verification welcome | Jul 28, 2012 |
Angie Garbarino wrote:
I'd be glad to be verified, as in fact I am not, (see my 2 languages in grey)
I did not indicate English as my native language, so... am I forgiven in case of mistakes? I hope so...
Thank you, Angie, for confirming that there are indeed native speakers of two languages who welcome verification.
B
[Edited at 2012-07-28 23:14 GMT]
| | | | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 14:31
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| Errors and mistakes (again) | Jul 29, 2012 |
Nuno Rosalino wrote:
And, if memory serves, you messed up your your's and your you're's, your reign's and your rein's and I'm sure you've made plenty other mistakes, those are just the ones that come to mind; but, oh, I forgot - when you make mistakes they're "performance" mistakes - when other people make mistakes they're immediately not who they claim to be, the liars.. - I mean, they HAVE to be lying, right?..they made a mistake, they're surely not native!
These are the types of mistakes (spelling and punctuation mistakes) commonly made by native speakers. Spelling and punctuation are learned at school, not learned naturally as part of acquiring a native language.
| | | | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 14:31
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
Nuno Rosalino wrote:
Let me quote Mr. Jon Stewart here - "Mr. Romney, hanging your attack on a person's slight grammatical misstep is what people do in an argument when they're completely f----d and they know they have no argument."
Except, of course, when grammaticality, and the ability to produce output that is judged by native speakers to be grammatical, is central to the subject being discussed.
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 05:31
Chinese to English
| Must stop feeding the troll | Jul 29, 2012 |
Not helpful at this point.
@Charlie
I don't really see the point of extra sanctions on people who fail a native test. They just don't get to declare native in that language again. This goes back to a point I made to you earlier - for a threat to be effective, it has to be widely understood and feared. I don't think either will be true in this case.
My version: declare language Q to be native, and you get a very obviously "unverified" native sign. This nativ... See more Not helpful at this point.
@Charlie
I don't really see the point of extra sanctions on people who fail a native test. They just don't get to declare native in that language again. This goes back to a point I made to you earlier - for a threat to be effective, it has to be widely understood and feared. I don't think either will be true in this case.
My version: declare language Q to be native, and you get a very obviously "unverified" native sign. This native sign would allow you to bid on Q-native only jobs. You have to do the test within Z time (couple of months?). If you pass, your language goes a beautiful salmon pink; if you fail, you lose it altogether. One retest would be allowed after a certain time (sometimes things go wrong). Before test 2, you would not be allowed to declare language Q. If you fail test two, you're never allowed to declare or test in language Q again.
My favoured test is still the write X words in 20 minutes thing that I've written up a couple of times - have any better suggestions been made?
As for the cost:
My version of the test is 300 words long. How much does that cost to get proofread? About 10 quid? Plus a little extra for processing... 12 GBP? 15 GBP? ▲ Collapse
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Andy Watkinson
Spain
Local time: 23:31
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
| Linguistics vs. genetics | Jul 29, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
100% native speaker would be someone from a group of the kind Chomsky used in his studies -- totally separated from any other linguistic group; who would have no access to TV or radio. This would be a 100% native language -- (...)"
Yep, you take away an Indo-European's Cable&Sat TV and H. Stern and they all go postal, BabelFish style.
Pity about the Hittites.
Making frequent reference to having a knowledge of "linguistics" and to our good friend Noam fail to impress even the most uninformed, I would expect.
(And as a fluent speaker of pirahã, all this recursion business is a load of billiards).
The question as put was purely linguistic, but you choose to reply with genetics. (DNA?).
On a not so different note, much has been said re: judging "native" quality on the very basis of forum posts, amongst other forms of "evidence".
How would you (plural) judge the "nativeness" of the language used in these 1,000+ posts by those reluctant to verification and how "convincing" they actually sound?
| | | | Nuno Rosalino
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:31
Member (2012)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| But I'm hungry! =[ (hardly trolling though.. more like white knighting) | Jul 29, 2012 |
Michele Fauble wrote: Nuno Rosalino wrote:
Let me quote Mr. Jon Stewart here - "Mr. Romney, hanging your attack on a person's slight grammatical misstep is what people do in an argument when they're completely f----d and they know they have no argument."
Except, of course, when grammaticality, and the ability to produce output that is judged by native speakers to be grammatical, is central to the subject being discussed.
Ah! I didn't realize that since grammaticality was central to the issue at hand that we were encouraged to actually just focus on each and every little mistake, omission and typo made by those with views opposite to our own.
Are you actually defending this type of behaviour? Is this how you honestly think a serious, mature discussion should take place?
"Hey, you forgot a 'my' in your sentence! Neener neener, you lose!"
Michele Fauble wrote:
These are the types of mistakes (spelling and punctuation mistakes) commonly made by native speakers. Spelling and punctuation are learned at school, not learned naturally as part of acquiring a native language.
I assume no native has ever accidentally omitted a word in a forum post then, eh? Anyway, my point was more along the lines of “Let he who is without sin..” – it wasn’t about the classification of mistakes. And yes, I do realize and understand that there’s a difference between systematic mistakes committed by non-natives and sporadic mistakes made by natives – no one was questioning that.
Phil Hand wrote:
Not helpful at this point.
Fair point, my apologies for the derailment. Won’t happen again sir! If you want to continue this little side discussion Michele (or whoever else), feel free to PM me.
[Edited at 2012-07-29 03:36 GMT]
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:31
Hebrew to English
Nuno Rosalino wrote:
I do realize and understand that there’s a difference between systematic mistakes committed by non-natives and sporadic mistakes made by natives – no one was questioning that.
Could have fooled me.
(Hope there's no typos in there for you to pounce on!).
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:31
Hebrew to English
| Time to get off that horse | Jul 29, 2012 |
Nuno Rosalino wrote:
I assume no native has ever accidentally omitted a word in a forum post then
It's not really about the odd omission though is it.
.....
• Interesting use of articles
It is not really like you can get a free membership - it is more for the prestige reasons
• Confused idioms/fixed phrases:
I don't think anybody in sound mind was ever taking machine translation seriously.
(should either be: “of sound mind” or “in their right mind”:
• Weird collocations:
I only translated books written by alive authors.
I'm sure you can appreciate this, as someone who "understands the systematic mistakes committed by non-natives and sporadic mistakes made by natives", that these kind of mistakes represent someone who isn't truly native in a language; someone who hasn't really mastered it, even if they have lived in country "x" for a very long time.
The fact that I, or any other native speaker makes a few typos and slip-ups (sporadic ones - of course ) is not really an excuse to excuse the above and to allow non-native speakers to declare themselves "native" when it patently isn't so.
Edited for formatting.
[Edited at 2012-07-29 05:51 GMT]
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Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 03:01
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Some examples | Jul 29, 2012 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
In that it was used in the present tense by Angie originally:
"I am under the impression".
Since this expression essentially means believing an incorrect assumption (which at some point afterwards was revealed to be incorrect) using it in the present in the first person is a bit odd as it is like saying "I believe..[something]...which is probably or will later be shown to be a false assumption" (which is possible, but not usual).
It's less strange in the 3rd person in the present (He is under the impression that....) as you are then commenting on the person's lack of awareness (he is under the impression that his wife is faithful) i.e. he doesn't know otherwise.
When it is used in the first person it is most commonly used with simple past (I was under the impression that....) which implies "I" was later enlightened i.e. I was under the impression my wife was faithful,...then I walked in and found her with my best mate!
So, yes, Phil was initially correct, there was something a bit off about the way Angie used it, it wasn't completely incorrect, it just needed a different tense which is why I believe Charlie approved of its use there, it doesn't strike one as particularly out of place initially, but it definitely needs to be shunted back a tense.
Here are some random examples, I could quickly spot by googling where "I am under the impression" is used by arguably native speakers of English:
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-2Doc-c11-19.html
It may not of course be possible to apply this rule to all the Railway units, but your ‘possibility (iii)’1 corresponds with what has been discussed and approved in Parliament. I am under the impression, however, that some of the Railway units were composed of volunteers recruited for their special task, in which case there may be difficulties in using them for divisional units. Actually their return to New Zealand might be advisable owing to the present very serious manpower difficulties which the Railways are experiencing at a time when petrol and rubber restrictions have thrown large additional burdens upon them.
(report by one of Churchill’s aides.)
http://crosspointliterature.wikispaces.com/Chapter%204
Wolfsheim seems pretty sketchy. I don't like him. I think Fitzgerald puts him in the plot here to make readers question what is really going on. I am under the impression that Jordan Baker isn't truthful, because on p. 58 it says "She was incurably dishonest." Gatsby seems like an honest man. It doesn't directly say he is honest, but I have a good feeling about him. --Brenna.
http://bigreaders.myfastforum.org/archive/anthony-trollope.__o_t__t_211.html
I am reading Can you Forgive Her? the first of Trollope’s Palliser novels. I am under the impression that Trollope is considered a tier below the first-ranked 19th century novelists like Dickens, Austen and Thackeray, but I am not altogether sure why. I really like him and very much enjoyed the two Barchester novels I read a couple of years ago. I am uncertain why these were not studied when I was at university, where we did those mentioned as well as Fielding, Swift, Richardson, etc. (but not Sterne).
(an informal post in a literary forum)
http://lesel-britishliterature3.blogspot.in/2010/12/week-8-sketches-by-boz-dickens.html
The idea of the rich looking down on the poor is another common theme running through Dicken's piece. It seems as though every Chapter contains individual's or families that are poor and in distress. Thinking back, I am under the impression that Dicken's uses the same elements in many of his texts because A Christmas Carol contains somewhat of the same theme idea;
(from a blog)
[2012-07-29 09:44 GMT पर संपादन हुआ]
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 03:01
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | This raises the question of international languages again | Jul 29, 2012 |
Angie Garbarino wrote: I read this thread (well not all the pages) and I am under the impression that some people are not sure to be able to spot a non native... I wonder why?, No irony intended, really, mine is a purely linguistic question as I'd be able to spot a non native Italian or French after one written line or 5 spoken words. I can also provide examples Did you spot me not? Really interested in your answers for linguistic reasons only. Ciao! A. [Edited at 2012-07-19 21:57 GMT]
It may be easy in the case of Italian, but with languages like English, French, Arabic, Spanish, etc., which are spoken across the globe, you can encounter people way off from the original geographical locations of these languages who handle these languages to perfection.
Which is why to a large number of people, nativeness in a languages (defined narrowly by residence in the original geographical area of the language) doesn't make much sense.
| | | | | Honestly, as far as English is concerned | Jul 29, 2012 |
I don't think 90% of Americans could tell if somebody is a British English native speaker or if the person is from another country and just has a very good command of the language. I have never heard about any nativeness tests, other than the DNA tests, if you wanted to trace your ancestry, but that has nothing to do with linguistics, and it is not even done for other reasons than to trace migrations. Some anthropologists do it, for purely scientific reasons -- not to prove someone's nativeness ... See more I don't think 90% of Americans could tell if somebody is a British English native speaker or if the person is from another country and just has a very good command of the language. I have never heard about any nativeness tests, other than the DNA tests, if you wanted to trace your ancestry, but that has nothing to do with linguistics, and it is not even done for other reasons than to trace migrations. Some anthropologists do it, for purely scientific reasons -- not to prove someone's nativeness or lack thereof. If you had do prove any nativeness when applying for any job in the United States and the employer asked you to prove some kind of nativeness, he would be not only laughed at but he also could be sued for discrimination. Of course a person with a very strong, strange accent, let's say, would not get a job as an announcer at any TV show, but someone with a squeaky voice, would not get it either. This kind of categorization of people would lead to pure discrimination in the long run. The only criterion should be if the person could do the job -- whether he or she has relevant language skills and education, and not what language their parents spoke.
I am quite surprised with another thing -- why some people don't declare a second native language of the country where they have grown up almost from day one, and continued living there for half of a century. How is that even possible? A child picks up the most, especially as far as accent is concerned, during the first few years of his life. Grammar and usage are slightly different issues. Such a child would really have to live in isolation not to be considered a native speaker of the language spoken all around.
I don't know which way it happens that people learn a second language at an older age because I learned most of the languages by the age of 6, except Spanish and Swedish, which I learned one as a teenager and the other one at about the age of twenty -- Spanish but I still have a very good Spanish accent, and the grammar has never seemed hard to learn.
[Edited at 2012-07-29 07:32 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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