AS Grades not good enough??

so ur telling me that my friend from HK who has lived in england all his life, but spoke only cantonese to his parents until he went to school, and continued to speak only cantonese to his family all thru school, but now has english every bit as good as mine is not a "native speaker"... I think he might be. I view it as a standard, rather than arising purely out of when and how you learnt it.

Reply 24

bryan

10

Lewisy-boy

so ur telling me that my friend from HK who has lived in england all his life, but spoke only cantonese to his parents until he went to school, and continued to speak only cantonese to his family all thru school, but now has english every bit as good as mine is not a "native speaker"... I think he might be. I view it as a standard, rather than arising purely out of when and how you learnt it.

not to be rude, but frankly it is not up to you to decide what the definition of "native speaker" is. i have already cited the defintion of "native speaker" from two reputable dictionaries and their definition is quite different from yours.

Reply 25

I'm just voicing my opinion over what it meant to the OP in this context... although I don't agree with this definition being so strict and narrow.

Reply 26

Lewisy-boy

so ur telling me that my friend from HK who has lived in england all his life, but spoke only cantonese to his parents until he went to school, and continued to speak only cantonese to his family all thru school, but now has english every bit as good as mine is not a "native speaker"

That is exactly the case. He's just very fluent in it. He's not a native speaker of English as it is not his Mother Tongue (i.e. the language that he learnt first). If tomorrow I decided that I wanted to learn Spanish and practised every day for ten years to a point where I was completely fluent, that wouldn't make me a native speaker, would it?

Interesting to find this debate in the Law forum. :p:

Reply 27

It would give you the same standard of speech as a native speaker, so why the hell not? Are you saying that when filling in job applications he is not allowed to put English down as native standard rather than just fluent? I don't think so.

Reply 28

Lewisy-boy

It would give you the same standard of speech as a native speaker, so why the hell not? Are you saying that when filling in job applications he is not allowed to put English down as native standard rather than just fluent? I don't think so.

There's a difference between being of the same standard of a native speaker and actually being a native speaker. Native speaker is a relatively objective term. You could be native speaker and still not have a terribly good grasp of the language. It applies to the language you learned first, no matter what level you are at.

Anyway, this is a pointless debate so I shan't be adding any more to it.

Reply 29

Yeah I agree... I am undoubtedly wrong, was just seeing how far I could push people :wink:

. At the end of the day it comes down to standard, as the above poster said.

Reply 30

a_t

16

Lewisy-boy

hence why im trying to learn mandarin, which is confusing the hell out of me lol).

Me too lol, characters are realllly hard :s-smilie:

Hopefully my 6 months in China will help but even so. Apparently kids there can't read newspapers till their teens because its so hard! Luckily already have one asian language though since I'm fluent in Hindi.

Reply 31

a_t

Me too lol, characters are realllly hard :s-smilie:

Hopefully my 6 months in China will help but even so. Apparently kids there can't read newspapers till their teens because its so hard! Luckily already have one asian language though since I'm fluent in Hindi.

I learnt Mandarin for a year. Can't remember any of it at all.

This was last year...

Reply 32

a_t

16

TommehR

I learnt Mandarin for a year. Can't remember any of it at all.

This was last year...

Yeah I did a course and all I remember is ni hao

Reply 33

a_t

Yeah I did a course and all I remember is ni hao

And "Ni jiao shen me ming zi?"

Reply 34