Up until a few months ago, I would have thought that a "native speaker" would have been the best person at speaking a particular language.

If you look at some job advertisements in some countries, you might see stuff like "Must be a native speaker of English".

About a month ago, I met a fella here in Lao called Barry (name changed). When I first met him, I thought he was American. Later I found out that he was German, turns out he had spent a lot of time around Americans.

When speaking with native English speakers, I tend not to analyse their speech. After I found out Barry was German though, for fun I started analysing the things he said. He has all the slang and expressions that Americans use, but one day I was particularly impressed when he said to me, "After you've been here a month or two, you will have met everyone in this place", which showed a complete mastery over the tenses in English, and he said it effortlessly without pausing for a second to stick the words together properly.

Barry is 20 years old and he came from Germany to Thailand about a year and a half ago. While in Thailand, he spent a lot of time around Americans and he picked up the slang and the accent. Of course at the same time he was exposed to the Thai language, and he tells me it took him about 3 months to become fluent in Thai (without any formal schooling).

Our "native language" is the language we pick up as a baby from listening to people around us. In what must be one of the most haphazard learning processes of our life, we slowly step by step gain the ability to communicate expressively in our native language.

Now forgive me to be blunt here, but babies are stupid. You always here people harking on about how babies and young people have a "special talent" for picking up languages, but that's really a load of nonsense. Babies are stupid, but the key to their success is their lack of impatience, their willingness to blindly imitate, and also their necessity to communicate.

When people grow up though, it seems some people but not all people lose some of these faculties. When I was in college, I had a lecturer (who had a PhD by the way) who had been living in Ireland for 30 years. Now if someone has a PhD, it's pretty obvious that learning isn't a problem for them. However, for some reason, this particular man, even after 30 years of living in Ireland, still sounded Arabic, and also didn't do any proper inflection, e.g. "two dog", "the boy run home". Also, at times he seemed to just misunderstand people, like he'd answer "Yes" to a non-boolean question such as "What time is it?". So, OK, I think it's fair to say that some people lose the ability to learn languages. But then you have people who go in the total opposite direction and are able to learn languages faster and more effectively than a baby, and I'm not talking about savants here either, I'm talking about a pretty decent percentage of human population.

So here we have Barry, who after a year or so of being around Americans, is indistinguishable from another American. I'd even go further to say that he's better than a native speaker of English. I'll elaborate on this, but first here's a little intro:

I grew up in a working class area in Dublin. At some stage in my life, I developed two ways of speaking English -- one for speaking to working-class people, and another for speaking to intellectual people. For instance, if I'm speaking to working-class people, I'll say "The honey's real thick, like, it flows real slow like". However if I were to say the same thing to an intellectual person, I'd say "The honey's quite viscous".

In my life, speaking English, it's a minority of people with whom I use my more "intellectual" speech. When I first meet someone, I start off with basic speech, and then after a minute or two of speaking to them, if I get the feeling they're smart, I'll start using more expressive language, more extensive vocabulary. One word I particularly like in English is "ambiguous" and also "intelligible", but I don't use these words straight away because I know the majority of people won't understand me (or at least will feel uncomfortable talking to me). With most native speakers of English, I use my more basic speech.

So having being introduced to Barry, I figured the guy must be pretty intellectual, or at least smart. I hadn't been talking to him for long before I started to use more extensive vocabulary, and so it turned out that his ability to communicate in English was better than that of your average native English speaker. Also, he spoke with an American accent and all his inflections were perfect.

So anyway that's the point I want to get across: It's possible to learn a language and become better than a native speaker (or at least the average native speaker).

But then of course you have the people who are just plain hopeless at learning a language. Here in Lao, people joke that the best way to learn to speak Lao is to go up North where people speak no English at all. In such a situation, you'd literally have to point at stuff and make hand motions, then you'd probably here the native person say the appropriate word, and out of pure desperation and necessity, you'd pick up the language, and I'd say everyone is capable of this.

However when you're in a situation where you can, even to a small extent, cheat by using your own language, you'd be surprised how little a person can learn! For instance, I know a fella who's being living here in Lao for six years and he probably knows about 20 Lao words, and they're mostly to do with alcohol and cigarettes (there's desperation and necessity for you!). Also he speaks all these words with his native English accent.

The ability babies have to pick up a language, an accent, and to develop perfect inflection, isn't quite as special as some people make it out to be. In fact, what I think is "special" is how some people lose this ability altogether as they grow older. There's plenty of people who are better than babies at picking up a language.

One day Barry was talking about getting a job teaching English but he said to me that everywhere's looking for a native speaker of English. My response to him: "Tell them you're a native speaker". I said to him he should say that his parents are German but he was born and grew up in England, something along those lines, because the fact of the matter is that this German non-native-speaker-of-English has better English than most of the people teaching English out here! Plus the guy is 100% fluent in Lao so he'd be perfect for teaching English to Lao people.

Since this is a discussion forum, I take it you are leaving your points open to comment. So here goes:

" I had a lecturer"

Never mind lads like that. Sometimes some of them are so enamored by their status in life (as university lecturers) that it would make them feel insecure for too long to go and be the novice for a few years, till they learn the tongue. Anyway, most foreigners in 'special' positions like university positions overseas that are older in age (say over 40 and especially unmarried) are very odd jokers. Take my advice, Tomás, and stay away from them (you probably have met some already)


" his ability to communicate in English was better than that of your average native English speaker"

Ability to communicate involves more than just words, (such as phrases based on context, style, word valence, speaking in a way that suits the audience, making the other person receptive to listening). Being a native is no guarantee of that (I should know...)


"I'd say "The honey's quite viscous". "

I'd say outside of physics, engineering, and cooking, 'thick' is good enough! Plus, for me, 'viscous' has the sense of 'a liquid slow to run', which is why it selects it's own contexts almost, i.e. ice-cream is technically 'viscous' but since per how culture has developed the dish, we expect it to stay still, and not move. When it does move freely, it is now merely cream


"he's better than a native speaker of English"

He may have a greater mastery of the higher registrars that you so prize, but I would take the opposite view -it is harder to match native colloquial speech for the simple reason linguistic communities tend to have common histories -mention 'Button moon' or even 'Joe 90' or 'Speed Racer' to him and he may or may not get the reference. He may know one of the above, but not all. (In fact you may not even know the first unless you watch British TV as a kid). Over time you will find some area he lacks. Logically, he could never know all the histories, all the idiom, or what toy was cool across the English speaking world in 1988 etc etc etc. It may be referenced but once in 6 years, but all natives might get it. It could be argued that higher registrars involving common scientific ideas are more international and so the language involving them easier to acquire for more pople than the more localized speech of regions, cities and rural areas

Tomás - There seems to be some degree of scientific agreement that there are connections in the human brain that are present as a baby and literally (and observably) shut down permanently around age five...all of the things you mention that make it easier for a baby to learn a language are true and do have quite an effect, but they are not the whole story.


"However when you're in a situation where you can, even to a small extent, cheat by using your own language, you'd be surprised how little a person can learn!"

Absolutely true, this is why my students who are native Spanish speakers struggle more and quite possibly never fully reach the level you're describing regarding your German friend.

Bearn - Gotta say, though, pop-culture references aren't the stuff of a native speaker. I am a native speaker of english, and only got "Speed Racer" precisely due to the reason you gave...that being said, an immigrant who gre up in your neighborhood during the time you were a child *would* get the references I didn't...

A Thomáis, a chara, scríobh tú i mBéarla briste:

You always here people harking on...
then you'd probably here the native person say...

hear, a chara, hear.

...he said to me that everywhere's looking for a native speaker...

I would say "...everywhere they're looking..." although I could be wrong.

Ach níl ná mo Bhéarla 100% cliste.