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> a very long way from a native speaker uh....this guy's English is really excellent. it may be distinguishable from a native speaker by occasional poor phrasi

> a very long way from a native speaker uh....this guy's English is really excellent. it may be distinguishable from a native speaker by occasional poor phrasing or misuse of words, but it's really, really good. i think your criticism is overblown.

Baeocystin 9y ago
No it isn't, and you are not doing him any favors by saying otherwise. His usage is at a level I would consider intermediate at best. FearNotDaniel's assessment is accurate. There is no shame in not being 100% fluent. I'm multi-semi-lingual, in that I can read a newspaper, shop at a store, etc. in several languages. But I am only fluent in English. When I speak something else, my friends will frequently correct me. I appreciate it, because that is the only way to improve.
- fenomas 9y ago
  > His usage is at a level I would consider intermediate at best. ... There is no shame in not being 100% fluent. Your notions about language proficiency are wildly out of whack. The speaker you're talking about is clearly articulating their ideas, coherently and without (one presumes) halting or grasping. That's fluency.
  - Baeocystin 9y ago
    You don't have to agree with me, and that is OK. But my opinion is based off of experience. You might be interested in http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale5.htm http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale5.htm as an example of the scales used when defining levels of competency.
    - fenomas 9y ago
      I'm sure you meant this reply to be constructive, but without describing the experience in question or saying which category from your link you think applies here, it doesn't convey anything. For me, my experience is two years as an English teacher and my opinion based on that experience is that someone who can convey complex ideas clearly and without effort is fluent. If you define that to be intermediate, what's left for "fluent" to mean?
      - Baeocystin 9y ago
        Thank you for the friendly reply. Here is the ILR page regarding spoken language, which may be more what you had in mind: http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm Based on the criteria given, I would estimate that his English writing ability is ~2+. Without hearing him speak, I can't properly assess. Perhaps a 3. None of this is a criticism or a put down. Achieving this degree of competency in a second or third language takes a great deal of work over a long time, and is something to be proud of. But true fluency happens at level 4 and above. (My father was a professional linguist and diplomat, and I spent much of my pre-adult life living in different non-English-speaking countries. I say this just so you know where I am coming from. I also want to spread awareness of what the various professional standards of fluency are.)
        fenomas 9y ago
        Thank you in kind, and I understand where you're coming from, but I still think the standard you're applying is pretty far removed from normal. Separate from any subjective rankings, the person describes having been educated solely in English for 6+ years, and from context appears to have been actively speaking it for at least 15-20 years overall. If one ranks that as intermediate, one winds up calling someone with 10 years experience a beginner, and such absurdities. As for subjective rankings, I'm more familiar with CEFR, under which I see no obvious reason not to rank this person C1 or C2, which is what one would expect for someone with more than 800-1000 hours of study. CEFR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
        Baeocystin 9y ago
        > If one ranks that as intermediate, one winds up calling someone with 10 years experience a beginner, and such absurdities. I'm sure you are aware of people that have spent decades+ in an English-speaking environment, yet still speak in a stilted manner. Time alone isn't enough- you need active correction. A few folks are able to self-correct via listening, but almost everyone does best with regular instruction by qualified teachers. Thank you for the CEFR link. Part of the problem with English in particular (I am sure you are aware of this, I am just stating it for other readers) is that the number of ESL speakers exceeds the native population. This rather unusual case means that many learners are receiving instruction from English speakers who themselves are not fluent, compounding the error. From a strictly academic standpoint, it is fascinating tracing the growth of all the different flavors of English (some mutually unintelligible) but it does present certain practical difficulties in communication!
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- aerovistae 9y ago
  What a ridiculous comment. Intermediate? I just don't even know what to say.
stordoff 9y ago
The guy's English _is_ excellent (100% intelligible and reads fine), but there can still be a long way between excellent/"functional fluency" and a native speaker. A native speaker wouldn't say "I'm exposed to English when I'm ~4 yo" (they would say "I _was_ exposed..." or "I've been exposed... since...") or capitalise "Job". Small things in the grand scheme of things, but they make it fairly obvious it's a non-native speaker.
- bayindirh 9y ago
  Thanks for your comments. I generally write at the speed of thought, and don't read my comments for a second time to correct my errors. These tense changes happen when I change the structure of the comment in my head in the real time, and don't revisit the beginning of the sentence to align things back. When I read them for the second time after I send, I spot the errors, but don't always correct them since they are online and intended people possibly read the comment already. Maybe I should write a little slower while commenting, and read again before sending.
beojan 9y ago
> I'm exposed to English when I'm ~4 yo, and started to learn it at 7. It's not. He didn't even use the right tense in the first clause. It should be: I've been exposed to English since I was 4 years old, and started to learn it at 7. His English is certainly perfectly understandable, but also 'a very long way from a native speaker'.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> uh....this guy's English is really excellent. It has very good vocabulary, but a whole lot of verb tense and subject-verb disagreement errors, and use of the wrong parts of speech in ways which are (especially combined with the excellent vocabulary) very emblematic of a non-native English speaker who either learned late or learned early but had much of their use of English with other non-native speakers. Now, it's very good for someone with either of those backgrounds (and much better than my command of any language that isn't English), but the upthread comment that it is very far from that of a native speaker is spot on.
petraeus 9y ago
Let me see, if nine out of 10 people asses this poster as having non-fluent english and 1/10 seem to think he is fluent, the most resonable explanation is that there are now 2 people who are not fluent in english. Stop trying to grasp at straws, it quite clear the poster is not a native english speaker nor does he fool fluent speakers.
- aerovistae 9y ago
  I never said he was a native speaker, did I?

Baeocystin 9y ago

No it isn't, and you are not doing him any favors by saying otherwise. His usage is at a level I would consider intermediate at best. FearNotDaniel's assessment is accurate. There is no shame in not being 100% fluent. I'm multi-semi-lingual, in that I can read a newspaper, shop at a store, etc. in several languages. But I am only fluent in English. When I speak something else, my friends will frequently correct me. I appreciate it, because that is the only way to improve.

fenomas 9y ago
> His usage is at a level I would consider intermediate at best. ... There is no shame in not being 100% fluent. Your notions about language proficiency are wildly out of whack. The speaker you're talking about is clearly articulating their ideas, coherently and without (one presumes) halting or grasping. That's fluency.
- Baeocystin 9y ago
  You don't have to agree with me, and that is OK. But my opinion is based off of experience. You might be interested in http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale5.htm http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale5.htm as an example of the scales used when defining levels of competency.
  - fenomas 9y ago
    I'm sure you meant this reply to be constructive, but without describing the experience in question or saying which category from your link you think applies here, it doesn't convey anything. For me, my experience is two years as an English teacher and my opinion based on that experience is that someone who can convey complex ideas clearly and without effort is fluent. If you define that to be intermediate, what's left for "fluent" to mean?
    - Baeocystin 9y ago
      Thank you for the friendly reply. Here is the ILR page regarding spoken language, which may be more what you had in mind: http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm Based on the criteria given, I would estimate that his English writing ability is ~2+. Without hearing him speak, I can't properly assess. Perhaps a 3. None of this is a criticism or a put down. Achieving this degree of competency in a second or third language takes a great deal of work over a long time, and is something to be proud of. But true fluency happens at level 4 and above. (My father was a professional linguist and diplomat, and I spent much of my pre-adult life living in different non-English-speaking countries. I say this just so you know where I am coming from. I also want to spread awareness of what the various professional standards of fluency are.)
      - fenomas 9y ago
        Thank you in kind, and I understand where you're coming from, but I still think the standard you're applying is pretty far removed from normal. Separate from any subjective rankings, the person describes having been educated solely in English for 6+ years, and from context appears to have been actively speaking it for at least 15-20 years overall. If one ranks that as intermediate, one winds up calling someone with 10 years experience a beginner, and such absurdities. As for subjective rankings, I'm more familiar with CEFR, under which I see no obvious reason not to rank this person C1 or C2, which is what one would expect for someone with more than 800-1000 hours of study. CEFR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
        Baeocystin 9y ago
        > If one ranks that as intermediate, one winds up calling someone with 10 years experience a beginner, and such absurdities. I'm sure you are aware of people that have spent decades+ in an English-speaking environment, yet still speak in a stilted manner. Time alone isn't enough- you need active correction. A few folks are able to self-correct via listening, but almost everyone does best with regular instruction by qualified teachers. Thank you for the CEFR link. Part of the problem with English in particular (I am sure you are aware of this, I am just stating it for other readers) is that the number of ESL speakers exceeds the native population. This rather unusual case means that many learners are receiving instruction from English speakers who themselves are not fluent, compounding the error. From a strictly academic standpoint, it is fascinating tracing the growth of all the different flavors of English (some mutually unintelligible) but it does present certain practical difficulties in communication!
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
aerovistae 9y ago
What a ridiculous comment. Intermediate? I just don't even know what to say.

stordoff 9y ago

The guy's English _is_ excellent (100% intelligible and reads fine), but there can still be a long way between excellent/"functional fluency" and a native speaker. A native speaker wouldn't say "I'm exposed to English when I'm ~4 yo" (they would say "I _was_ exposed..." or "I've been exposed... since...") or capitalise "Job". Small things in the grand scheme of things, but they make it fairly obvious it's a non-native speaker.

bayindirh 9y ago
Thanks for your comments. I generally write at the speed of thought, and don't read my comments for a second time to correct my errors. These tense changes happen when I change the structure of the comment in my head in the real time, and don't revisit the beginning of the sentence to align things back. When I read them for the second time after I send, I spot the errors, but don't always correct them since they are online and intended people possibly read the comment already. Maybe I should write a little slower while commenting, and read again before sending.

beojan 9y ago

> I'm exposed to English when I'm ~4 yo, and started to learn it at 7. It's not. He didn't even use the right tense in the first clause. It should be: I've been exposed to English since I was 4 years old, and started to learn it at 7. His English is certainly perfectly understandable, but also 'a very long way from a native speaker'.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> uh....this guy's English is really excellent. It has very good vocabulary, but a whole lot of verb tense and subject-verb disagreement errors, and use of the wrong parts of speech in ways which are (especially combined with the excellent vocabulary) very emblematic of a non-native English speaker who either learned late or learned early but had much of their use of English with other non-native speakers. Now, it's very good for someone with either of those backgrounds (and much better than my command of any language that isn't English), but the upthread comment that it is very far from that of a native speaker is spot on.

petraeus 9y ago

Let me see, if nine out of 10 people asses this poster as having non-fluent english and 1/10 seem to think he is fluent, the most resonable explanation is that there are now 2 people who are not fluent in english. Stop trying to grasp at straws, it quite clear the poster is not a native english speaker nor does he fool fluent speakers.

aerovistae 9y ago
I never said he was a native speaker, did I?