Hey everyone,
I've got this question on the back of my mind that I've been wanting to ask for a long time.
I was born in England (To a Dutch dad and a Dutch mum)
but moved to Netherlands back when I was three years old toddler.
I never been to England since.Everyone in here says that my nativity language would be Dutch because I speak it much better(my English got a bit worn down) and because both my parents are Dutch.
When I first started to talk I spoke sort of mixing Dutch-English.
Would you call me an English native speaker?
Although in language acquisition terms you're probably truly bilingual, i.e. you had a second language before the age of 11.
I can only judge you by that post. From the looks of it, you aren't quite as good as I would expect a native English speaker to be.
I can´t be sure, but I suppose one can be a native speaker of a language even if he/she speaks it with some grammatical mistakes or pronunciation disparities to that ´claimed´ native/mother tongue. Right?
Elizabeth:
Are you a British citizen or only Dutch?
Simon,
Thankes,I never thought about it that way.I guess you're right.
Someone,
Sure I won't speak it like a native speaker would.I used it only on my first years.Like I said on my first post my English got worn down as a result of un-utilization.My question was more about the offical side of the matter. Whither I'm officaly considered to be an English native speaker like an american or a British would.
Antonio,
I have no idea whatsoever what my citizenship in England would be.
As far as I know British citizen could have one citizenship only(British).
In Netherlands on some cases (Like mine) a person can hold two citizenships.So in here I've got two citizenships and two passports.Though I'm not sure that if I'll move to England they'll consider me as a British or an European civilian.
Elizabeth..I think your English is really good, whether you consider yourself to be a native English speaker or not. As Someone said though, there is a hint in your construction that English is not your main language now. You can take comfort from the fact that a lot of UK born people speak English very badly and rules of grammar fly out of the window. I am at uni and I have met students from all over the world and believe me they often speak English better than we do. I'm sure that is the case with other nationalities where the native speakers lapse into colloquialisms and idioms but foreigners speak standard forms of language.
Elizabeth..I think your English is really good, whether you consider yourself to be a native English speaker or not. As Someone said though, there is a hint in your construction that English is not your main language now. You can take comfort from the fact that a lot of UK born people speak English very badly and rules of grammar fly out of the window. I am at uni and I have met students from all over the world and believe me they often speak English better than we do. I'm sure that is the case with other nationalities where the native speakers lapse into colloquialisms and idioms but foreigners speak standard forms of language.
Antonio: citizens of the United Kingdom (whether from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) have British nationality. All passports have on the front: "European Union United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"
I can give you a similar example. My father was born in Budapest and came to the U.S. when he was 4 years old. At that time he spoke Hungarian only, so Hungarian was his native language. In the U.S. he learned English very quickly and was always fluent and grammatical when speaking it.
However, in adult life he never spoke with other Hungarians much, so he began to forget the language. Other people in my family told me that he could not speak it properly (i.e. he could not create grammatical constructs properly), although when Hungarian was spoken to him he could understand it completely.
If your situation were identical to that, I would say your native language is English, but your primary language is Dutch. However, you say "When I first started to talk I spoke sort of mixing Dutch-English". So, your first language was a mixture of the two. In that case, since English was never spoken exclusive of Dutch, I would be inclined to say your native language is Dutch!
Damian,
Thanks.I think the reason foreigners speak better somtimes is that they take a lot more notice to grammatical rules while native speakers don't think much before they talk,it just come natural for them.
Dulcinea del Toboso,
I'm not quite extreme as your dad (My grammar is not perfect but I can
create grammatical constructs properly.Not all the time that is).
But unlike your father I did had a use for English :
I've learnt it in school as a second language(Even though the level of those classes was very poor,they helped me to refresh a bit my English).
Another thing I want to ask is if I were to go to the Usa to study in a university should I do the TOFL exam?My boyfriend has.He told me it's really easy exam but don't I have any privilege of un-doing it as one who was born in the UK?Or maybe because of the fact I grew up and lived most of my life in a none English speaker country abolish my privilege as one that was born in England?
I think that if the language of instruction at your secondary/high school or current university is/was not English, then you probably need to take the TOEFL. That was the requirement at the university in Sweden, where I applied to an MA program taught in English. Before applying to college (university) in the US, American students take the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and I imagine that foreign students wishing to study in the US take the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language).