| 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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Ty Kendall 
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:51
Hebrew to English
LilianBoland wrote:
If you want to experience it yourself, Ty, learn some Trondersk Norwegian dialect and then call a Swedish office to ask about some legal matters, and see how intelligible the languages are.
The fact remains that the degree of mutual intelligibility between the Scandinavian languages is rather high. (If it was 100% then there would be a hard case for declaring them separate languages, so your little example above only reinforces the mutual intelligibility fact). If you have to go into extreme registers or genres before a communication breakdown occurs then you are clearly dealing with languages with high mutual intelligibility.
This is also not taking Accommodation Theory into account and various other sociolinguistic factors.
| | | | | Well, not for more specialized translation purposes, Ty, in my opinion | Sep 18, 2012 |
I doubt really you could conduct serious scientific seminars in Norwegian, invite Swedish scientists and not provide interpreting. Seminars are often conducted in English anyhow, but just theoretically speaking. Slavic languages are also mutually intelligible to a certain extant, but not for any professional translation purposes, where nuances count.
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Unedited since a day... | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 03:51
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| OT - Scandinavian | Sep 18, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
... you learned all three of them. As far as I remember you said you learned Norwegian as an adult. You might be just very talented. So you just probably understand all three of them separately. I hope you did not have Icelandic in mind, or Jutish. If you are referring to understanding simple phrases at a beer table, yes, probably they can communicate, especially that Scandinavians have the reputation of not being very talkative. I am referring to lectures on quantum physics in Norwegian for Swedish audience, or medical conferences.
Lilian, just accept that you are way out of your depth here.
Of the Scandinavian languages, the only one I speak is Norwegian, and I have never spoken anything but Norwegian to Scandinavians since learning Norwegian.
... learn some Trondersk Norwegian dialect and then call a Swedish office to ask about some legal matters, and see how intelligible the languages are.
A Norwegian speaker would not speak dialect in such a situation.
http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikker/article1040269.ece
Please start a separate thread if you want to discuss this further.
[Edited at 2012-09-18 16:35 GMT]
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Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 03:51
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| OT - Scandinavian | Sep 18, 2012 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
A television programme that hosts guests speaking another language certainly is a strong case for mutual intelligibility, but... not if they use subtitles for home viewers.
Week after week Scandinavian guests on the program converse with each other in their respective languages. The subtitles are there for home viewers who may not understand the other languages easily. According to surveys, 80% of Norwegians and 60% of Swedes say they understand the other language without difficulty.
If Scandinavians did not understand each others' languages, it would be hard to explain all the TV programs, movies and news reports where they speak to each other in their respective languages.
[Edited at 2012-09-18 17:36 GMT]
| | | | | OT - Germanic | Sep 18, 2012 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
A television programme that hosts guests speaking another language certainly is a strong case for mutual intelligibility, but... not if they use subtitles for home viewers.
German television viewers get subtitles for programs with speakers of Swiss German ... I wonder what exactly that implies?!
| | | | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 03:51
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| Interpreting | Sep 18, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
I doubt really you could conduct serious scientific seminars in Norwegian, invite Swedish scientists and not provide interpreting.
No interpreting would be needed unless there were speakers of other languages present.
"Ved møter i Nordisk råd og Nordisk ministerråd tolkes det ved behov mellom finsk, islandsk og skandinavisk; men ikke mellom de skandinaviske språkene."
http://www.norden.org/no/fakta-om-norden/spraak
(translation)
"At the meetings of the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers, interpretation is provided as needed between Finnish, Icelandic and Scandinavian when needed, but not between the Scandinavian languages."
"The Council has 87 elected members from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland. The members of the Council are members of the national parliaments, who are nominated by the party groups."
http://www.norden.org/en/nordic-council/the-nordic-council
[Edited at 2012-09-18 21:00 GMT]
| | | | | Well, this is in Norwegian | Sep 18, 2012 |
Don't you think that the Norwegians and Danes may understand Swedes much better than the other way around because of the much clearer and not as diverse pronunciation typical of Swedish?
This might really be unfair to the Swedish-speaking people. Many of my friends from Sweden told me they did not understand Norwegian, especially certain varieties that well. Some from other parts of Sweden don't even understand Skanska that well -- this is what I was told by them. I understand written Norw... See more Don't you think that the Norwegians and Danes may understand Swedes much better than the other way around because of the much clearer and not as diverse pronunciation typical of Swedish?
This might really be unfair to the Swedish-speaking people. Many of my friends from Sweden told me they did not understand Norwegian, especially certain varieties that well. Some from other parts of Sweden don't even understand Skanska that well -- this is what I was told by them. I understand written Norwegian and Danish quite well, as to the spoken forms, I always thought that some were quite hard to understand, especially if someone spoke fast or about some more complex matters. I am not planning to discuss it here anymore, however because it is sightly off topic. ▲ Collapse
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Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 03:51
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
[Edited at 2012-09-18 20:55 GMT]
| | | | | Please Lilian | Sep 18, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
Don't you think that the Norwegians and Danes may understand Swedes much better than the other way around because of the much clearer and not as diverse pronunciation typical of Swedish?
As a native Swedish speaker who communicates daily with a Norwegian colleague, I can assure you that I have very few problems understanding him. Even though we mainly speak over the phone (more difficult not being able to see the other person's expression) and he just happens to be from Bergen (for most Swedes a more difficult dialect than your Tromsö dialect).
Some from other parts of Sweden don't even understand Skanska that well -- this is what I was told by them.
I'm from Stockholm and have no problems understanding Skånska nor do any of my friends from Norrland. Might it have something to do with your friends's willingness to listen?
I understand written Norwegian and Danish quite well, as to the spoken forms, I always thought that some were quite hard to understand, especially if someone spoke fast or about some more complex matters.
Could that be due to your level of Swedish proficiency? I have a number of friends who are Swedish L2 and most of them are able to understand spoken Norwegian and Danish to a pretty high degree.
This OT only happened because of your statements of what Scandinavians can or cannot do. But I do agree with you that we should return to the main topic "Should “native language” claims be verified?". My answer to this is yes.
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 16:21
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote: Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
It will be useful to keep in mind that not all natives of a language develop native-level proficiency in their language. Did you mean to say that?
Yes. If you read the full text and not just what you choose to, you will get my meaning more correctly. Here is the full text:
It will be useful to keep in mind that not all natives of a language develop native-level proficiency in their language. This proficiency is the result of several factors like individual level of intelligence, proclivity to learning languages, level of education, level of immersion into the language, etc. And many natives of a language fail to achieve this level of proficiency in their language. Whereas, it is within the realm of possibility that a non-native speaker of that language, because, may be, of higher IQ, better education, better immersion into the language, better opportunity, etc. acquires native-level proficiency in that language.
| | | | Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 12:51
Italian to English
In memoriam | By their fruits ye shall know them | Sep 19, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
It will be useful to keep in mind that not all natives of a language develop native-level proficiency in their language.
Interesting.
Does this mean that, for example, a pear is not a pear if it fails to achieve some arbitrary level of pear-like deliciousness?
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 12:51
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Ideal natives versus normal natives versus average natives | Sep 19, 2012 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote: Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote: Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
It will be useful to keep in mind that not all natives of a language develop native-level proficiency in their language. Did you mean to say that? Yes. If you read the full text...
Balasubramaniam's comment is consistent with the idea of an ideal native speaker. It is amazing how many people take scientific articles about ideal native speakers and use them as if the research applied to average native speakers. I don't mean the judgmental meanings of "ideal", "average" and "normal", but their strictly scientific meanings.
An ideal native speaker is monolingual, by the way. The ideal native speaker is also ideally educated, speaks with an ideal accent, and lives in an ideal world. When test subjects' speech is compared to that of native speakers, the comparison is often with an ideal native speaker and not an average native speaker. This is why even real native speakers fall short of the standard.
There is this idea (a fallacy, if you ask me) that all non-ideal native speakers (and who who speak less ideally all to the same degree) will always speak similarly. In other words, the idea that if you compare two speakers who are non-ideal to the same [small] degree, their language usage will be [roughly] the same, even if their backgrounds are very dissimilar. It is this belief that leads to verification systems whereby native speaker examiners are asked to "judge" candidates purely on how much the candidate's language usage is the same as the examiner's... which is basically what I suspect ProZ.com is aiming for.
If a client asks for a native speaker translator, it is because he hopes that the language usage of the translator will be the same or similar to the average or most commonly occuring usage of the text's intended readership, but it is really often a case of hit and miss. It is far better for a client if his text is translated in a way that seems somewhat normal to larger numbers of his readership than a way that seems highly normal to only a smaller number of his readers.
What do you think? (from a purely theoretical point of view)
Samuel
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 12:51
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| @Giles, re pear analogy | Sep 19, 2012 |
Giles Watson wrote: Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
It will be useful to keep in mind that not all natives of a language develop native-level proficiency in their language. Interesting. ... Does this mean that, for example, a pear is not a pear if it fails to achieve some arbitrary level of pear-like deliciousness?
No, it means the opposite -- a pear is still a pear even if it fails to achieve some arbitrary level of pear-like deliciousness.
| | | | Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 12:51
Italian to English
In memoriam | Native pears | Sep 19, 2012 |
Samuel Murray wrote: Giles Watson wrote: Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
It will be useful to keep in mind that not all natives of a language develop native-level proficiency in their language. Interesting. ... Does this mean that, for example, a pear is not a pear if it fails to achieve some arbitrary level of pear-like deliciousness? No, it means the opposite -- a pear is still a pear even if it fails to achieve some arbitrary level of pear-like deliciousness.
You need to be very careful with your definition of "pear-like". It's more logical to separate the categories and avoid the terms "pear-like" and "native-level" when describing deliciousness or linguistic proficiency. A scale of one to ten would be more honest.
Pears are not ipso facto delicious and native speakers are not ipso facto proficient users of their language. If Mr B is merely saying that a native badge is no guarantee of quality, he is pushing at an open door.
However, quite a lot of outsourcers think nativeness is important and those who misrepresent themselves as native speakers of this, that or those languages evidently agree. There is value waiting to be monetised here...
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