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Kirsten Bodart 
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:54
Dutch to English
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Phil Hand wrote:
WRT what Kirsten says above, I'm going to both agree and disagree, confusingly!
Firstly, I agree that face to face meetings would end up being a logistical nightmare.
But secondly, I'm a bit dismayed by all this talk of "What if a someone had a different accent to me, they might mark me down."
If you ask a trusted, professional Proz colleague to check someone's native language, they should be able to do that without running into difficulties over accents or dialects. I know that the Dutch are a clannish lot (aren't we all?), but I'd like to believe that a reasonable Dutch person (like you yourself, Kirsten) could look past dialect-group loyalty and take a professional attitude toward this question. If I meet an American, I'm not going to work myself into knots over whether their accent sounds the same as mine. I'm going to have a conversation with them, ask a couple of questions about their background, then put a big tick in the native box (where appropriate).
Now, obviously this problem has arisen because there are some out there who are not professional in their attitudes. But they wouldn't be chosen as checkers.
I think the accent-related and integrity-related difficulties are being exaggerated a bit here; but I think the logistical difficulties would be very significant.
There is a contingent on this site which is not very favourable to Flemish people at all, in fact. Call me a chicken, but I would refuse to be judged by them. If they get stuck at simple things like a different word for 'oven' or 'microwave' as unacceptable, then what are they going to make of my sentence structure? I would take the professionalism into account too, but we are not all like that (apparently).
Indeed, if you were to meet an American, you would not care about his accent, not even if it was smething exotic as a country Georgian accent or something. It's not a problem, but in your language group there is no stigma attached to accents at all. Just look at Neil Oliver presenting a program on the BBC with a thick Scottish accent, or even worse, Rab C Nesbitt in barely understandable Glaswegian (in the beginning, at least). In the Dutch language area this is aboslutely forbidden, dialect words are outlawed (in fact dialects are rare these days). Someone who speaks with a thick accent like me and the southern Flemish spoken variant of 'you' is smiled at by some. Not by all, but who is to say which one will judge me to be a native speaker or not. And will that 'native speaker' label not be taken by some to mean 'good translator'?
Indeed, at uni you are taught 'proper pronunciation'. That is proper pronunciation in your mother tongue, sme kind of received pronunciation in Dutch. Not for any purposes like working for TV, but just to make you speak properly.
Lisa Simpson wrote:
The "verifiers"
If we stick as closely as possible to the information in the FAQs, which has been in place since year dot and is therefore most likely to be what is accepted (it is after all what we all signed up to), then a native speaker will be found to be one if other native speakers are in agreement. I see that there is an aversion to having a "panel of judges” taken from ProZ site members, but can someone please explain why? Eligibility of a professional association is usually judged by other accredited professionals within the same association. Would this be this any different? What if the “judges” had to be members of a professional association? They could be rewarded for their time and trouble in the form of Browniz or some other method (I confess to being completely ignorant of ProZ’ various methods of “remuneration").
While I see that Jenny's proposed disclaimer is certainly the simplest solution, I’m afraid I do see it as the kiss of death for the site.
I am member of this site, so I would be eligible to judge others. Who says I am qualified (fulfill at least minor criteria, which are they anyway?) to do this? Not even a uni diploma will give you that observance. You would not only need a translator, but someone who knows where the typical mistakes are in order to spot the difference. That is not 'typical non-native mistakes', but typical mistakes a non-native speaker of X or Y language makes.
On top of this, if you are going to take a pool of 'judges' from Proz, are you sure you haven't got an imposter there? Which criteria would those judges have to fulfill? Otherwise you are going to go around in circles, as Samuel illustrated several pages ago.
As to which other languages are affected:
Is it not so that a lot of China speaks dialect? Dialects which are quite or entirely different from Mandarin, which is the lingua franca of the region? So it would be interesting to see what real native Mandarin speakers make of country bumpkins who were taught Mandarin in school, have been living in a Mandarin area for a long time and whose language is not translated into. Let's say, engineers, who now provide technical translations into Mandarin in their field of expertise and whose native language is a variant of Mandarin. Is their grammar or their vocab affected or is it not an issue?
I would be interested to know too where we are with Hindi. A lot of India speaks Hindi beside another native language, because the country has to be run. Big economic area. I would be interested to know how the knowledge of one of those would affect your output of Hindi and how the definition of 'native language' would work there.
Arabic. A lot of countries with Arabic as their offical language have regional variants. Only looking the directory on here, I can see translators from Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi-Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Kuwait. The vast majority seems to be from Egypt. Still, how does a Saudi experience an Arabic translation by someone from Kuwait? Or from Syria? Not really proper Arabic or what? Some regional variants are quite different, but there is a kind of standard. The problem seems to amount to the same kind of problem as Dutch: the standard form is not spoken, but is the only one taught in schools and encountered in the media, in lit, etc. How does an Egyptian's Standard Arabic compare to a Moroccan's?
Comign back to Europe, it would be nice to see what people make of Luxembourgish French and German translators. There is a Belgian variant of French, but Luxembourg is obviously not big enough. Is that pure enough for the French French? Is it Belgian enough for the Belgians? What about Finnish Swedes? Is their Swedish acceptable to the Swedes, marked as slightly Finnish Swedish or not at all?
And how do other language groups see 'imposters'? Can you easily spot them or not? Do other language areas care at all?
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:54
Hebrew to English
| It's about being GROWN-UP and professional. Isn't that the MINIMUM we should expect here? | Sep 23, 2012 |
Kirsten Bodart wrote:
There is a contingent on this site which is not very favourable to Flemish people at all, in fact. Call me a chicken, but I would refuse to be judged by them. If they get stuck at simple things like a different word for 'oven' or 'microwave' as unacceptable, then what are they going to make of my sentence structure? I would take the professionalism into account too, but we are not all like that (apparently).
That's really depressing; that there is such a shortage of professional Dutch linguists on this site who are simply incapable of acting like linguists and who would rather act like teenage schoolgirls. If this is indeed the case, then as I mentioned earlier when talking about such a verification system, there should be a mechanism in place to request people from the same region if you honestly believe prejudice would occur, or to request a 'second opinion'.
in your language group there is no stigma attached to accents at all. Just look at Neil Oliver presenting a program on the BBC with a thick Scottish accent, or even worse, Rab C Nesbitt in barely understandable Glaswegian
I wouldn't go that far. Many accents do still have stigmas attached to them, despite the bombardment of regional accents on TV (equal opportunity laws don't leave much room for open discrimination, but the discrimination hasn't gone away). Certain accents are still considered ugly, unattractive or unintelligent sounding. However, when talking about translators, as Phil points out, you'd think they would act like linguists.
who is to say which one will judge me to be a native speaker or not...I am member of this site, so I would be eligible to judge others. Who says I am qualified (fulfill at least minor criteria, which are they anyway?) to do this? Not even a uni diploma will give you that observance..... And will that 'native speaker' label not be taken by some to mean 'good translator'?
Well that's the thing about external identification, it is "the language one is identified as a native speaker of by others [native speakers]"
http://www.tove-skutnabb-kangas.org/pdf/Tove_Skutnabb_Kangas_Mother_tongue_definitions.pdf
- you don't have to be university professors or rocket scientists, you just have to be a native speaker (the takes one to know one approach). Although I'd expect translators/linguists to be even more capable of judging than your average Joe (even though the average Joe is perfectly capable himself by virtue of being a native speaker).
Secondly, the label shouldn't be equated with meaning a "good translator" - as indeed it is not now: http://www.proz.com/faq/2389#2389
On top of this, if you are going to take a pool of 'judges' from Proz, are you sure you haven't got an imposter there?
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be difficult, with some effort and double-checking to actually hoodwink some genuine native speakers to be the initial cohort of panelists, or judges or whatever you wanted to call them.
As to which other languages are affected:
Is it not so that a lot of China speaks dialect? Dialects which are quite or entirely different from Mandarin
This is why you have to treat Chinese separately. The "dialects" of Chinese are actually languages, they aren't mutually intelligible. ProZ needs to start here by actually defining "Chinese" better, it's a bit slapdash if you ask me not to be able to differentiate, as far as I know, you can't even differentiate between Mandarin and Cantonese much less the other varieties.
I would be interested to know too where we are with Hindi. A lot of India speaks Hindi beside another native language, because the country has to be run. Big economic area. I would be interested to know how the knowledge of one of those would affect your output of Hindi and how the definition of 'native language' would work there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but people aren't flocking to list Hindi as a native language when it blatently isn't the case.
Arabic. A lot of countries with Arabic as their offical language have regional variants. Only looking the directory on here, I can see translators from Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi-Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Kuwait. The vast majority seems to be from Egypt. Still, how does a Saudi experience an Arabic translation by someone from Kuwait? Or from Syria? Not really proper Arabic or what? Some regional variants are quite different, but there is a kind of standard.
I'd hope they would be grown-ups and recognize each other as speakers of x-variant of Arabic.
Nobody really 'speaks' Modern Standard Arabic (al-fusha), it's a literary standard and default variant for cross variant communication (although I recently read a paper which dispelled that myth - apparently various speakers of Arabic will accommodate each other and gravitate towards an Egyptian model to facilitate communication rather than immediately switching to al-fusha as commonly claimed). The diglossic situation of Arabic shouldn't really impact someone recognizing someone else as a native speaker, all dialectal forms of Arabic are so-called "low" forms (only al-fusha is "high"). Egyptian Arabic might have prestige but that doesn't make all other variants non-native and ANY system implemented would have to ensure than non-prestige variants are not penalised, as I have said it's childish and immature and very unlinguistic and as Phil has said, highly unprofessional (for so-called language professionals).
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:54
Hebrew to English
| A bit of due-diligence when selecting panelists.... | Sep 23, 2012 |
..would ensure that no psychopaths with dialectal grudges would wreak havoc with the verification system though.
If someone was sent to me for verification with a really thick Scouse accent, I might think that accent is rather unattractive (phonologically), they might use a different word for "cob" (bread roll) they might say "bun" or "barm cake" - as they say in my neck of the woods, but nothing would possess me to say "well, you clearly aren't a native speaker". As a grown-up, as ... See more ..would ensure that no psychopaths with dialectal grudges would wreak havoc with the verification system though.
If someone was sent to me for verification with a really thick Scouse accent, I might think that accent is rather unattractive (phonologically), they might use a different word for "cob" (bread roll) they might say "bun" or "barm cake" - as they say in my neck of the woods, but nothing would possess me to say "well, you clearly aren't a native speaker". As a grown-up, as a linguist, as a translator, as a sane person, I am perfectly capable of recognizing a fellow native speaker regardless of my personal beliefs (good or bad) about their specific variant.
[Edited at 2012-09-23 20:48 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 06:54
Chinese to English
| Prestige and non-prestige dialects | Sep 23, 2012 |
Kirsten
I would think, with regard to Dutch, that being a speaker of a non-prestige dialect would make the question "are you a native" extremely simple. Relatively few people learn non-prestige dialects, so if you're speaking one, you're almost 100% certain to be a native.
Chinese & Arabic - these are real issues. Any such verification program couldn't be rolled out overnight, because these questions do need answering. But they're issues, not objections, as I see it. A ... See more Kirsten
I would think, with regard to Dutch, that being a speaker of a non-prestige dialect would make the question "are you a native" extremely simple. Relatively few people learn non-prestige dialects, so if you're speaking one, you're almost 100% certain to be a native.
Chinese & Arabic - these are real issues. Any such verification program couldn't be rolled out overnight, because these questions do need answering. But they're issues, not objections, as I see it. A working group could provide you with answers within a fairly short space of time, and then you implement a solution. ▲ Collapse
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Tony M
France
Local time: 00:54
Member
French to English
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SITE LOCALIZER
Although this is diverging a little from the original topic of this thread, I personally am finding this 'regional variants discussion fascinating.
As some people have said, there are clearly certain languages where the problem is greater than others; it might be that these languages are the ones that should be concentrated on in the first instance. In my very limited exposure on this site, I would say that false claims to be a native EN speaker (my working target language) are a ve... See more Although this is diverging a little from the original topic of this thread, I personally am finding this 'regional variants discussion fascinating.
As some people have said, there are clearly certain languages where the problem is greater than others; it might be that these languages are the ones that should be concentrated on in the first instance. In my very limited exposure on this site, I would say that false claims to be a native EN speaker (my working target language) are a very major source of problems.
I was watching a rivetting documentary on TV over lunch, and it made me stop and think about geographical variants of my own language, EN.
There were some interviews with a person from [a non-European continent] who was indubitably speaking EN; I was able to understand most of what this person was saying — I'd say about 90% of it — but I could hardly say that they were really and truly a native speaker of the same EN as I speak (i.e. GB).
Now the fact that I was able to understand them at all might be treated in the same class as all those regional variants / accents that have been mentioned above; what I then wondered was "Would this person be able to understand me?" — and I suspect the answer there is "No better than I was able to understand them."
As has also been discussed above, it is not uncommon for the BBC broadcasting in the UK to subtitle people who, although they are indeed speaking EN, are doing so with a very pronounced geographic variant — a particular documentary series sprang to mind about the railways on [another non-European continent], where this time I had difficulty understanding even 50% of what was being said (though this time clearly audible).
Clearly, in countries where EN is at worst a lingua franca used by populations whose true 'native' language might be another, everyone seems to understand each other. But I would not be a good person to assess the native-speaker level of one of these speakers, inevitably comparing them with my 'standard', 'RP' English from the UK.
But then again, would one of these people really have the necessary proficiency to translate a document for the European (or American) market? I somehow doubt it...
So perhaps as others have been suggesting, we need to make finer distinctions between what sort of EN (etc.) — this is seen in the ISO language codes (e.g. EN-GB, etc.), and also in the surprisingly numerous variants of EN we find in things as commonplace as the MS Word spell-checker.
In this way, someone from [a non-European continent] seeking a translator for a document for purely local consumption would be able to choose a translator advertising the fact they are a native speaker from [the same continent], and so on; but a customer seeking a translation into EN for (say) a European readership would be in a position to make an informed initial choice for their shortlist.
This would presuppose, of course, that each person elected to be verified as a native-speaker of the applicable geographical variant, according to their own perceived abilities. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Ty, don't you realize, in the end, that is all Utopian? | Sep 23, 2012 |
Another thing, that it would probably not even be allowed due to serious discrimination issues, even if there were a method of verifying someone's native language with some level of scientific credibility which would be relevant to translation, not just to the bilingual language studies and language acquisition research.
You might just as well start checking the percentage of sugar in sugar -- that might be ore fun.
| | | | Paul Cohen
Greenland
Local time: 21:54
German to English
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| What's wrong with an in-house panel of judges? | Sep 23, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
If we stick as closely as possible to the information in the FAQs, (...) then a native speaker will be found to be one if other native speakers are in agreement. I see that there is an aversion to having a "panel of judges” taken from ProZ site members, but can someone please explain why? Eligibility of a professional association is usually judged by other accredited professionals within the same association. Would this be this any different? What if the “judges” had to be members of a professional association? They could be rewarded for their time and trouble in the form of Browniz or some other method.
I'll take a stab at that, Lisa.
Let me see if I've got this straight: All we need is a panel of (volunteer) judges who will conduct a brief video conference with members or meet with them at a powwow and then decide whether they are a "native speaker" of a particular language? And the site merely has to hand out brownie points (or whatever) in compensation? Problem solved?
That doesn't sound professional to me -- and it lets Proz off the hook far too easily on this thorny issue. Of course you'll be able to weed out the obvious cases, but what about all the borderline cases? Where exactly do you draw the line? What exactly are the criteria? It all sounds far too subjective to be.
'Is George a native speaker?'
Story time, folks.
Many years ago, when I was thinking of moving to Berlin, my German girlfriend arranged for me to meet a fellow American (let's call him George) who was in his late 30s and had been living in the city for over a decade. We sat in a bar and talked about residency papers and visas and other formalities. The odd thing about the meeting was that George kept turning to my girlfriend for help in translating German terms like Aufenthaltserlaubnis (residency papers) and Einwohnermeldeamt (registry office). Even when it came to more general topics, it was clear that his English had become so dismal that he couldn't carry on anything close to a normal conversation in that language. I sat there most of the time scratching my head and understanding almost zilch.
After the meeting, my girlfriend turned to me and said that his German was absolutely atrocious. I said the same thing about his English!
Is he still a "native speaker" of English? I think we would all agree that he is. Could he possibly fail to pass the kind of test that a panel of Proz-appointed judges would administer? Sure he could.
Okay, this is an extreme example, but my point is that anyone can develop horrifying habits in their native language, and anyone's and everyone's native language can be gradually influenced by cross-linguistic influences. (Note: George was perhaps not even aware of how much his English had deteriorated because he was immersed in a German-speaking environment; he probably thought it was just a little rusty.) The Proz panel of judges would have to err widely on the side of caution to avoid branding people like George as a phony "native speaker."
With such a system, you would also have a lot of "false positives," too. There would be individuals who are not "native speakers" but are granted the seal of approval by the esteemed Proz judges. I know at least one Dutch person (not a member of this site, btw, and he translates only into Dutch) who speaks far better English than most "native speakers." I'd bet you any amount of money he'd easily pass muster.
Naivety and chutzpah
I find it very disturbing that a group of professional translators such as we have here in this thread have such a low opinion of the complexities of language testing. This attitude of "just give me 10 minutes in a room alone with that person and I'll tell you if they're a native speaker of X" smacks to me of extreme naivety and chutzpah.
We would all debunk the claim that anyone who can speak a language well can automatically translate well into that language. So why should we assume that an excellent translator (even one who is a member of a professional association), with no special training or experience in language testing, innately has the skills to separate "real" from "fake" native speakers, especially when it's clear that the slippery attribute of being a "native speaker" can be almost more of a biographical characteristic than anything else (the first x years of your life, your family situation, the schools you attended as a child, etc.) and provides absolutely no guarantee of translation quality or language proficiency?
Instead of running the risk of incorrectly labeling people as liars, and incorrectly certifying others as native speakers, I say let them claim a "native language" that they deem appropriate, based on a clear and official definition, but introduce reliable third-party testing of their language proficiency (reading, writing, speaking & listening skills -- and perhaps even translating skills!) and let the customer decide, based on a disclaimer, whether they want to hire a "native speaker" like George to translate their next big glossy brochure from German into English.
edited to correct a typo
[Edited at 2012-09-23 18:35 GMT]
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:54
Hebrew to English
| How complicated do we want to make it? | Sep 23, 2012 |
Paul Cohen wrote:
Of course you'll be able to weed out the obvious cases, but what about all the borderline cases?
I thought it was agreed a long time ago that the best we can hope for is to eliminate the egregious cases (what the other thread called "indisputably non-native"). Many people believe borderline cases deserve to slip through the net.
'Is George a native speaker?'
Story time, folks.
After the meeting, my girlfriend turned to me and said that his German was absolutely atrocious. I said the same thing about his English!
Is he still a "native speaker" of English? I think we would all agree that he is. Could he possibly fail to pass the kind of test that a panel of Proz-appointed judges would administer? Sure he could.
The possibility of "Georges" has been raised before. At least where translators are concerned (especially translators translating INTO their target/native language) you'd expect them to keep their L1 up to date and as non-nativism-free as possible. I'd question the salt of any translator who allowed such extensive L2 interference and L1 attrition given their profession, if nothing else.
With such a system, you would also have a lot of "false positives," too. There would be individuals who are not "native speakers" but are granted the seal of approval by the esteemed Proz judges. I know at least one Dutch person (not a member of this site, btw, and he translates only into Dutch) who speaks far better English than most "native speakers." I'd bet you any amount of money he'd easily pass muster.
Not as many false positives as many other alternatives or a system whereby anyone can claim anything they want consequence-free (the status quo).
I find it very disturbing that a group of professional translators such as we have here in this thread have such a low opinion of the complexities of language testing. This attitude of "just give me 10 minutes in a room alone with that person and I'll tell you if they're a native speaker of X" smacks to me of extreme naivety and chutzpah.
Is it so complex? I wouldn't mind an in-depth linguistic investigation, error analysis, phonetic screening, shibboleth testing etc...but the more complex you make it the more unfeasible (and costly) it becomes. I don't think we're proposing a perfect system, merely an improvement on the status quo.
[Edited at 2012-09-23 19:09 GMT]
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Phil Hand
China
Local time: 06:54
Chinese to English
| Native is a bit of an instinctive thing | Sep 23, 2012 |
@Paul
I understand your misgivings, but I also think you're missing the point of a native test.
Being subjective and a bit difficult to define isn't a flaw in a native test. It's the very nature of the beast. It is precisely because language is such an amazingly deep and weird phenomenon - beyond the scope of any quantitative test yet devised - that the concept of native still has any use. If language tests did the business, then we would all be proudly displaying our T... See more @Paul
I understand your misgivings, but I also think you're missing the point of a native test.
Being subjective and a bit difficult to define isn't a flaw in a native test. It's the very nature of the beast. It is precisely because language is such an amazingly deep and weird phenomenon - beyond the scope of any quantitative test yet devised - that the concept of native still has any use. If language tests did the business, then we would all be proudly displaying our TOEFL/IELTS/whatever scores on our profile pages, and that would be the end of it.
But that's not what happens. We still talk about native language - despite the fact that no-one has a clear definition for it - and native speakers are still an important part of any language quality assurance system.
You're right to point out how hard language testing is. I've been banging that drum all through this thread. Proz can't test quality of language (or translation). It's not set up to. But a native test is something different. It is, as you point out, not a quality test. It's a recognition - a human recognition of a human quality.
To get to specifics - in your story, of course your "George" would be recognised as a native English speaker by other native speakers. He might fail a language quality test (though, to be honest, I doubt it. You know as well as I that the quality of a native language lies not in remembering vocabulary, but in a certain fluency, facility, grammatical sureness).
So if we went with Bernhard's preferred face-to-face verification, there'd be no issue; if we went with a language quality check, it's possible that some poor speakers of their native languages would fail (I think it would be one in a million at most). The obvious answer to that is - if their language is that bad now, then they probably shouldn't be translating into it anyway, so it's not a problem for Proz.
But to return to the more general point: basically, you either accept the validity of the idea of a native speaker, or you don't. If you do, then you have to accept that it is ill-defined, unquantifiable, subjective (can only be judged by other native speakers of the same language, not by outsiders). If you can't accept these facts about nativeness, then you're probably better off rejecting it altogether, because trying to firm up a precise definition is beyond the ability of anyone here. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tony M
France
Local time: 00:54
Member
French to English
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Not aiming for perfection... | Sep 23, 2012 |
Paul Cohen wrote:
Naivety and chutzpah
I find it very disturbing that a group of professional translators such as we have here in this thread have such a low opinion of the complexities of language testing. This attitude of "just give me 10 minutes in a room alone with that person and I'll tell you if they're a native speaker of X" smacks to me of extreme naivety and chutzpah.
As Ty says, we're not out to achieve perfection here... just to sort the wheatiest bits from the worst of the chaff.
Let's make no bones about it: most of us contributing here already have a pretty clear idea of who we think the culprits are; we don't even need to have a conversation with them, we can read it instantly in their profiles, their contributions in KudoZ... and often even in the naïvety of the questions they ask. But we are not allowed to publicly name them, or in any way criticize or even cast natsuurtiums upon their putative native-speaker status... and rightly so, of course! We are a group of professionals in a professional forum, and the last thing we need is any more squabbling children.
However, given that the 'chaff' can be so readily spotted by even the most superficial means, it does seem to me that the site is in a position to do the opposite: increase the credibility of the genuine native speakers (even though that may consequentially reduce that of the not-so's). At least the site can be said to be a neutral outsider. Hence why I am in favour of some kind of verification process, even if it is not based on incredibly in-depth analysis or scientifically-valid research. Of course, native language verification is only the first step, and as has been so rightly said, is no actual guarantee of proficiency as a translator... but it's a jolly good start!
| | | | | I absolutely agree with Paul, with his observations. | Sep 23, 2012 |
This thread just makes me laugh -- it is really humorous in nature -- a pure expression of certain naivety in reference to many linguistic issues, which are, after all, quite complex, and often cannot be resolved through clearly cut categorization. As to "nativism", I don't know if some people realize that it wasn't such a great thing in the history of the human kind -- you can Google it -- I don't really want to elaborate on subjects like that, which may turn out not to be that glorious.
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 23:54
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Not remembering words doesn't hide native language | Sep 23, 2012 |
Paul Cohen wrote:
Many years ago, when I was thinking of moving to Berlin, my German girlfriend arranged for me to meet a fellow American (let's call him George) who was in his late 30s and had been living in the city for over a decade. We sat in a bar and talked about residency papers and visas and other formalities. The odd thing about the meeting was that George kept turning to my girlfriend for help in translating German terms like Aufenthaltserlaubnis (residency papers) and Einwohnermeldeamt (registry office). Even when it came to more general topics, it was clear that his English had become so dismal that he couldn't carry on anything close to a normal conversation in that language. I sat there most of the time scratching my head and understanding almost zilch.
He took the easy option of asking for a translation. But what would he have done had the German native speaker not been there? I bet you anything that he'd have made you understand what he wanted to say by using all those contrivances that native speakers have: "Damn! what the hell do we call that thingumybob ...?" (apologies if that word means nothing to American English speakers ); "I went down to that office the Germans call a XXX - can't for the life of me remember what we'd call that."
Believe me, there are just as many clues in that type of exchange. I'm tutoring a Spaniard at this very moment for a high-level English oral exam and these are just the things he has to aim for - not that he'll ever quite get there.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 00:54
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| Two or three points before I go to bed | Sep 23, 2012 |
G'day everyone
I see that over the past weekend a number of new issues have entered the discussion.
One of them is the issue of native language versus mother tongue. My observation is that "native language" in many languages is "mother language" (or once or twice "father language"), and I get the impression that few (if any) languages other than English distinguishes between native language and mother tongue.
It is my opinion, therefore, that it should be ... See more G'day everyone
I see that over the past weekend a number of new issues have entered the discussion.
One of them is the issue of native language versus mother tongue. My observation is that "native language" in many languages is "mother language" (or once or twice "father language"), and I get the impression that few (if any) languages other than English distinguishes between native language and mother tongue.
It is my opinion, therefore, that it should be assumed that native langauge and mother tongue is the same thing (otherwise Proz.com's logic will only work in English). I would speculate that a reason why ProZ.com went for "native language" instead of "mother tongue" is a [possibly misplaced] attempt to avoid accusations of sexism.
At the same time, I realise that one should not read too much into the fact that "mother" or "father" is part of the word for native language in many languages. The fact that the concept is called "mother language" in a language should not be taken as a clue that speakers of that language regard native language to be related to parents. On the other hand, I would have no objection to changing the label "native language" to "parental language".
Another issue is that of accents. I think one has to distinguish between two types of accents, namely accents from regions that often do speak the language, and accents from other regions.
If someone speaks English with a strong Scottish accent, it is still an "indigenous" accent, and the judger is likely to cut the candidate some slack. But if someone speaks English with a strong Russian or Chinese accent, then that is a "foreign" accent, and someone with a foreign accent is far likely to be judged non-native, if you ask me.
The problem then becomes the judger's prejudices about the likelihood that a speaker from X country can be a native speaker. For example, although India has large numbers of English speakers, a judger may still be far stricter on an English native candidate with a strong Indian accent than a candidate with a strong Canadian accent.
Anyway, I'm sure the accent problem is easy to solve -- simply take steps to avoid prejudice.
Samuel ▲ Collapse
| | | | Paul Cohen
Greenland
Local time: 21:54
German to English
+ ...
| A straightforward approach to eliminate the bad apples | Sep 23, 2012 |
Sheila Wilson wrote: "Damn! what the hell do we call that thingumybob ...?" (apologies if that word means nothing to American English speakers )
Thingumybob? No worries, Sheila. Where I come from, we call that a thingamajig.
Ty, Tony and Phil, I can see that I've missed some of the earlier discussions, which is hardly surprising given the gargantuan size of this thread. My apologies. So now we're just debating the prospect of eliminating the most egregious cases? The bald-faced liars? The really bad apples? That seems to be aiming pretty low, but I guess you could argue that it's better than nothing.
| | | | | Why wouldn't he get there? | Sep 23, 2012 |
Sheila Wilson wrote: Believe me, there are just as many clues in that type of exchange. I'm tutoring a Spaniard at this very moment for a high-level English oral exam and these are just the things he has to aim for - not that he'll ever quite get there.
Why wouldn't he get there? Because he is a Spaniard, or because he is dumb or something else? Why did you decide to teach him, if he " will not get there, anyhow"? Teaching English as a Second language methods don't say anything about this deterministic view which would set any limitations as to what a student will be able to learn as opposed to what he or she will never learn.
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