| 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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XXXphxxx (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:00
Portuguese to English
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TOPIC STARTER | ProZ is not here to assess translation competence | Jul 20, 2012 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
The native language verification should just be that: evaluation if someone is a true native speaker, not a great translator.
Charlie Bavington wrote:
They might be native, they might not be, I don't care. If their written output in that language sucks, then they should be cast out of the circle.
Charlie, ProZ is not the IoL. Translation competence is another issue and that can be reflected in your credentials (ideally verified); you can continue to offer any “Working Languages” you wish; you can also boast all you like (ideally within some parameters of truthfulness) in the "About me" section; you can even provide a link to your website where you claim to be the benchmark for all translation. However, the "N" icon on the profile should be a statement of fact, not how you yourself perceive your level of proficiency, nor should it be based on the fact that you've been living in x or y country for 20 years and believe that you therefore speak it as well as the natives.
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:00
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | To answer your question Angie | Jul 20, 2012 |
Angie Garbarino wrote: I read this thread (well not all the pages) and I am under the impression that some people are not sure to be able to spot a non native... I wonder why? No irony intended, really, mine is a purely linguistic question as I'd be able to spot a non native Italian or French after one written line or 5 spoken words. I can also provide examples 
I absolutely agree with you and I’ve been saying this all along. I think this impression of a difficulty in spotting a non-native has largely been created by Samuel who is not an English native speaker. I'm sure, however, that if Samuel were to be presented with writing by non-native speakers of Afrikaans, he would spot the errors instantly. There appears to be a widespread and mistaken assumption (oft-quoted on this thread) that English is an exception to the normal rules of language because it is an international language that everyone can speak.
I have very little doubt that the genuine English native speakers on this thread have spotted the non-natives a mile off. In fact, I know that a couple of the Spanish non-native English speakers have managed to do so with little trouble. It’s really not rocket science.
[Edited at 2012-07-20 08:19 GMT]
| | | | | Indeed... Lisa | Jul 20, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote: Good of her to be good-natured about it, but I'm not sure she'd actually invited an assessment of her writing. She's never claimed to be an English native speaker. I only wish the ones on this thread who do claim it (and aren't) would give us a similar opportunity 
I just would like t know the reason why, someone is unsure how to spot non native, my real question meant "as I am sure you realized I am not, you should also be able to spot other people", not?
But perhaps I was not clear enough, also thanks for the corrections they are very useful, really...
Edited: Our posts crossed, thanks Lisa, I understand.
[Edited at 2012-07-20 08:18 GMT]
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:00
Portuguese to English
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TOPIC STARTER
Janet Rubin wrote:
I have one word: Skype
This would certainly filter the egregious cases.
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Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:00
Hebrew to English
| Today's Quick Poll Results | Jul 20, 2012 |
Should be interesting.
Title: Did you grow up in a bilingual household?
It's early in the day, but 85% of the respondents so far have already answered "No".
Which seems to be at odds with the preponderance of "bilinguals" (according to the listing of two native languages) on this site.
As I suspected, despite what this site and some of its users would have you believe: (true) bilinguals are not as common/numerous as ants at a picnic at a... See more Should be interesting.
Title: Did you grow up in a bilingual household?
It's early in the day, but 85% of the respondents so far have already answered "No".
Which seems to be at odds with the preponderance of "bilinguals" (according to the listing of two native languages) on this site.
As I suspected, despite what this site and some of its users would have you believe: (true) bilinguals are not as common/numerous as ants at a picnic at all. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I said nothing about translation | Jul 20, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
Charlie, ProZ is not the IoL. Translation competence is another issue ......
However, the "N" icon on the profile should be a statement of fact,
I have deliberately never mentioned the translation aspect itself. Just the quality of written output in a language per se. As testified to on, say, a profile page, which is where this all started.
Clearly none of this is disconnected from translation entirely, since it's all about false claims about standards in target languages, but at no point have I ever and nor will I confuse this issue with translation itself.
The "N" should perhaps ideally be a statement of fact, but of fact about what? Nativeness? Good luck defining that. If I didn't have a yellow "N" already, I'd be looking forward to filling in my life history of geographical residence, education (again!) but this time with extra details, the languages my parents spoke, and any regional variations thereupon throughout, and I could hardly wait to get Skype fired up for a chat with.... to be decided.
But if not nativeness then what? Well, I say, what about where we came in? The thing that got your dander up 930-odd posts ago. The standard of writing in the language. Sure, I take your point about self-declaring levels of proficiency, but self-declaring is a problem with anything, the point of this thread is all about how to challenge self-declaration of "N", whatever it is. Sure, a comprehensive "test for nativeness" would perhaps be the best way....
But don't confuse my suggestions here with anything like my view of the ideal world (perhaps the people we've been accusing of trolling without actually using the word are not so much trolls as impractical idealists here).
I'm just going for a quick and dirty, Pareto-inspired approach that a website that only really cares about money might actually see as bringing about a benefit.
(And in truth, when it comes to anything more complicated or involved, everything I come up with seems to me to fall at least partly under the remit of the red "P" - so why so many nonsense red "P" profiles?)
(A rhetorical question, although I'm not sure I should use them now... )
[Edited at 2012-07-20 08:55 GMT]
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:00
Portuguese to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | The "household" should in fairness be removed | Jul 20, 2012 |
Ty Kendall wrote:
Should be interesting.
Title: Did you grow up in a bilingual household?
It's early in the day, but 85% of the respondents so far have already answered "No".
Which seems to be at odds with the preponderance of "bilinguals" (according to the listing of two native languages) on this site.
As I suspected, despite what this site and some of its users would have you believe: (true) bilinguals are not as common/numerous as ants at a picnic at all.
Although I agree with you (on numbers of genuine bilinguals), a lot of bilinguals are so because one language is spoken at home and another in the street/at school/by the majority of their friends.
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:00
Hebrew to English
But so many on here claim nativeness in English because they once heard their great uncle or second cousin twice removed utter a couple of sentences in English at home that I'd have expected the "Yes"s to constitute a greater percentage...
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Kirsten Bodart
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:00
Dutch to English
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| Studies, near-native speakers and lines | Jul 20, 2012 |
Mainly @Charlie: the problem is you need to define a line betwwen who is (deemed to be) a native speaker and who is not. Prefereably from a written text.
@Ty:
All those so-called non-native mistakes can be made by native speakers as well (its and it's). And then, even if a text is written in completely correct grammar and vocab, it might not flow as a truly native text. As such, you wouldn't have any error(s) per se, but only a kind of faint grating. Granger has done a ... See more Mainly @Charlie: the problem is you need to define a line betwwen who is (deemed to be) a native speaker and who is not. Prefereably from a written text.
@Ty:
All those so-called non-native mistakes can be made by native speakers as well (its and it's). And then, even if a text is written in completely correct grammar and vocab, it might not flow as a truly native text. As such, you wouldn't have any error(s) per se, but only a kind of faint grating. Granger has done a study on French-speaking learners of English from the UCL (Université Cathlique de Louvain-la-Neuve) and shown that L1 interfered with L2 in the way they used boosting adverbs like 'completely' and 'totally' too much, with excessive amounts of 'very' as well, while they did not use any creative things at all. These are still 'learners', however, not people who are deemed 'native-like'.
Another study involving French, Dutch, Vietnamese, German and English children, the former four (I think) categories receiving education in English from the age of 7 (past critical phase), showed that Vietnamese children had more trouble with English sentence structure than French children. Even if they were continuously exposed to their L2 (English). The Dutch and German ones showed a similar difficulty, in other areas. Thus, suggesting that the ability to acquire an L2 (in native-like terms) would depend not only on the acquirer's ability, but also on what his native language is and how different it is in terms of structure from this L2. Granger agreed with this concept in stating that obviously L1 interfered with L2 in prefab chunks ('blissfully unaware', for example) and that English learning material should rather be targeted at certain languages/language groups, contrary to what it is now.
A study done on Spanish native speakers and English native speakers learning Spanish (also native-likes amongst those) took the tense thing as its object of study. They discovered that 'native-like' Spanish speakers performed as wel as the Spanish natives in this.
Another study I saw took into account prepositions in the Cloze test (I think Cambridge uses this in their proficiency test): filling in gaps in texts and sentences. Two native raters were used to fill in gaps in texts written for the Encarta encyclopedia (written by native speakers, naturally). Only in 70-odd% of cases the two agreed with the original text. When double or triple possibilities were controlled for, accuracy was 82%. Non-natives did not do badly at this either. Suggestig that taking prepositions into account is not a good way of determining non-nativeness.
All these studies show that
1) really bilingual people could experience interference between their two languages, even if they did grow up in bilingual environments
2) such interference is not always in the same place
3) some people can acquire certain aspects of another language very well, possibly all of those aspects, and that non-native 'errors' (at that point, probably not even real errors anymore) lie in very small things, probably also how you structure a sentence. But that can then also be a feature of a bad translation, as Angie has addressed here.
As to recognising non-native speakers by their accents.
Not so easy. The other day, I encountered a person from Turkey who had learned Dutch when she was about 18 and studied in the Netherlands. Perfect accent, perfect grammar. I had to listen at least 15 whole minutes to spot a tiny mistake (I think it could have been a wrong article) that gave her away. I know another Czech person who lived in the Netherlands for a while. Her Dutch itself is not terribly good, but I am sure, if she had lived there for an extensive number of years, she could fool anyone. Some accents are easy to do and some are not. A nice English accent is difficult. A nice German one is not so difficult (at least for me). According to a local French guy here,
It's all to do with how well you can mimic the sounds you hear. I am not sure how good the Turkish woman's written Dutch is, but if she passed her exams in the Netherlands, it will be d*mn good.
In Flemish, such a person would probably give himself away directly (Flemish is very flat, Dutch Dutch, I think, is easier for foreigners to do, because articulation it is more pronounced, but that's something Michael will be able to explain much better). There is also something like a 'standard Flemish' accent (Martine Tanghe who presents the Flemish news on Een defined that to some extent), but no-one speaks that way in reality, so even if a foreigner were to master it, he would give himself away by having it. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:00
Hebrew to English
Kirsten Bodart wrote:
@Ty:
All those so-called non-native mistakes can be made by native speakers as well
False.
To avoid repetition: see Michele Fauble's post on page 61 (and other posts).
Since this is my 103rd post on this thread, I shan't be goaded into repeating myself again. Quite simply, there are errors which are made by non-native speakers systematically that are incredibly atypical of native speakers, who if they do make similar errors only do so sporadically (if at all).
You are still focusing on the wrong kind of error (its and it's). This is an error that can be made by both natives and non-natives for both the same reason and different reasons (competence and performance). The examples I gave (articles and prepositional/phrasal verbs) are made consistently and systematically by non-native speakers as competence errors, if a native speaker messes these up, which is incredibly atypical (especially of an educated native speaker) then it is a performance error and it won't be systematic, but sporadic.
[Edited at 2012-07-20 10:06 GMT]
| | | | | The crux of the crux, perhaps :-) | Jul 20, 2012 |
Michael Beijer wrote: Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
The native language verification should just be that: evaluation if someone is a true native speaker, not a great translator.
Charlie Bavington wrote:
They might be native, they might not be, I don't care. If their written output in that language sucks, then they should be cast out of the circle. These two positions pretty much sum up what is going wrong here.
Can't argue with that too much. But the issue IMHO is that people are jumping into processes and procedures before they've defined the exact nature of the problem they're trying to solve, in what way it is a problem (what adverse effects is it having), what is causing the problem to arise, what final position would we like to be in, how can we get there from where we are now given the contraints upon us, and probably loads of other stuff that fills shelves of management books.
I'm not saying I'm perfect in that respect, nor that I have reached a definite set of answers to those questions, but I have tried - because I think this is probably a more important issue wrt this website than many others - and I do think we need that if we're going to get anywhere.
So yes, if we can't agree on either where we're starting from OR where we're going, then any agreement on the route is likely to be no more than a coincidence.
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 02:00
Member (2007)
English
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| An idea for a written test here | Jul 20, 2012 |
Phil Hand wrote:
Translation inevitably introduces some L2 interference for proper native speakers, so its usefulness as a diagnostic test is diminished. A conversation would be effective, though logistically hard; but a piece of free writing, produced under medium time pressure, would be a) easy to do and b) a good representation of one's writing skills, abstracted away from the difficulties of translation.
I have no real idea of what happens behind a website, but I'm sure those who want/need to prove nativeness could be directed to a screen where, after receiving appropriate instructions, they were asked to choose between a few subjects and write for n minutes (5?) on the topic, after which time the interface would close. That writing would then be analysed. Subjects could be generated randomly from a database and include different types of topics: hobbies, world concerns, nature, jobs...
It could be made clear that (a) content was irrelevant, so lies, ridiculous hypotheses etc would be just as acceptable as the truth; and (b) the text would be analysed for the sole purpose of verifying the claim to be a native speaker of the language.
This would result in a text which probably contained the odd typo but which would be a real example of that person's natural writing. A lot of people here say we shouldn't be judged on our forum posts, and I agree they aren't polished to perfection so they aren't "professional"; but they are a natural example of the way we use the language. The number of typos in a text has absolutely no bearing on native or non-native status.
Sheila
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Rob Grayson
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:00
French to English
| The problem with written tests | Jul 20, 2012 |
There is one obvious problem with written tests. What's to stop the person being tested just going and finding some suitable text on the internet and copying it and pasting it?
| | | | | Probs (cont'd).... | Jul 20, 2012 |
Rob Grayson wrote:
There is one obvious problem with written tests. What's to stop the person being tested just going and finding some suitable text on the internet and copying it and pasting it?
Or having someone who really is a native speaker write it or tweak it to eliminate the obvious blunders?
A written test won't prove anything. It will only provide another opportunity to cheat/beat the system. Imo.
[Edited at 2012-07-20 10:26 GMT]
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 02:00
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| You can only reduce the problem | Jul 20, 2012 |
Rob Grayson wrote:
There is one obvious problem with written tests. What's to stop the person being tested just going and finding some suitable text on the internet and copying it and pasting it?
There are a great many products on the market which are very good at catching this sort of copying. I don't think anyone would have too much time to edit a text in such a short space of time. And if they did edit it sufficiently to avoid the text being recognised, well that would be valid. I'm sure I couldn't thoroughly edit a French text without introducing non-native errors.
Sheila
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