Who is a native speaker?

Hi everybody, Adam here at www.engvid.com.

A little bit of an unusual lesson type, but it's not really a lesson.

I just want to talk to you about what it means to be a native speaker.

Now, we've had some comments on our pages, a few of the teachers, that some people are

a little bit offended that we say "learn how to speak like a native speaker", "learn how

to listen like a native speaker", or "write like a native speaker".

So, I want to just address this little debate, controversy, whatever you want to call it.

I want to tell you what it means to be a native speaker.

There are three elements to being a native speaker; geography, idioms and slang or dialect,

and cultural references.

Now, am I a native speaker?

Yes.

I'm a Canadian English native speaker.

If I go to England, am I a native British English speaker?

No, I'm not.

There are many things in the British language, the British English language that I don't

actually know or understand.

There are many things that I say that they don't know or understand.

I lived in a few different countries.

I've taught English in a lot of different places.

I've had co-workers from all kinds of English-speaking countries, from England, Australia, New Zealand,

Ireland, etc.

All of us spoke a little bit differently.

Are we all native speakers?

Yes, in our native land.

So, that's what basically being a native speaker means.

So, when I say I'm going to teach you how to speak like a native speaker, and you know

I'm Canadian, you should understand that I'm going to teach you how to speak like a Canadian.

I can't even say I'm going to teach you how to speak like a North American, because how

they speak in Texas is not how they speak in Toronto, in Ontario, right?

Very different.

So, geography.

In England, even.

How they speak in London is not how they speak up in Birmingham or other places.

Every area has its own little bit of accent and dialect.

Every area has slightly different nuances to the language.

They use different idioms, they use different slang.

So, if you're brand new to a different part of your own country, there are certain things

that you will not understand because you're not from there, especially cultural references.

Certain things happen in certain areas, and the local population knows about it, and they

refer to it when they're making a joke or when they're making a statement.

And if you're not from there, you might not know what they're talking about.

Does this mean that you're not a native English speaker?

No.

You're still a native English speaker in your native area, right?

So, if I go to the east coast of Canada, they will say certain things that I will not understand,

and that's okay.

And if you're thinking native speaker is all about accent, it's not that either.

There are people who come to English-speaking countries as children and become native speakers,

but retain some of their accent from wherever they came from.

In fact, I had a co-worker once, and I won't say where she was from, but one day we were

sitting in the teacher's lounge, we were teaching at a language school here in Toronto, and

I asked her, "Oh, where's your accent from?"

And she got so upset.

She got all angry at me, and she goes, "I'm a native English speaker, I've been speaking

English my whole life."

And I said, "Yeah, okay.

I'm not - you know, I'm not saying you're not a native English speaker, but you certainly

have an accent."

Eventually, she told me where she was born and where her parents came from and all that,

and it wasn't Canada, and that little bit of accent stayed in her speech, but she got

so upset at it.

I didn't say she wasn't a native speaker, I just said she had an accent.

People always think that I have an accent, like they don't know where to place me, but

they think I have an accent.

I don't really have an accent, I enunciate.

I say each syllable clearly because I'm an English teacher.

I want my students to understand me, so I speak very clearly, and some people mistake

that for an accent, okay?

So that's a little bit interesting as well.

And then there's the idioms.

Again, I mentioned the idioms.

One time I was living in Japan, I was teaching there, and I had a British co-worker, and

one time her boyfriend and I went to the store to get some things, and I was having a cigarette,

and he said to me, "Can I bum a fag?"

Now, I looked at him, and I was like, "If you want, yeah, who am I to tell you what

to do, right?"

Because my understanding of the word "fag" and his understanding of the word "fag" were

completely different.

In England, a fag is a cigarette, but I had never heard this before, so this was brand

new to me.

So, it was a little bit of a funny situation.

Another time, I was at a bar with my Australian friend, and we were just talking, and his

friend, also Australian, came in right from work, and he was wearing a nice suit, and

he was holding a plastic bag.

So, my friend said to his friend, "Nice bag of fruit.

Nice bag of fruit."

So, of course, I looked at the bag to see the fruit, the nice fruit.

I was looking, "Oh, I want to see some nice fruit", and I look in the bag, and there's

nothing in the bag.

There's some papers and things like he was using for teaching, and they both looked at

me and started laughing because they realized I didn't understand what they were saying.

In Australian slang, "nice bag of fruit" means "nice suit" because they like to rhyme things.

If you saw the movie Ocean's Eleven, the guy - I think Basher is his name - he goes to

the sewer, he wants to blow up the hotel, and he tells them that they're in Barney,

and they don't understand.

Barney Rubble, they still don't understand.

Trouble.

So, Barney is short for Barney Rubble, which is a cartoon character, but it rhymes with

"trouble", and that's what he was saying to them, right?

Being a native speaker is not about having a particular accent or speaking in a particular

speed or knowing a particular number of words.

It's about communicating with the people who are from the same place without trouble.

As soon as you go out of your area, you are no longer a native English speaker.

On the other hand, a person born in Mumbai and has spoken English his or her whole life,

but has a very noticeable Indian accent, is still a native English speaker in Mumbai,

but not in Canada.

A Canadian is not a native English speaker in Mumbai, right?

So, that's the basic gist of what I want to say here.

Oh, and don't forget the cultural references, of course.

You have to know what the other person is speaking about.

So, if those of you out there who are getting upset because we say "speak like a native

English speaker", just understand, when I say "speak like a native English speaker",

I want you to speak like a Canadian.

If you don't want to speak like a Canadian, watch one of our British teachers and learn

how to speak like a British native English speaker.

If you want to speak like an Australian, find an Australian teacher.

If you want to speak like whoever you want to speak with, that's the native you need

to look for.

And otherwise, your aim should not to try to be a native speaker, it should try to be

fluent, with or without the accent, okay?

I hope that clears things up a little bit.

If you have to comment back to me, if you're upset, let me know you're upset.

If you're happy that I said all this, let me know that you're happy I said all this.

I won't get offended.

It's up to you to deal with the world you're living in, okay?

Until next time, I hope you liked this video.

Like the video if you liked it, subscribe to my channel, and come back next time for

more hopefully useful English tips to help you improve.

See you then.

Bye for now.