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anonymous
Q: An interesting question.
How would you define "native speaker of English"? Someone who has been speaking English since the day he was born? Or someone who come from a race which originally speaks English?
Please correct my grammar if there is any mistake. Thanks
Why do you think this question so interesting? India, Nigeria, North America, Britian, maybe Australia, even China etc. all have natives that speak English. Different countries and perhaps different areas of a country have different accents when speaking English. I think you might mean who speaks proper English with a neutral accent? I would say some North Americans do. Brits have spoken with a non-rhotic accent for about 300 years, before that they spoke rhotic like Americans.
iWolf:
Perhaps after several years in China you are a neutral accent native speaker.
I know that my accent is almost gone when speaking with local people but comes back in minutes when speaking with someone from my hometown.
Recently a European guy asked me where I was from, when I told him he was surprised and laughed because he knows some FOB guys from my hometown and struggles to understand them.
According to Chinese people "native English speakers" are Caucasians and it doesn't matter whether they come from UK or Russia.
The blonder the hair and the bluer the eyes = the more "native speaker".
Don't tell them that Nigerians or (black) South Africans are native speakers, they won't believe a word of it.
For e.g.:
"Oh look, he/she is so cute, I don't learn anything because this one is a crappy teacher but these blue eyes and blonde hair are sooooo beautiful"
"I don't want to look at this black face all day, I don't care if this teacher is qualified, if he/she teaches me I want 50% off on fees"
And let's not forget the ABC/CBC/... case: "You can't possibly be a native English speaker, you look Chinese."
Do I really need to say that Chinese people are very superficial?
You are using the word "race" wrong. The human genome project showed there is only one race. Perhaps you mean to say "ethnic grouping" but I'd still venture you are wrong in doing that as e.g. a French speaking Canadian belongs to the same ethnic grouping as an English speaking Canadian, despite the latter being a native speaker and the former not. The French speaking Canadian can still claim to come from an English speaking country even thought the poor sod cannot pronounce most word correctly.
DrMonkey:
Some Quebec people would have problems to be understood in a France too, accent + many different idioms ^^
Scandinavian:
some Scandinavians with 6 years of French education in school share the problem the French Canadians have. :)
Sinobear:
Tabernacle! Let's not bring the Quebecois into it! People from France are all prostitutes for the Germans and all those from the lesser parts of Canada are simply jealous civitains! Mon hostie, if you're not from the great country of Quebec let's not pretend that you understand her great people. Merde..
Scandinavian:
Quebecois... is that correct ?
Anyway. This club speaks for itself
http://www.clubmr2quebec.com/
