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Poll: Do you have native fluency in your source language(s)?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
Williamson
Williamson  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:28
Flemish to English
+ ...
The proof of the pudding... Apr 11, 2010

Could somebody please define "native fluency"?
A person who grew up in the Bronx is prone to have another kind of "fluency" than somebody who studied at Harvard or Oxbridge.
To what extend do language codes and hence social environment play a role.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Bernstein

Did the poster of this discussion mean : written or spoken fluency?... See more
Could somebody please define "native fluency"?
A person who grew up in the Bronx is prone to have another kind of "fluency" than somebody who studied at Harvard or Oxbridge.
To what extend do language codes and hence social environment play a role.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Bernstein

Did the poster of this discussion mean : written or spoken fluency? A native can be fluent in spoken language, but bad in written language.
French "orthographe" (spelling) is not so easy and even natives of French are prone to make mistakes.

Thanks Reed, it is a typo. Of course, (near)-natives don't make typos, do they???
When I was young, there was a strong emphasis on grammar and syntax.
I am also aware what I must brush up: punctuation and style (-), so that it becomes English, "Swiftly and with Style".

Whatever point of view a person takes on the native only dogma:
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
So, if you want to test how good you are:
Why don't you have a go at conference-interpreting (spoken language) or at a UN-competition (written), where “main language” should be understood to be the language into which the candidate is best able to translate.

Unlike at the E.U., at the UN the focus is purely on your language skills and not on your analytical/verbal/numerical skills.
The preselection test consists of a translation into the target-language. If you fail, you can't participate in the second part, a translation from another UN-language into the language of the competition. Since when is Dutch a UN-language? To test my level of written English, I'll intend to participate in such an exam next year.
This year, I am too busy trying to understand basic calculus, accounting and finance.
How can you prepare for such exams when as a freelancer the native-only dogma dictates that you HAVE to translate in your native language only?
With regard to interpreting, where is the market for freelance interpreting into Dutch?
3 or 4 assignments a year? Who can make a living out of that?

But that was not the issue of the poll. The issue was: do you have native fluency in your source languages? I find the term "near-native" too vague.
A near-native at what level? High-School, University-level?

The language levels of the Council of Europe are more specific :

http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Portfolio/?M=/main_pages/levels.html

Shouldn't the question rather be :
"What is your level in your source-languages and how can you improve yourself?" instead of bringing up that ugly beast of nativeness time and again.


[Edited at 2010-04-12 10:35 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 
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Poll: Do you have native fluency in your source language(s)?






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