# Language(s) in Profile



## Gavilan

Just a suggestion. As I'm scrolling through the forums on WR it's a bit strange to see in the poster's profile something like "Native of: Español" or "Native of: UK. English". Being a language lover and proofreader, this is just jumps out at me as something that needs to be fixed!
Wouldn't it be simple to have in the banner profile that we see when scrolling through posts something like this:

Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: United States
Native of: México
Language(s): Español, English
Posts: 5,698 

???

You don't need to color code it, as has been suggested. Just a category to show the poster's primary language(s).

This doesn't seem difficult to me.

Thanks for hearing (reading) me out!

Gavilan


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## fenixpollo

I think I agree with your point about distinguishing between L1 and L2.  This issue has been discussed in this thread, where our administrator responded: 





			
				mkellogg said:
			
		

> The intention is for people to say what are their native country and language. Currently there are no fields for "learning languages" or "languages that you can write me in".
> 
> I'll take a look at adding these as optional fields in the user profiles since it causes so much confusion. For now, I suggest putting anything other than native language and country in the "biography" field.


 Saludos.


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## Bienvenidos

This has been a problem for me too...my native language is Farsi (Persian), but I've been living in the US since I was seven months old, so English is also like a "native" language to me. I never know which to put, because if I put "Farsi", people think that I'm somebody who's studying English and doesn't know the language well. But if I put English, people think I'm an English speaker who's studying a language that's nothing like English, Farsi. And people get confused when I write Farsi because it's also known as Persian. I used to have to write, "Eastern (Afghan) Farsi (Persian), English" as my native language, but now I've simplified it to: "Persian/English". 

It's just so hard with all the dialects. In some languages, dialects don't vary much, but in others, they vary a lot.

Saludos


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## Gavilan

Thanks guys for your responses.
To clarify, the point of my original post was simply that, in the Profile categories, one's language(s) should not follow "Native of:"
For example, "Native of: English - USA" 
"Native of" refers to one's country of origin, not one's language.

Maybe I'm being picky.


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## fenixpollo

On the contrary, Gavilán. We talk constantly in this forum about native speakers of a language (e.g. native spanish speakers), and we often abbreviate that to simply "native".

Currently, my profile says "Western U.S. English", which tells people that I am native to the Western US and a native speaker of the Western American dialect.  

Cheers.


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## Gavilan

Maybe on this forum...but,

I would argue that the common conception English speakers have of "Native of:"  would be _place _not language. 
Given an application or some other form to fill out with this information, most people would put their country of origin, not their language.
"Native of:" = place.
Of course, "native" can be applied to a number of things, but it should be specified.

Native _speaker of_ or native _language_ would be more specific.


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## fenixpollo

A very fine point of the definition that is not picky at all, Gavilan.  It's a good topic for a thread in English Only (or in Cultural Discussions)!   Why don't you open it?


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## Nunty

Bienvenidos said:


> This has been a problem for me too...my native language is Farsi (Persian), but I've been living in the US since I was seven months old, so English is also like a "native" language to me.


I am in the same boat. As I explained in another recent thread, at home we spoke Hebrew, American English and another language; I consider all of them my "mother tongue" and have roughly the same level of facility in both of the first two. I am presently living in a francophone monastic community and French has become my primary language, though far from my most fluent. 

In my profile, I think I have something like "Israel; English & Hebrew". Is that what you would want to know, Gavilan?


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## Jana337

Bienvenidos, it is absolutely common and OK for completely bilingual people to include both languages. 

Jana


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## elroy

I am in the same boat as Bienvenidos and Nun-Translator , but that wasn't the point of this thread.

Gavilan, I understand your concerns but actually the idea is indeed for people to indicate their native _country_ first and then their language, such that

*Native of: US (English)*

_(or a variant thereof, provided the country still comes first) _

is supposed to be an abbreviation of 

*Native of the United States, native speaker of English*

Of course, some people don't pay attention to these details and give the language first - and that's when it looks strange.  Nevertheless, I personally don't think that's enough of a reason to change the wording.


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## LV4-26

My dictionary says "_native of"_ should be followed by your place of *birth.
*I'm surely not the only born-abroad forer@.

If I write "native of France", it will give safe indications as to what my mother tongue is - but it will be untrue.

If I write "native of Ivory Coast", it will be true but will inevitably get people confused as to what my mother tongue is.

Therefore, as the important element is that I speak French, I chose to write "French speaker", which is both true and gives the relevant information. (sorry, I know the last clause is grammatically incorrect but I couldn't find the right easy way to word it).


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## mkellogg

Yes, we've had this discussion before and I have been unhappy with the current wording ("Native of:"), but not able to come up with a better way to succinctly say "Native country and language(s)". 

Maybe one of these would be better?:
Native (of):
Native:

If you language experts come to a decision (that I think won't confuse people), I'll be happy to change it.  If somebody starts an EO thread, please link to it from here.


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## fenixpollo

What about...

Native country:
Native language:


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## Outsider

Here, here. 

In a language forum, it seems more pertinent to state one's native _language_ than one's native country. When relevant, I think that forum members can add the country between parenthesis. For example:

Native of: Portuguese (Brazil)

On the other hand, "location" doesn't necessarily say much about linguistic knowledge, either. How about trading "Location" for "Home country", or "Nationality", or something similar? Then the profile would show:

[Native] language: Portuguese
Country: Brazil


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## Gavilan

Fenixpollo has the right idea. Exactly what I had in mind.
I love a simple solution.
Outsider's suggestion would work as well.


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