# native speaker



## Petenka

"Native language" is <<родной язык>> and "native" is <<туземец>> or <<уроженец>> but there does not seem to be any Russian expression that translates to "native speaker". I guess the only way to translate "He is a native speaker" is <<Eго родной язык- Русский>>.  Any advice?


----------



## elemika

Часто в этом значении используют "носитель языка" (wiki) (examples)
And welcome


----------



## Russo_turisto

Petenka, I think your translation would fit very well in a narration of in an affirmative sentence, like.. 

This is Axel. He is a German native speaker.
это Аксель. Его родной язык - немецкий.

But in a negation, носитель языка would fit more..

Он вряд ли поможет тебе, он ведь не носитель языка.
I don't think he is able to help you, he's not a native speaker after all.


----------



## elemika

> but in a negation, носитель языка would fit more..


Организуем лингвистический класс. В качестве преподавателей приглашаем носителей ххх языка/ лиц, для которых ххх язык - родной.
Вы не найдете в нашем институте столько носителей ххх языка/ столько людей, для которых ххх родной (язык).
И он нам не поможет, ведь и для него ххх не родной (язык), он просто долго его учил.


----------



## morzh

Although it is less of a direct translation, I would choose the one by Petenka ("это - его родной язык") over "носитель языка", unless we want "bookish" language used for whatever reason. In a live conversation you will almost always hear "Английский - его родной язык" vs. "он - носитель английского языка".


----------



## Melikhovo

How about if one wanted to say: "Unfortunately, I'll never be able to speak like a native"? 

"к сожалению русский никогда не будет мой родной язык"?


----------



## Sobakus

Melikhovo said:


> How about if one wanted to say: "Unfortunately, I'll never be able to speak like a native"?
> 
> "К сожалению, русский никогда не будет (станет) моим родным языком"?



This means _Russian will never be(come) my native language_, which is rather self-evident.

Я никогда не смогу говорить по-русски, как на своём родном языке.
or, quite bad stylistically, but possible:
Я никогда не смогу говорить по-русски, как носитель.


----------



## e2-e4 X

Вариант: "К сожалению, я никогда не смогу говорить по-русски совершенно свободно". Поскольку у нас нет простого термина для "native speaker", мы обычно как-то избегаем подобных сравнений и предпочитаем говорить прямо.


----------



## Melikhovo

Oh понятно спасибо.


----------



## henrylee100

just my five kopeks:
From what I've been hearing/reading recently, the term *"носитель языка" *has become quite common in Russian, especially in contexts related to language learning. For example, language school ads almost always use this term when they want to stress that their classes are taught by native speakers. So to me the sentence "*Я никогда не смогу говорить по Русски/Английски/Немецки (на Русском/Английском/Немецком языке), как носитель" *sounds perfectly fine stylistically.


----------



## e2-e4 X

Tastes differ. For me that kind of phrase reminds of some kind of infection, really: as if people, like CD disks, are infected with a language or something and have to carry that something with themselves. Distasteful and weird.  In the best case, it sounds for me as jargonism, and therefore makes think of someone showing off, which is not a nice impression either.


----------



## henrylee100

I think I know what you're talking about.
I've got a couple of pet-peeves like that in modern Russian, too.
I always cringe when I hear the phrase, '_агент под прикрытием_' because it has never made sense to me in Russian. 
The first time I heard it I thought it meant an agent who is being covered by other agents but then it turned out it means an agent who has a cover story and is trying to pass as someone else. 
But alas, there isn't much we can do about the ways in which Russian has been changing recently. 
check this out https://www.google.ru/search?client...pw.r_cp.&fp=3bdb61ea810d18ec&biw=1206&bih=729


----------



## LilianaB

e2-e4 X said:


> Tastes differ. For me that kind of phrase reminds of some kind of infection, really: as if people, like CD disks, are infected with a language or something and have to carry that something with themselves. Distasteful and weird.  In the best case, it sounds for me as jargonism, and therefore makes think of someone showing off, which is not a nice impression either.



Yes, I absolutely agree with you. It is not even used by many modern linguists. It might not be showing off, but it is not precise for scientific purposes and sounds better with infectious diseases, although I know many older linguistic sources use it. It literarily means _carrier_.


----------



## henrylee100

It has to be said, though, that if you think about it languages do share quite a few common traits with infections - they are carried by people and spread from person to person. Plus, however disturbing some people may find it, the fact remains that in modern Russian (the 2000's onwards) this expression is used all the time, at least in forums about learning languages. I can see how it may seem a bit weird to someone who's never heard it before, but like all new words or idioms, after a while you get used to it.


----------



## LilianaB

Yes, I know many people use it, but it really sounds better to me with infectious diseases. English does not use _language_ _carrier_. I personally think "для которых ххх язык - родной" sounds much better. You cannot get infected with a particular language, which might be a pity.


----------



## henrylee100

So in English people do not say 'language carrier', how is that relevant to Russian? 
In English people don't say, 'there is a new car to me'(for _у меня есть новая машина_), either, instead they say, 'I have a new car' and yet in Russian _у меня/него/нее etc есть_ is the standard idiom for talking about people owning things.
_человек, для которого XXX язык - родной_ is a pretty big and complicated structure, a noun with a relative clause, comprising at least six words.
by contrast 
_носитель XXX языка_  is a fairly simple structure of just three words.
In terms of communication efficiency _носитель XXX языка_ is a far more efficient way to express the idea that someone is a native speaker of a particular language than _человек, для которого XXX язык - родной_, because it expresses the same idea with far fewer words. 
Generally, verbosity is not a good thing.


----------



## LilianaB

Yes, you are right that this might not be relevant to Russian, but the word just does not convey the right idea -- language is not something carried, but rather spoken, isn't it. It was not really my idea that it sounded strange, but I wanted to mention it for quite a while. It literally means _carrier_, and was originally used with infectious diseases, just like in English -- a virus carrier.


----------



## henrylee100

LilianaB said:


> Yes, you are right that this might not be relevant to Russian, but the word just does not convey the right idea -- language is not something carried, but rather spoken, isn't it. It was not really my idea that it sounded strange, but I wanted to mention it for quite a while. It literally means _carrier_, and was originally used with infectious diseases, just like in English -- a virus carrier.


The way I see it, it's just an idiomatic use.
For example in Russian people 'receive showers' (принимают душ), in American English showers are taken but in Australia people have them.
It's just one of those things, you know, when people just take some word and use it for an entirely different, although often somewhat related, meaning. Thing about how in Russian things almost always stand, as in _машина стоит на улице_, but in English they mostly sit as in 'the car is sitting in the parking lot'. It doesn't mean that in the first case the car is actually standing up while in the second it's sitting down, those are just ordinary everyday words that people use to say that something remains stationary in one place.
It's the same deal with 'carrying a language' in Russian, and the association looks pretty clear to me here - you carry your native language in your head, in your brain, you carry it with you wherever you go.
And in any case the expression "_носитель языка_" is a fact of the Russian language. It's even got its own wikipedia page. Here's the definition from there:



> Носитель языка
> 
> Материал из Википедии — свободной энциклопедии
> Перейти к: навигация, поиск
> 
> Носи́тель языка́ — представитель языковой общности, владеющий нормами языка, активно использующий данный язык (обычно являющийся для него родным) в различных бытовых, социокультурных, профессиональных сферах общения.
> 
> Работе с носителями языка, а не с текстами посвящена полевая лингвистика.


so I see nothing wrong with advising Petenka to use "_носитель/носитель X языка_" if he wants to say 'native speaker' in Russian. It's not bad style and it's not bookish. Russians that work with languages and often have to talk about who's a native speaker of which language use this phrase all the time and I'm talking from personal experience here, there is nothing wrong with it. It's perfect 100% authentic Russian.


----------



## e2-e4 X

I thought (and I think everybody did) that you replied to *Melikhovo* and *Sobakus*, not to *Petenka* (those were two different questions, as you might notice). Style is a relative thing, what is good for ads, announcements and internal management (where jargonisms are appropriate and good; see the examples of *elemika*) happens to be bad in everyday speech.


----------



## henrylee100

Wasn't Petenka the one who wanted to know what expression he could use to say 'native speaker' in Russian.
Normally conversational style favours shorter and simpler expressions. And while this particular expression may actually have started out as jargon, it has now come to be widely used as increasing numbers of people in Russia are studying foreign languages in general and English in particular. Check out some Russian forums about learning foreign languages: there are usually lots of questions about whether native speakers make better teachers than local teachers and truth be told I can hardly remember anyone ever writing things like
"_а скажите пожалуйста, правда, что лучше учить язык у людей для которых он является родным?_"
no, instead the way this question gets asked in Russian is:
"_а скажите пожалуйста, правда, что лучше учить язык у носителей?_"
and those messages aren't posted by linguists, they're posted by ordinary people interested in learning a language and their style is usually as conversational as it can possibly get in an online forum.


----------



## e2-e4 X

henrylee100 said:


> "_а скажите пожалуйста, правда, что лучше учить язык у носителей?_"


It is conversational, but here organisational matters are discussed, just like in *elemika*'s examples, not someone's feelings etc. See, nobody said (or I think so) that "носитель языка" is something to throw out, it was a particular phrase that was disliked by *Sobakus* and by me — I think because the word's jargonistic (I guess you'd agree it's not a general-term word!) sound did not match its not-business-like content (a mere complaint: "Я никогда не выучу русский язык, как родной!").


----------



## henrylee100

Probably we just have very different backgrounds.
"_Я никогда не выучу русский язык, как родной!_" is a perfectly good sentence, no argument there.
However, if someone were to say 
"_Я никогда не заговорю на Русском как носитель_"
I personally wouldn't bat an eyelid. Maybe it's got something to do with the sort of company I keep, I don't know, but to me it sounds like a perfectly normal conversational phrase and I'm not even a teacher, I simply happen to know a lot of people who are into languages.


----------



## e2-e4 X

Yes, probably. 


henrylee100 said:


> I personally wouldn't bat an eyelid. Maybe it's got something to do with the sort of company I keep, I don't know, but to me it sounds like a perfectly normal conversational phrase and I'm not even a teacher, I simply happen to know a lot of people who are into languages.


Yes, those matters are why I said it sounds a bit boastful and not plain for me, as if someone pretends to be someone; and such boastfulness sounds especially strange, given the content.


----------



## henrylee100

I'm not sure I quite understand you, what's boastfulness got to do with it?


----------



## e2-e4 X

That kind: "you see, I am among linguists, I speak their jargon even at home!". Clearly, pretending to be someone, while it is better to be plain and not pretend, just be oneself, whoever oneself is. To use plain language at home, therefore. But this is a question of tastes, so...

You see, the idea of carrying language from people to people bears in it something scientific and not naturally perceived; more plainly, language is not carried, it is spoken, as Liliana said. So, when you do not discuss organization of things or plans to learn a language in a forumgroup, it is just more natural to rely on domestic concepts, isn't it? I think, *morzh* meant the same in the very beginning of the thread.


----------



## henrylee100

don't you think that intentionally dumbing down your speech is equally pretentious and also a bit condescending?


----------



## e2-e4 X

henrylee100 said:


> don't you think that intentionally dumbing down your speech is equally pretentious and also a bit condescending?


Well, maybe, but here it is not the case of dumbing down anyone's speech, in my opinion, at all, and of course nothing about _intentional_ dumbing down.

Ok, let's agree on that tastes differ.


----------



## henrylee100

ok, let's agree to disagree, especially seeing how we've pretty much beaten this topic to death and then some.


----------

