# Native Speaker Proficiency



## Meyer Wolfsheim

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if any other languages' native speakers have trouble wrapping themselves around finer points of grammar/homophones in their own native language.  

In United States public schools, many high school students have to be taught the differences between 'there, their, and they're', its vs it's, etc.  In addition, some public schools actually give their students quizzes on the three principle forms of English verbs: the present form, the preterite, and the past participle, because apparently even native speakers struggle with them from time to time.  Are these native speaker faults only in English or do other native speakers' schools have to correct them in some manner?  It just seems that English speakers aren't as proficient in their language as other native speakers are in their own.  

Like maybe in French the difference between the past participle and the imperfect verb tense?


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## trance0

In Slovene many people have problems with the Standard language, because there are so many dialects and some of them are quite different from the book language. Examples of grammar that seem to be especially difficult for some of the natives include: correct and consistent usage of dual, irregular noun declension, occasional incorrect use of cases, spelling of some words, correct usage of punctuation in the written language, correct usage and conjugation of some verbs and occasional incorrect use of verbal aspect with some verbs.


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## Frank06

Hi,

I find the title of this thread a bit misleading . 
I still follow linguists like Marcos Bagno (from Brazil), who state that native speakers hardly make any mistakes against their native tongue from a certain age on. Maybe they exaggerate, but I think they have a point any which way. Otherwise said, native speakers hardly make mistakes.

The main problem, however, seems to be that in Brazil, as in Flanders, Belgium, and undoubtedly as in countless other countries the native language isn't the same as the standard variant used in schools (I'll stick to schools and schools only here .

This also means that I am quite strongly opposed to the idea that 'native language' is to be equated with 'standard language', as _seems_ to be implied in the first post of this thread.

I think that due to this situation of diglossia it's quite normal that students have problems with certain grammatical aspects of the standard variant, which is not necessarily the native language, and that they need extra exercises to aquire proficiency in the standard variant promoted through schools.

My second remark is about the aspect of writing (the examples of there/their, its/it's). It's not a coincidence that we we talk about _native speakers_, and not about _native writers_. Writing is a skill which is aquired relatively late (compared to speaking), so I think it's normal that quite a lot of people have problems with it and hence that a lot of exercises are needed (needed, at least from the point of view of the instance promoting the standard variant).

So, yes on two accounts: over here in Flanders, quite a lot of students need extra exercises in order to become proficient in the standard language (which is rapidly loosing its prestige overe here) and they need quite a lot of spelling exercises in order to write correctly.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Mauricet

Frank06 said:


> I am quite strongly opposed to the idea that 'native language' is to be equated with 'standard language', as _seems_ to be implied in the first post of this thread.
> 
> I think that due to this situation of diglossia it's quite normal that students have problems with certain grammatical aspects of the standard variant, which is not necessarily the native language, and that they need extra exercises to aquire proficiency in the standard variant promoted through schools.


In France there is no diglossia these days, everybody (except migrants) speaks standard French at home as well as at school. Yet many of the youngers misspell _été_ for _était_ in writing, or do not use subjunctive when needed, as in _Il faut *que je vais* (que j'aille)_; even at relatively high education levels ('Grandes écoles', for instance). 



> the standard language (which is rapidly loosing its prestige overe here)


This statement needs qualification: does standard Dutch _rapidly loose its prestige_ in Flanders ? As opposed to Flamish dialects ? My wife quite generally speaks Flamish (the variant from around Bruges) with her friends and relatives, but what is expected from other Belgians is a knowledge of (the so-called 'civilized') Dutch.


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## sokol

I'd like to emphasise the point made by Frank06 about standard language and such. Slovenia perfectly illustrates why the concept of saying that those who don't speak standard language were "not proficient" is complete and utter nonsense, and the very same is true for Austria - and many other nations.

If one *would *claim that those Austrians who don't master standard language (as teached at school) perfectly would *not be "proficient *in their mother tongue" then probably only a very small percentage of Austrians could be considered "having a mother tongue" (not more than 1-3% is my guess, 5% at most*)).
Which of course is nonsense.
*) In Switzerland the percentage probably would be even lower while in Germany it should be significantly higher but still hardly higher than 20-30% (again, a wild guess of mine not based on any statistics ;-).

I'm not sure wether standard language over here in Austria is gaining or loosing prestige - I'd strongly guess the latter but again I have no statistics to support this, and I will be careful here as there are some domains where standard language grew stronger recently (e. g. in music business, very likely prompted by the rise of German Pop & Rap - that is, this kind of music as sung in Germany, in standard language, prompted quite some Austrian groups to follow their example).

Anyway, a great many Austrians have quite a hard time of learning standard language and there occur plenty of violations of standard language grammar (tenses, declension, word order mistakes etc.).


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## Lawrencelot

In the Netherlands people make a lot of grammar mistakes in their own language, at least as much as English-speaking people in English I think. In Dutch, every noun is either male, female, or has no sex, but usually no one knows if a noun with a sex is male or female. And because of English and German influences, 'I am better than you' or 'he is taller than me' etc. is said in 4 different ways in Dutch, while only 1 of them is correct. Lots of people also use the wrong words for plural third-person.

In Belgium it seems they have a better grasp of Dutch grammar.


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## TitTornade

Meyer Wolfsheim said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> I was wondering if any other languages' native speakers have trouble wrapping themselves around finer points of grammar/homophones in their own native language.
> 
> In United States public schools, many high school students have to be taught the differences between 'there, their, and they're', its vs it's, etc. In addition, some public schools actually give their students quizzes on the three principle forms of English verbs: the present form, the preterite, and the past participle, because apparently even native speakers struggle with them from time to time. Are these native speaker faults only in English or do other native speakers' schools have to correct them in some manner? It just seems that English speakers aren't as proficient in their language as other native speakers are in their own.
> 
> Like maybe in French the difference between the past participle and the imperfect verb tense?


 
Hi,
Concerning homophones: French language is full of homophones. This is due to the many silent letters:
eg. part, par, pars, parts, pare, parent, pares are homophones.
other homophones : vert, verts, vers, ver, vair, verre, verres...
or du, dû, due, dues, dus...
or ri, riz, ris, rie, ries, rient, ri...
And so on.


So the difficulties in writing French are numerous: is it not written as it is said... The most difficult is when the homophones are common words (such as "grammatical" words) or for some verbs, homophony between infinitive and past participle: aller (to go), allé (gone).

I can remember primary school lessons about homophone such as : when to write "son" (his/her) or "sont" (are); when to write "ces" (these) or "ses" (his/her) or "c'est" (this is); when to write "a" (have) or "à" (to, at)... ... ... These were among the first lessons I was taught when I learn to write  
And I still use the rule I learnt when I was 8 or 9 to know if I must write "aller" or "allé"... 

Now, it is said that young people are worse and worse in writing French (urban legend or not... I don't know ) : often confusing the silent letters or forgetting them or mixing the differen ways to write the same vowel sounds...

Many native French speakers can make (a lot of) mistakes in writing their own language, knowing that, in France, the dialects were almost totally erased and that people speaks a "very" standard French. (NB: Though it remains several other spoken langagues than French: Breton, Alsacien, Corse...)


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## HUMBERT0

Well following the same logic as the previous posts, the same would apply to Spanish in my country, proper “may I improperly call it classical” Spanish differs from vulgar Spanish (used by the masses at almost every situation), proper Spanish is losing ground fast on mass media specially on television and radio, I only see it standing strong on academic or cultural content. People get accustom to use catchy speech from the urban slums, fewer all purpose words that change meaning with context or tone (chingar, madre, puto, pinche, vieja,culero, verga, etc. are twisted and re-arranged to have many different meanings), and when they need to speak properly they are at a loss for words. This diglossia causes people to make mistakes when trying to speak properly, proper Spanish is not even used among university graduates, people are preferring colloquial speech or a mix of them, because it is perceived as natural, in contact with the average uneducated sincere-witty-resourceful urban or rural class outcast, unpretentious, not affected or uncomplicated. 
And don’t even get me started on the education system.


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## Cilquiestsuens

TitTornade said:


> Hi,
> Concerning homophones: French language is full of homophones. This is due to the many silent letters:
> eg. part, par, pars, parts, pare, parent, pares are homophones.
> other homophones : vert, verts, vers, ver, vair, verre, verres...
> or du, dû, due, dues, dus...
> or ri, riz, ris, rie, ries, rient, ri...
> And so on.
> 
> 
> So the difficulties in writing French are numerous: is it not written as it is said... The most difficult is when the homophones are common words (such as "grammatical" words) or for some verbs, homophony between infinitive and past participle: aller (to go), allé (gone).
> 
> I can remember primary school lessons about homophone such as : when to write "son" (his/her) or "sont" (are); when to write "ces" (these) or "ses" (his/her) or "c'est" (this is); when to write "a" (have) or "à" (to, at)... ... ... These were among the first lessons I was taught when I learn to write
> And I still use the rule I learnt when I was 8 or 9 to know if I must write "aller" or "allé"...
> 
> Now, it is said that young people are worse and worse in writing French (urban legend or not... I don't know ) : often confusing the silent letters or forgetting them or mixing the differen ways to write the same vowel sounds...
> 
> Many native French speakers can make (a lot of) mistakes in writing their own language, knowing that, in France, the dialects were almost totally erased and that people speaks a "very" standard French. (NB: Though it remains several other spoken langagues than French: Breton, Alsacien, Corse...)


 
YES, Silent letters have ruined the French language. 

It's funny you mention the homophony of these words, I use to mention myself the example of *verre, ver*, etc... to illustrate this issue. All this makes the life of foreign learners of French miserable. When they read, they get it. While listening they get confused.... French requires a lot of listening practice to get used to this. Native speakers though always understand the context and may even find this homophony funny and a good opportunity to make puns. Native speakers struggle though with spelling as you mentioned. Another very common mistake is to write the past participles of the first group as an infinitive or vice-versa: *j'ai manger. Je vais allé à la maison*.... 

I'm not aware of the widespread difficulties while using subjunctive????? Is it so????? Have I been too many years away from my native country?

I keep on saying Old French was the most beautiful form of the language ever... all the ver... etc... you mentioned were pronounced differently... There were a very few silent letters... This started in the 13th century... Ca ne nous rajeunit pas!


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## Sepia

What French is concerned I think we missed the most common of them all: The infinitive and the 2nd person plural.

Germans keep mistaking the article "das" and the "dass" or "daß" that you use start a relative clause with. And an steadily increasing number of Danes mix up the present tense with the infinitive - example: "jeg taler" (I speak) "at tale" (to speak) although it really should not be possible to mistake the two phonetically - but sometimes is.


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## Erick404

Although there aren't dialects in Portuguese (at least none that I'm aware of), the colloquial language differs a bit from the standard written language. 
Most Brazilians say that the Portuguese grammar is very complex, but I think the real problem is that they are used to the _spoken _grammar, which is by far much more difficult than the formal grammar. 

Besides that, homophones play a big role in making the standard language difficult. Although the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation is a lot less than in English and French, we still have some problems, like mute initial 'h', 'x' representing 4 different sounds (3 of which can also be represented in another way), and a few others.

It's very common to find grammatical or orthographical mistakes even in advertisements and banners.

Interesting to note that I've already heard many Brazilians saying that while Portuguese is illogically difficult, English is extremely easy and everybody can write correctly


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## J.F. de TROYES

Mauricet said:


> . Yet many of the youngers misspell _été_ for _était_ in writing, or do not use subjunctive when needed, as in _Il faut *que je vais* (que j'aille)_; even at relatively high education levels ('Grandes écoles', for instance).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Making mistakes about moods is really surprising, because it's a matter of spoken language and I think that very early children master  the distinction of use between indicative and subjunctive. It seems to me that only non-natives can be unaware of the subjunctive.
Click to expand...


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## xmarabout

I think in French there are also more and more problem with native speakers proficiency. High Schools teachers and professors at university say that the main reason for failure in the examination is a bad understanding of French, the native language of most of the students (and that is not only in Belgium - Brussels and South part - but also in France).
Why ?
I can point at several reasons:
- The SMS and chat language for the young people
- We are no more in a reading civilisation, we are in a civilisation of video and pictures; less and less people are reading newspaper everyday for example...
- Impact of other languages (mainly English) some people are now speaking Frenglish: one word on two or three in a French sentence is in English (specially in some big companies). An example: ask French speaking people to write the word _connexion_, they will write _connection_ (the English way).
- in Belgium you can also blame the educational system (and politicians): it is now forbidden to have a dictation in primary school, for example... No more list of vocabulary to learn by heart...


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## Mauricet

J.F. de TROYES said:


> Mauricet said:
> 
> 
> 
> . Yet many of the youngers misspell _été_ for _était_ in writing, or do not use subjunctive when needed, as in _Il faut *que je vais* (que j'aille)_; even at relatively high education levels ('Grandes écoles', for instance).
> 
> 
> 
> Making mistakes about moods is really surprising, because it's a matter of spoken language and I think that very early children master  the distinction of use between indicative and subjunctive. It seems to me that only non-natives can be unaware of the subjunctive.
Click to expand...

I must correct what I said : the subjunctive mood is usually well used by French natives; nevertheless I heard _Il faut que je vais_ in 1971, from an adult who obviously had a low level education in a French native family. People in the 'Grandes Ecoles' and universities clearly don't do that kind of mistakes, while many have big problems with _written_ French.


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## sakvaka

The spoken *Finnish* differs very much from the official written Finnish. There are also a great lot regional and dialectal differences. And although Finnish is an extremely phonetic language, there are still some words that people may write wrong just because of the special pronunciations of spoken language.

Some examples. 

_Mitä siä nyt oikeen meinaat tehä?_ (What are you going to do now?)
_Mitä sinä nyt oikein aiot tehdä?_ (with standard phrasing - if somebody is talking like this, it sounds extremely formal and even silly)

_Ollaankomyö päätetty jo siitä?_ (Have we already decided about the matter?)
_Olemmeko me jo päättäneet asiasta?_ (with standard phrasing)

_Miehä niit tyttölöit jututin ja kuulin, et hyö ov_vierasil._
_Mnää siit puhuttelin niit tyttöj ja kuulin, et he käymäs olis vaan.
Miä juttelin tyttöjen kaa ja kuulin, et hyö ois vierasilla.
Ku mä juttelin niitten typyjen kaa nii mä kuulin, et ne on käymäs vaan._  (the same phrase in four different dialects)
_Minä jututin niitä tyttöjä ja kuulin, että he ovat vain kylässä._ (and in standard Finnish)

kunpa - kumpa?
onpi - ompi?
aijon - aion?
sanottaneen - sanottanee?

The most common problem must be with the compounds. You frequently see misspelt compounds while you're walking in the streets.

Is it _palo auto_ or _paloauto_? _Alfa-säteily_ or _alfasäteily_? _Ennen kaikkea_ or _ennenkaikkea_? _Yhtä aikaa_ or _yhtäaikaa_ or _yhtä-aikaa_ or _yht'aikaa_?


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## PoliglotESSE

Hello everyone,

Nice to meet you! 
I see nobody has commented yet on proficiency of Russian native-speakers  Of course I can't generalize when talking about that but as I notice Russians are very good at the spoken language. For example, they will never mix *здесь* (here) and *там* (there) as some of the French do with *ici * and *là* because it's a question of meaning in Russian. You'll never say "here" if you mean "there", right? 
Russians never make mistakes with declinations when they speak though it can be one of the most difficult things for learners. The same for conjugations. And they never confuse about verb tenses because there're only three tenses in Russian: present, past and future. So you don't have to hesitate between various past tenses as in other languages. 

Well, I suppose that sounds good... but if Russians are so smart that they master their language what's the problem? Why is this language supposed to be one of the most difficult ones to study? So here go the problems 
Russians do make (a lot of) orthographic mistakes. Yes, written Russian is a big problem here. Although people certainly know how to decline nouns they can make mistakes in writing terminations of words. You may communicate with a person and be impressed by amount of words he/she uses but all this good impression fades away as soon as you see how this person writes  I saw so many barbarian letters from very professional people!!! 
Also people make mistakes when using more complicated words (mostly of latin origin), e.g. if they have the same root. Compare: *имперский* and *императорский*. Both mean "imperial" but in Russian there's a slight shadow of difference between them. The former refers to "empire" while the latter refers to "emperor". But actually such nuances are of quite a high level  
And also there's a big problem in written Russian - punctuation. Sometimes you have nothing but just to memorize the rules, which are quite complicated sometimes. 

To sum up I can say that Russians have good skills of speaking but they lack of writing ones. And it becomes worse and worse because the young don't want to study at all. And it's sad...


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## Cilquiestsuens

Another common mistake by French native speakers is mistaking : *amener* for *apporter, *though not the other way round. In other words _apporter_ tends to disappear in spoken.

_Amène la bouffe rapidos._

_Ramène-moi mon livre._

Why is French so messed up??? Is it because most of its so called 60 + million native speakers actually had their parents or grand parents speaking another mother tongue  or dialect if you like (Alsacien, Flamand, Picard, Lorrain, Occitan, Provençal, Catalon, Gascon, Basque, Breton, Gallo, Normand,  etc... etc...)


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## xmarabout

Cilquiestsuens said:


> Why is French so messed up??? Is it because most of its so called 60 + million native speakers actually had their parents or grand parents speaking another mother tongue or dialect if you like (Alsacien, Flamand, Picard, Lorrain, Occitan, Provençal, Catalon, Gascon, Basque, Breton, Gallo, Normand, etc... etc...)


Absolutely not, the standardisation of French in France done by the Education nationale almost killed those dialects for the parent and grand parents of the native speakers. The revival of most of the dialects is a new fact...
The reason are elsewhere. As I already said in this topic, you can point out
- a less and less "reading" civilisation
- more and more contacts with other languages specially English
- ...


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## Nanon

Allow me to disagree: nowadays people read and write a lot, particularly... young people! Of course, they read and write only chatspeak and SMS, and when one wants to point out the importance of spelling for being understood, they answer "Who cares? Use spell check", and the like 

I am sure there is a direct relationship between reading and writing well and the quality (not only the quantity) of the material you read.

French is messed up because there is a strong resistance against reforming spelling. There was a spelling reform in 1990 but only a couple of small things were changed and the number of silent letters remains more or less the same. Now if a bold Academician would declare the agreement of past participles used with _avoir_ obsolete, that would remove a real pain in the ...!! (although speakers would be surprised in the beginning, I presume). Not only learners, but also proficient native speakers have doubts on that one.

By the way, there is another thread about mistakes made by native speakers (not only spelling).


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## Meyer Wolfsheim

Nanon said:


> Allow me to disagree: nowadays people read and write a lot, particularly... young people! Of course, they read and write only chatspeak and SMS, and when one wants to point out the importance of spelling for being understood, they answer "Who cares? Use spell check", and the like
> 
> I am sure there is a direct relationship between reading and writing well and the quality (not only the quantity) of the material you read.
> 
> French is messed up because there is a strong resistance against reforming spelling. There was a spelling reform in 1990 but only a couple of small things were changed and the number of silent letters remains more or less the same. Now if a bold Academician would declare the agreement of past participles used with _avoir_ obsolete, that would remove a real pain in the ...!! (although speakers would be surprised in the beginning, I presume). Not only learners, but also proficient native speakers have doubts on that one.
> 
> By the way, there is another thread about mistakes made by native speakers (not only spelling).


 

I do not think the agreement of the past participle with avoir is obsolete, because you do have special cases like _je les ai mises _or _je me suis assise_.  But I have no expertise on the current changing nature of the French language, perhaps those forms where the agreement can be heard are dying out, but if they are not then I would say that the past participle agreement is not entirely obsolete.


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## Nanon

Hi Meyer,

Maybe I was not specific enough in my messsage. I was not thinking about pronominal verbs (with être, by the way, like in your example). And maybe not about all cases, all verb groups, etc. However, just as an indication, if you have a look at the number of threads about past participle agreement in the French forums, and if you count the number of threads started by natives, as well as the number of correct replies or explanations given by natives, you will see that this is a recurrent problem for almost everybody. People with a perfect grammar and style can get into that trap if they don't pay attention.
Anyway I told you changing rules about that (in)famous agreement was a bold move!
I wouldn't like to cannibalise this thread with that particular aspect of French grammar, so maybe we should go on with other examples.


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## Cilquiestsuens

Nanon said:


> Hi Meyer,
> 
> Maybe I was not specific enough in my messsage. I was not thinking about pronominal verbs (with être, by the way, like in your example). And maybe not about all cases, all verb groups, etc. However, just as an indication, if you have a look at the number of threads about past participle agreement in the French forums, and if you count the number of threads started by natives, as well as the number of correct replies or explanations given by natives, you will see that this is a recurrent problem for almost everybody. People with a perfect grammar and style can get into that trap if they don't pay attention.
> Anyway I told you changing rules about that (in)famous agreement was a bold move!
> I wouldn't like to cannibalise this thread with that particular aspect of French grammar, so maybe we should go on with other examples.


 

You are right when you say that the 'réforme de l'orthographe' should be implemented because it includes almost only valid changes. I am even in favor of going even further....

Just this agreement of the passé composé with avoir, is something *real *as mentioned by Meyer.... It is just not pronounced after a 1st group verb. It is impossible to get rid of it.

_*Je les ai prises (*tes clés*)*_

_*Ils les ont comprises (*les phrases de la leçon*)*_

_*Tu les as faites (*les courses*)*_

_*Nous les avons dites (*ces paroles*)*_

_*Je les ai ouvertes ( *les enveloppes*)*_


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## Nanon

Sorry, sorry. Wait a minute... I never said the agreement was not real. Ad I said "maybe not in all cases". If this changes some day, the reform will have to be fine-tuned.You mention only 3rd groups verbs and agreements in feminine plural in which a native is unlikely to commit a mistake. "Tu as pris _ les clefs ? - Oui, je les ai prises [iz]".
The tricky ones are these, for example:


 Combien de paroles a-t-elle dit / dites ?
 Les courses qu'il a fait / faites...
 Des difficultés, j'en ai éprouvé / éprouvées
Des gens que j'ai trouvé / trouvés adorables
la vie que j'ai vécu / les dix dernières années que j'ai vécues
In some of these cases, according to the Académie française, the agreement is optional... This is because the rules are intricate and difficult to apply. Pronouncing or writing the ending (or not doing so) in these cases does not make these sentences more difficult to understand.

Now the questions are: would a change in these rules (or exceptions) create a profound, degradating, over-simplificating pattern that would alter the structure of the language? Why are these rules maintained: inertia, resistance, in order to maintain a social function of spelling (although this is less valid nowadays) (see the rather extreme proposals of A. Chervel)? Affectivity attached to spelling?_


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## Cilquiestsuens

I am not part of these people emotionally concerned by any spelling change... Simplification of French spelling is overdue...

Again, this question of Passé Composé agreement is complex... But if you decide to get rid in writing of the mark of feminine and plural (e) (s) only when they are not pronounced, you must admit that you are creating a new irregularity and introduce a new twist in the rule of passé composé which doesn't seem to be very logical.... IN other words, you make a rule already difficult for foreign learners and native speakers even more difficult!!!

I am myself much more satisfied with the rules of agreement the way they are... let's keep them thus... because they make sense while we know these endings are never pronounced  after a past participle not ending in a consonante....

Now if you get rid of writing (s), how can you justify keeping it for writing plurals ???? (because of some liaisons, but these liaisons are not always pronounced and you may find some cases where they never are?)

This is just to show you that spelling is a very complex and intricate issue, and over-simplification may lead to the opposite, making things more complicated.


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## Mishe

People in most languages make similar mistakes in their native tongues. Maybe it is more obvious in languages like French, because of the ortography and a huge number of homophones, but also in all other languages many native speakers, especially the less educated ones, make typical mistakes, which usually indicate that the speakers have no understanding for what separate elements in a language mean (for example people show the lack of the basic grammar understanding, not knowing the difference between for example the verb or a noun, not understanding the tenses, etc.)

A typical example of this in Slovenian is, for example is people writing together the construction "ne bo", which means (will not, is not going to, 3rd person singular), as "nebo", which is incorrect, but they probably do so because they subconsciously mix it up with the noun "nebo", which means "the sky".


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## Hulalessar

Cilquiestsuens said:


> I am not part of these people emotionally concerned by any spelling change... Simplification of French spelling is overdue...
> 
> Again, this question of Passé Composé agreement is complex... But if you decide to get rid in writing of the mark of feminine and plural (e) (s) only when they are not pronounced, you must admit that you are creating a new irregularity and introduce a new twist in the rule of passé composé which doesn't seem to be very logical.... IN other words, you make a rule already difficult for foreign learners and native speakers even more difficult!!!
> 
> I am myself much more satisfied with the rules of agreement the way they are... let's keep them thus... because they make sense while we know these endings are never pronounced  after a past participle not ending in a consonante....
> 
> Now if you get rid of writing (s), how can you justify keeping it for writing plurals ???? (because of some liaisons, but these liaisons are not always pronounced and you may find some cases where they never are?)
> 
> This is just to show you that spelling is a very complex and intricate issue, and over-simplification may lead to the opposite, making things more complicated.



I think this has to be right. Let's remember that French orthography is largely etymological reflecting an earlier stage of the language. If the past participle of the passé composé is only to be changed in writing to reflect pronunciation there would seem to be no justification for making adjectives agree in writing except when there is a sound change. One would then write "la maison bleu" but "la maison blanche", and "le livre spécial" but "les livres spéciaux". The next step is to leave the "s" off all plural nouns that form their plural with an "s".

One can then go on to ask, and this applies as much to English as it does to French, whether there is any justification in making distinctions in writing that are not made in speech. The final step is to abandon etymological spelling and adopt a system with a one to one correspondence between sound and symbol. This presents a bit of a problem with French because of the phenomenon of liason. It would be necessary to write the same word differently according to what followed: "il di" but "dit-il". Whilst this would not be a problem for native speakers, it would certainly confuse learners who would feel they had to learn two distinct forms for many words.


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## Hulalessar

Mishe said:


> People in most languages make similar mistakes in their native tongues. Maybe it is more obvious in languages like French, because of the ortography and a huge number of homophones, but also in all other languages many native speakers, especially the less educated ones, make typical mistakes, which usually indicate that the speakers have no understanding for what separate elements in a language mean (for example people show the lack of the basic grammar understanding, not knowing the difference between for example the verb or a noun, not understanding the tenses, etc.)



Views such as the above are widespread and are held not only by the "more educated" but also by the "less educated". They are not views to which many linguists (meaning those whose business is linguistics) would subscribe.

All language is a convention. The conventions of a standard written form of a language are not more valid than the conventions of the spoken form and the two are always different. No spoken form of a language lacks grammar - if it did it would be soup. Any variety of a spoken language has grammatical rules which the speakers of that variety adhere to strictly. Native speakers do not make mistakes when they speak. If they fail to follow the conventions of the written language when writing it (or even when speaking it) that is another matter.


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## Mishe

Hulalessar said:


> Views such as the above are widespread and are held not only by the "more educated" but also by the "less educated". They are not views to which many linguists (meaning those whose business is linguistics) would subscribe.
> 
> All language is a convention. The conventions of a standard written form of a language are not more valid than the conventions of the spoken form and the two are always different. No spoken form of a language lacks grammar - if it did it would be soup. Any variety of a spoken language has grammatical rules which the speakers of that variety adhere to strictly. Native speakers do not make mistakes when they speak. If they fail to follow the conventions of the written language when writing it (or even when speaking it) that is another matter.



Clearly, last few posts have been about the _written _language and obviously I was also talking about written language.

Nevertheless, I don't agree that native speakers don't make mistakes when trying to speak the standard language - of course they can and they do.

Many, if not the majority of native Slovenian speakers misuse the verbs morati (must) and moči (can). They mix the forms of both verbs, because they are similar. So you hear things like: Mogla sem priti (I could come), instead of Morala sem priti (I had to come) on an everyday basis from mouths of 100% pure native speakers, believe it or not.


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## Hulalessar

Mishe said:


> Clearly, last few posts have been about the _written _language and obviously I was also talking about written language.



Well, people have been talking about mistakes made by native _speakers_ when they _write_.



Mishe said:


> Nevertheless, I don't agree that native speakers don't make mistakes when trying to speak the standard language - of course they can and they do.



I may not have made my meaning clear by failing to distinguish between three different things:

1 - The written language when spoken.

2 - The spoken language considered to be standard.

3 - Other varieties (whether regional or social) not sufficiently different from 1 and 2 as to be generally considered dialects.

What I am saying is that any forms in 3 that do not conform with the forms in 2 should not be considered mistakes. Speakers of 3 may make mistakes when they speak 2, just as speakers of 2 may make mistakes when they speak 3, by which I mean that in both cases the conventions of the particular variety may not be followed. 1, 2 and 3 are not aways necessarily discrete; there may be intermediate varieties and speakers may move from one to the other according to circumstances.



Mishe said:


> Many, if not the majority of native Slovenian speakers misuse the verbs morati (must) and moči (can).



If the _majority_ of native Slovenian speakers misuse the verbs morati and moči this suggests to me that the grammar books need re-writing.


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## Mishe

Well, I don't know if it is really a _majority, _it is just my subjective estimation. 

However, new questions arise with this: many people who are native speakers also don't use dual grammatical number, not to mention the wrong use of cases. 

The typical example of the wrong use of tenses is the instrumental (6th case) of the noun _otrok_ (a child) in plural: most people would naturally say _z otroci _(meaning _with children_), whereas the correct form would be _z otroki. _Does that mean that we should change this grammatical rule? I think this opens a whole new topic.


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## Erick404

Hulalessar said:


> If the _majority_ of native Slovenian speakers misuse the verbs morati and moči this suggests to me that the grammar books need re-writing.



What if this apparently "conventioned" change from the official grammar leads to misunderstandings? People getting confused about the meaning of what they were told on their own language, by fellow native speakers.

Mishe could tell us if it is the case, but even if it isn't, I think such a situation is conceivable.


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## jmx

Mishe said:


> The typical example of the wrong use of tenses is the instrumental (6th case) of the noun _otrok_ (a child) in plural: most people would naturally say _z otroci _(meaning _with children_), whereas the correct form would be _z otroki. _


I think we should begin by clarifying what means "correct" in a language.


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## Mishe

jmartins said:


> I think we should begin by clarifying what means "correct" in a language.



I'm talking about the standard language, not the sociolect or a dialect. I think it is pretty clear what correct or incorrect is in the standard version of a language.


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## jmx

Mishe said:


> I think it is pretty clear what correct or incorrect is in the standard version of a language.


Well, if "standard language" is equivalent to "prescriptive language", then it is a more or less precise concept for those languages having prescriptive institutions, like Spanish (is Slovenian one of them?), but not so much for those not having them, like English. 

Besides, prescriptive language can include forms that nobody uses anymore, and for that reason I'm reluctant to call them "standard". In Spanish, for example, the only possible plural imperative of the verb "irse" (to leave, to go away) in the prescriptive language is "idos". Absolutely nobody uses it, and it would arise either laughter or misunderstandings if you tried to use it in a conversation.


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## LocalCrackPusher

These are all very interesting posts, especially because I always considered my English to be very standard, coming from a cosmopiltan city where English is exchanged between many speakers, native and non-native, spanning a plethora of accents. However, I continually come across many mistakes.

One mistake that in New York is UBIQUITOUS is:

You should've came!
I would've ran that light.
He should've went that way. 

I'm not kidding when I say that "should've gone" sounds pedantic and out of place. I always use it and manage to make it sound normal, but I'm very conscious that I'm using it correctly i.e. it's not very natural. I've heard doctors, lawyers and university professors use this incorrectly. Correct usage here is the exception to the rule... I'm curious to find out if it's like this elsewhere in the U.S. or in England, Ireland and abroad.

Then there is also the use of the verb lie (recline). Or the lack there of. I lay there yesterday would be considered by most native speakers to be a mistake although it is correct. Proper usage of lie calls a great deal of attention to itself and will get you many looks. In certain situations I have improperly conjugated it just to look normal (I'm a NYC construction worker, grammer has no domain there) 

Then there's the usage of "Me and Tom went." "Tom and I went" just sounds bad in regular spoken conversation but not as bad as "Tom and I have lain down."

The notorious "ideaR." I don't know where this comes from but it bothers me.

Even worse, poor past participle conjugation: "His hat got tooken" (less common). "The drink got all shooken up."

Another omnipresent mistake: Drink, drank, drank.
"Keep in mind that by that time I had already drank 4 or 5 beers"
"I haven't drank anything in hours!"

"That's broke" "I got bit" are frequent.

Then there is the improper use of past conditionals. "If I went, she wouldn't have gone" means if I went (now) she wouldn't have gone (past). What people often mean to say is "Had I gone, she wouldn't have gone"

Of course the typical American "gonna" and "wanna" are the standard.

Woken/waken confusion, probably originating from the verb awaken and its similarity to wake (up)

This is not to mention slang that has unfortunatly penetrated deeply into our vocabulary. "Where you at right now?"

The pity is, I am not above these mistakes myself. Constantly surrounded by them, I find myself committing them despite my incessant attempts to quash them.


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## Mishe

LocalCrackPusher said:


> These are all very interesting posts, especially because I always considered my English to be very standard, coming from a cosmopiltan city where English is exchanged between many speakers, native and non-native, spanning a plethora of accents. However, I continually come across many mistakes.
> 
> One mistake that in New York is UBIQUITOUS is:
> 
> You should've came!
> I would've ran that light.
> He should've went that way.
> 
> I'm not kidding when I say that "should've gone" sounds pedantic and out of place. I always use it and manage to make it sound normal, but I'm very conscious that I'm using it correctly i.e. it's not very natural. I've heard doctors, lawyers and university professors use this incorrectly. Correct usage here is the exception to the rule... I'm curious to find out if it's like this elsewhere in the U.S. or in England, Ireland and abroad.
> 
> Then there is also the use of the verb lie (recline). Or the lack there of. I lay there yesterday would be considered by most native speakers to be a mistake although it is correct. Proper usage of lie calls a great deal of attention to itself and will get you many looks. In certain situations I have improperly conjugated it just to look normal (I'm a NYC construction worker, grammer has no domain there)
> 
> Then there's the usage of "Me and Tom went." "Tom and I went" just sounds bad in regular spoken conversation but not as bad as "Tom and I have lain down."
> 
> The notorious "ideaR." I don't know where this comes from but it bothers me.
> 
> Even worse, poor past participle conjugation: "His hat got tooken" (less common). "The drink got all shooken up."
> 
> Another omnipresent mistake: Drink, drank, drank.
> "Keep in mind that by that time I had already drank 4 or 5 beers"
> "I haven't drank anything in hours!"
> 
> "That's broke" "I got bit" are frequent.
> 
> Then there is the improper use of past conditionals. "If I went, she wouldn't have gone" means if I went (now) she wouldn't have gone (past). What people often mean to say is "Had I gone, she wouldn't have gone"
> 
> Of course the typical American "gonna" and "wanna" are the standard.
> 
> Woken/waken confusion, probably originating from the verb awaken and its similarity to wake (up)
> 
> This is not to mention slang that has unfortunatly penetrated deeply into our vocabulary. "Where you at right now?"
> 
> The pity is, I am not above these mistakes myself. Constantly surrounded by them, I find myself committing them despite my incessant attempts to quash them.



Your post reminded me of the Sinead O'Connor song (written by Prince) Nothing Compares 2 u, which begins like this: 

_It's been seven hours and fifteen days, since you *took* your love away. _

I remember I was in fourth grade, when we first learned present perfect and my English teacher wasn't able to explain why there was no present perfect, when there was since in these lyrics. An obvious grammatical mistake, but it seems nobody's too bothered because of it.


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## elpoderoso

jmartins said:


> Well, if "standard language" is equivalent to "prescriptive language", then it is a more or less precise concept for those languages having prescriptive institutions, like Spanish (is Slovenian one of them?), but not so much for those not having them, like English.
> 
> Besides, prescriptive language can include forms that nobody uses anymore, and for that reason I'm reluctant to call them "standard". In Spanish, for example, the only possible plural imperative of the verb "irse" (to leave, to go away) in the prescriptive language is "idos". Absolutely nobody uses it, and it would arise either laughter or misunderstandings if you tried to use it in a conversation.


 
What would be used in its stead?


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## Nanon

To Elpoderoso:
In Spain, that would be iros (considered substandard by the Academy)
In Latin America: váyanse  (regular form, no problem with this one, the 3rd person plural is used in LA instead of the 2nd person plural)


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## OBrasilo

Mishe said:
			
		

> Your post reminded me of the Sinead O'Connor song (written by Prince) Nothing Compares 2 u, which begins like this:
> 
> _It's been seven hours and fifteen days, since you *took* your love away. _
> 
> I remember I was in fourth grade, when we first learned present perfect and my English teacher wasn't able to explain why there was no present perfect, when there was since in these lyrics. An obvious grammatical mistake, but it seems nobody's too bothered because of it.


Actually, if you read the beginning of the sentence, "It's been" is a contraction of "It has been", which is present perfect. After the since, the past simple should be correct, since the *took* is an action which occurred before the *it's been*. And the time succession of tenses in English, is: present perfect - past simple - past perfect.


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## LocalCrackPusher

OBrasilo said:


> Actually, if you read the beginning of the sentence, "It's been" is a contraction of "It has been", which is present perfect. After the since, the past simple should be correct, since the *took* is an action which occurred before the *it's been*. And the time succession of tenses in English, is: present perfect - past simple - past perfect.


 
I agree, that sounds fine to me.


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## nose_bleed

LocalCrackPusher said:


> You should've came!
> I would've ran that light.
> He should've went that way.
> 
> I'm not kidding when I say that "should've gone" sounds pedantic and out of place. I always use it and manage to make it sound normal, but I'm very conscious that I'm using it correctly i.e. it's not very natural. I've heard doctors, lawyers and university professors use this incorrectly. Correct usage here is the exception to the rule... I'm curious to find out if it's like this elsewhere in the U.S. or in England, Ireland and abroad.



In Kansas City it's about 50-50. Half of the people who are native speakers of "standard" American English will say "You should've come" and half will say "You should've came." "Should've came" sounds pretty wrong to me.

I specify that these are "standard" speakers because half of Kansas City is in Kansas and the other half is in Missouri. There are speakers in the Missouri half who are more influenced by Southern US dialects, which display syncretism in the other direction: "I seen him yesterday" instead of "I saw him yesterday". "I seen him yesterday" sounds fabulous to me.

Both these tendencies towards past tense/past participle syncretism are signs of language change as English becomes more analytic.



> Then there is also the use of the verb lie (recline). Or the lack there of. I lay there yesterday would be considered by most native speakers to be a mistake although it is correct. Proper usage of lie calls a great deal of attention to itself and will get you many looks. In certain situations I have improperly conjugated it just to look normal (I'm a NYC construction worker, grammer has no domain there)


The lie .vs. lay distinction is irrelevant in modern English.



> Then there's the usage of "Me and Tom went." "Tom and I went" just sounds bad in regular spoken conversation but not as bad as "Tom and I have lain down."


I know not to use "me and tom" in academic papers or in job interviews, but it sounds perfect to me. Again, this is a sign of English evolving and becoming more analytic--perfectly natural.



> Even worse, poor past participle conjugation: "His hat got tooken" (less common). "The drink got all shooken up."


Why is this a problem? Creativity is to be encouraged.

Language can only be controlled once it is dead.


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## Pedro y La Torre

LocalCrackPusher said:


> One mistake that in New York is UBIQUITOUS is:
> 
> You should've came!
> I would've ran that light.
> He should've went that way.
> 
> Another omnipresent mistake: Drink, drank, drank.
> "Keep in mind that by that time I had already drank 4 or 5 beers"
> "I haven't drank anything in hours!"
> 
> "That's broke" "I got bit" are frequent.
> 
> Then there is the improper use of past conditionals. "If I went, she wouldn't have gone" means if I went (now) she wouldn't have gone (past). What people often mean to say is "Had I gone, she wouldn't have gone"



These are all extremely common in Ireland too, to such an extent that in everyday speech I wouldn't even notice that they're, technically, wrong.


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## Lugubert

nose_bleed said:


> In Kansas City it's about 50-50. Half of the people who are native speakers of "standard" American English will say "You should've come" and half will say "You should've came." "Should've came" sounds pretty wrong to me.


And then there is teh ubiquitous "You should of come" on the Internetz...

I'm too involved to comment too much on my native Swedish. I'm a professional translator, and many a new trend is sooo grating on my eyes and ears. Increasingly, the infinitive marker is dropped where I need it. *_Vi kommer få regn_ 'We'll get rain' vs. _Vi kommer *att* få regn_.

We used to make a serious difference between the preposition _före_ 'before' and the conjunction _innan_ 'before'. At least, teachers made the difference, and the poor student who missed the distinction was in for a serious scolding. Nowadays, the confusion is widely accepted.



> Why is this a problem? Creativity is to be encouraged.


There still are enough old geezers that learned one way only, and act the grammar police whenever youngsters transgress. I have to write in a way that nobody is offended or upset. Kids (i.e. people in their 50's and below) accept my ancient ways, and of course my peers and elders do.

Am I, then, a proficient native speaker? That's sociology. I'm not too much into adolescent or SMS speech. I try to understand, but will myself never use today's _grym_ in the meaning of 'great, super' but rather enjoy challenging kids using it in the older meaning 'cruel'.


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## Montesacro

nose_bleed said:


> The lie .vs. lay distinction is irrelevant in modern English.


 
I'm quite sure most educated native speakers would strongly disagree with you on that.


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## clevermizo

Montesacro said:


> I'm quite sure most educated native speakers would strongly disagree with you on that.



Not in spoken language. Unless you're being pedantic, almost no one (and I deal with highly academic sorts every day) makes any "correct" distinction between lie and lay.

But I work with scientists, not English professors. Hey here's another one: _the data are_. Everyone in common speech says _the data is_ but you can't expect to get that published. I've tried to make a point of using data as a plural, but it's always forced and unnatural.


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## Pedro y La Torre

clevermizo said:


> Not in spoken language. Unless you're being pedantic, almost no one (and I deal with highly academic sorts every day) makes any "correct" distinction between lie and lay.




I always make the distinction between the two and I wouldn't consider myself a ''highly academic'' type. Can you give some examples of what you mean?


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## Frank06

*Hi,*

*This is a general thread examples and illustrations are welcome. But in this kind of general threads, we cannot discuss every single example into detail (like lie and lay). *
*This is absolutely not the same as saying that these discussions about grey areas are not interesting. I just like to point out that we have other forums for that kind of issues, for that kind of detailed discussions. If necessary, we can use links and cross-references. *

*I hope we can bring this thread back to a more general level.*

*Groetjes,*

*Frank*
*Moderator EHL*


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## rottenrose

And nobody has mentioned the proficiency of Ukrainian native-speakers...Still it has much in common with Russian...I'm a young teacher of Ukrainian and I'm well aware how many problems arise when pupils get down to writing...The only mistakes I often had to correct are orthographic and that of punctuation...Kids are sick of all the rules concerning how to spell the most difficult words and where to put a comma or a semicolon etc...But in comparison with the Russian we have one more problem - sometimes we are at a loss how to say something in Ukrainian so that Ukrainian woudn't sound like Russian...The most popular exercises for pupils are to render Russian words/sentences into Ukrainian...I guess the impact of Russian and Ukrainian are ruinous, and the proficiency of ukrainian native speakers is the worst...Other native speakers at least don't confuse their native language with the language of the adjacent country


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## Not.A.Linguist

Native speakers of Hindi usually make mistakes about Gender. In Hindi verb form depends on the gender of the subject. Many people who are not very sure about the gender of the subject end up using wrong verb form.

One more common mistake is in Number. Again the number of verb must match the number of subject, but many a times people will always use the plural form. But this one is more of an individual speaking style and by and large a culture thing.


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