Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 June 15

= June 15 =

translating source
how can i keep the reference of articles published in local language? is it ok if i place a direct link of the website in local langauge? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sameexa (talk • contribs) 05:07, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Read External links and Citing sources, and see if it answers your questions. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:13, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Learning French
how to learn a language a called french? Elsalvadolianto (talk) 10:38, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Google "how to learn French" and you will see many possible options. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:52, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

How important is being native for writing proficiency? Is there such a thing as a "native writer"?
Is good writing just the product of how much you read? I ask this because some educated non-native speakers of English are often able to write better - in a clear, precise, and organized manner - than native speakers. And this despite the fact they have a thick accent or are average at best when it comes down to speak English. Some native speakers seem neither to know that English has punctuation, nor to care about broken sentences. Add to this an habit of ending many sentences with "LOL", even when there is nothing to laugh at, or spike their writing with acronyms. And let's not forget the usual confusion between "their" and "they're", "your" and "you're." --Llaanngg (talk) 12:57, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * See Literacy and follow various blue links from there to educate yourself more on the topic. Also, writing as a creative act is quite different from the ability to properly spell and read words.  The Wikipedia articles titled Creative writing and Academic writing and Scientific writing and many others which cover how to learn to write as a creative (rather than merely technical) act.  -- Jayron 32 13:30, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * While there is a lot more to writing than good spelling, do note that many people use spell checkers and some writers have access to a proofreader. And when you read something, you usually don't know how much time the writer spent on it. Speakers can only add some pauses or unnecessary words when they need more time. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:46, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, I see that there is no point in comparing the writing of an educated non-native to the writing of a poorly illiterate native speaker. However, two questions remain open. Does linguistics has a concept of native writer parallel to a native speaker? And second, do non-natives have to compensate for their non-nativeness (investing more time reading, for example) to write well in a foreign language? Llaanngg (talk) 13:47, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Just remember that literacy is not fluency; one involves the ability to use a language in spoken situations, and one in written situations. There are people who are perfectly fluent in a language, and still have literacy issues, such as problems in reading comprehension, or more broadly types of dyslexia, which interfere with their ability to transition between the spoken language and the written language.  Fluency is always primary, spoken language (including sign languages) are an inherently human, instinctive property of being human, children for example will learn language all on their own without any direct instruction merely through exposure, and even isolated groups of children with no exposure to any other language will develop their own complete languages spontaneously (see Nicaraguan Sign Language as the best known example).  Written language, on the other hand, is always an artificial construct: people must be taught a written language, and always must be taught it after learning a spoken language.  It is entirely possible for a person to become literate in a written language without ever being fluent in the same spoken language, no alive knows much about exactly how the ancient Egyptian language was spoken, but people can train themselves to be literate in reading hieroglyphics.  Likewise, someone can be born deaf, and still learn to read and write in any language (though with some more difficulty than people who use that spoken language).  One really needs to consider fluency issue and literacy issues as separate (though somewhat related) linguistic concepts, as there are way too many factors unique to one, which do not affect the other.  -- Jayron 32 14:53, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * "Effects of First Language on Second Language Writing: Translation versus Direct Composition" - . Ok, that's not exactly what you're looking for, but there is academic research on topics closely related to your questions. Try various combinations of /composition writing second language non-native/ in Google scholar. I do not believe the term "native writer" occurs in the academic literature. Consider: a (normal, healthy) baby will begin to speak the language of its community, even with no instruction. Learning to read and write without dedicated instruction is quite rare. So nobody can really write "natively" (| natal being the root). Mother tongue is another telling re-direct to the First Language article. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:51, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * It depends on what your aim is. If your highest idealization is to capture the ring of a language under a certain circumstance, then being a native speaker of that language and that niche use of that language can be invaluable. For instance if I wanted to capture the sort of dialogue that might transpire in a seedy bar in Manhattan I would need familiarity with a very specialized means of verbal communication. Bus stop (talk) 19:16, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Not being a native speaker/writer may make the student more susceptible to academics who teach rules which aren't followed in casual communication.  For example, they may end up writing "This is something up with which I will not put" instead of "I won't put up with this".  Also, subtle rules may get overlooked.  A coworker of mine wrote about "a X-ray", instead of "an X-ray".  (They were using the rule that "an" is only used before a word starting with a vowel, while it's actually a "vowel sound", and "X" sounds like "ex", so qualifies). StuRat (talk) 19:34, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * What does a coworker do? Orking cows? What the devil does that entail? Don't you mean 'co-worker'?  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 07:52, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * You may be into summer reruns. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:58, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * A coworker is another worker, just as a cohort is another hort. :-) StuRat (talk) 17:46, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The answer to this question is complicated. To begin with, the question is comparing two populations that differ in variables other than their native language. An overwhelming majority of native speakers of English are able to write in English.  A small minority of speakers of other languages are able to write in English.  A very tiny minority of speakers of languages other than English can write English in a way that is grammatical and clear.  This very tiny minority are highly educated and probably good writers in their native language.  Even so, their English is not likely to be as good as that of the comparable category: native speakers of English who are highly educated and who can write well.  Aside from the very best non-native English writers, I find that a majority of non-native speakers of English write awkwardly and non-idiomatically.  They may be able to communicate their point, but not as smoothly as native speakers in the same written environment and with similar education.  It isn't fair to compare the best non-native writers of English, writing for a professional audience or for publication, with, say, the teenage child of working-class parents communicating with his friends on Facebook.  Marco polo (talk) 13:56, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * There are at least two areas where the answer to this question may differ. I have had a total of two university courses in Spanish, both at the fourth-year level, one in advanced issues in grammar, and one in literature.  I speak Spanish fluently, well enough to be assumed a native speaker in many instances, although it is not my mother tongue and I learned it on the street.  I was told by both of those professors that my writing was professional, and much better than that of most natives.
 * But having learnt Spanish on the street, I do sometimes make spelling errors (like quasi for the correct casi) and sometimes make irregular verbs into regular verbs, or mess up orthographical accents that differentiate meaning (tú versus tu). I also have a limited vocabulary in high-register areas like literary fiction and topics such as sports, politics, and religion, which I wouldn't follow in Spanish in NYC.
 * This indicates there are two different levels here. One is the structural level of forming good sentences and paragraphs with consistent use of tense and sequence of tenses which differ in English and Spanish, but which I do better at than many natives.  But on the content level of vocabulary and spelling I need to consult sources like dictionaries and spellcheckers for words I don't know or whose spelling might not be obvious from the pronunciation alone.
 * μηδείς (talk) 17:48, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Communication is an elusive thing. There is more than one way to say the same thing. The language itself can be put on display. Or language can be spare as though produced by machine. The native speaker who is well-read will probably be better able to use the language to exhilarate the reader by exploring breathtaking expanses of communicative potential, but I think the non-native speaker who is well-read should be able to master good communication even if with more limited personalization. Bus stop (talk) 05:06, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In response to 's comment that "Some native speakers seem neither to know that English has punctuation, nor to care about broken sentences," my response is that Llaanngg may be encountering highly casual forms of writing on social media that do not reflect the writer's ability to write in a more formal fashion when that is called for. Personally, I do not practice this deliberate deviation from standard English prose, but it is very common in informal settings. Experimentation with effective communication while disregarding formalities of punctuation, grammar, capitalization and sentence structure is common in the 21st century. When I was a kid over half a century ago, I remember how outraged the older pedants were that e.e. cummings eschewed capital letters. Big deal. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  05:11, 21 June 2015 (UTC)