- Can you become a native speaker of English?
(graphic whooshes)
(electricity crackles)
Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls.
Let's try to do this without falling down the stairs.
Can you become a native speaker of English?
That's a question I got asked recently.
And can you, is it possible?
Well, the answer to that is quite simply, no, you can't.
And anybody who tells you that you can,
quite simply put, does not understand
what the word native actually means.
So we look, if we look up the word, native,
in the dictionary, I like to use yourdictionary.com.
Nice, simple definitions to words.
We see that the definition of the word, native,
is quite simply, born to a certain location.
You are a native of the UK.
You are a native of Ireland.
You're a native of France, you're a native of Japan.
You're a native of Taiwan.
Wherever you were born, you are a native of that place.
Or if you've lived in a place for a very, very long time,
essentially you've grown up in that place,
you are a native of that place.
Even if you weren't, say, born in New York,
if you spent most of your life in the city,
you will consider yourself a native of New York.
Now if we look up the term, native speaker,
we still see that it's simply to do with the location,
the place where you were born.
And it quite simply means that you were born
into a language, so that that language
is your first language, your mother tongue.
Nowhere, nowhere in any of these definitions
is there any nuance, any connotation
of high proficiency, high skill in a language.
No, it simply means that a language is your first language.
So if you are a non-native speaker,
that doesn't mean that you don't have
a high level of proficiency in a language.
It simply means it's not your first language.
Again, there is no nuance of skill, of level,
of proficiency in any of these words.
I realise I'm being kind of pedantic here
and a little bit picky about words.
Because what people actually mean when they say,
can I be a native speaker of English,
is can I become
a native-like speaker of English?
Can I speak English with a high level
of proficiency, a high level of skill?
And the answer to that question is yes, of course.
And it doesn't matter where you live now,
it doesn't even matter where you started,
what country you were born in.
Yes, you can become a native-like speaker of English.
And it really just comes down to how much
time and effort you are willing to put into the language,
as to how good that you can get.
I've got clients who are indistinguishable
from native speakers, but they're still not native speakers.
And no amount of time or effort into the language
will ever make you a native speaker,
because that's not what native speaker means.
Now, the point that I'm trying to make here is that
you really kind of need to move past
this native speaker idolization,
this idea that native speakers
are somehow the ideal to aspire to become.
Because a non-native speaker will never be a native speaker.
And you will never be the same as a native speaker.
And I've said that I've got clients
who are indistinguishable from native speakers,
and yes, I have.
But when you get down into it,
when you get down into the nitty-gritty,
they're still not the same as a native speaker.
And they come with all this extra stuff,
background knowledge, culture,
things that the clever non-native speaker
uses to their advantage.
Because the reality is you, as a non-native speaker,
you can be more interesting than a native speaker.
Indeed, there are plenty of native speakers
who absolutely suck at their first language.
I mean, that's a whole different kettle of fish
and something I'll talk about it in a separate video.
But use what you've got.
Stop idolising native speakers.
Stop worrying about, ooh, do I sound like a Brit?
Do I sound like an American?
And aim to speak amazing English
at a high level of skill as yourself.
That's what I help people to do.
And if you want me to help you
to speak extraordinary English, ha, ha,
head over to doingenglish.com
and sign up for my free daily emails.
I send an email every day at about 8:00 a.m. Island time,
designed to help you speak better English.
Just enter your email address in the box provided
and yup, every day, you're gonna get an email
from me in your inbox to read, learn from,
take action on, and improve from.
That's doingenglish.com.
I'll see you on the other side
and I'll see you in the next video.
Bye-bye.
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