[upbeat, electronic intro music plays]

Jeremiah: Hello. Welcome everybody to another episode of How to Language, a podcast about language learning for language learners. I'm Jeremiah. 

Marina: And I'm Marina.

Jeremiah: On today's episode, we're confronting one of the big elephants in the room of language learning by asking the question: is there such a thing as a native speaker and why we should care about the answer.

Marina, what is a native speaker? 

Marina: The term native speaker usually refers to somebody who has spoken their first language since birth. So since they were a baby. 

Jeremiah: So if that's a native speaker, what is a non-native speaker then? 

Marina: A non-native speaker is somebody [00:01:00] who acquired the language in question later in life, uh, as a child or as an adult, but after their first language, usually sequentially.

But I, I think it goes a lot deeper than that. So what would you say are some of the more key differences between native speakers and non-native speakers? 

Jeremiah: For sure. You know, there's, there's the definitions of what a native speaker is versus what a non-native speaker is. And the reasons that those definitions matter is because there are differences in how native speakers use the language and how non-native speakers use the language. And it gets into a whole field of linguistics that deals with how you learn language as a child versus how you learn language as an adult. We won't go there. 

 Basically, some of the differences between native speakers and non-native speakers are that, for [00:02:00] example, native speakers tend to be better at making grammaticality judgments. So if you are learning another language, you know, like, uh, Norwegian, and you ask your Norwegian friend, "Hey, can I say, can I say this?" They might say, "Well, that doesn't sound right. There's something that's -- I would say this." And so you might say, "Well, why would you say this? Why did -- why is what I said wrong?" And they would probably say, "Uh, I don't know, it just sounds wrong." They would be especially likely to say that if they haven't been trained in linguistics, if they don't have the, uh, the language awareness from actually studying their language. 

Whereas a, you know, a non-native speaker might have a harder time making grammatically judgements. They might have to ask, "Does this sound okay? Does this sound weird?" But because they have studied the language that they're learning a lot more in depth and a lot more explicitly, they will have a lot more explicit knowledge about their second language than even[00:03:00] native speakers might. You know, uh, a Norwegian person might not be able to explain why that sentence sounds weird, but somebody who's been studying Norwegian for a long time as a second language might be able to explain why it sounds weird because they know all the linguistic terminology. 

Marina: Mm-hmm.

Jeremiah: From having had to study it for a long time. 

Marina: Right. I think another, uh, interesting characteristic of native speakers that isn't quite linguistic, is that native speakers tend to be the most valued in language learning circles. Like they're the people who you look up to as a language learner, like you want to sound like a native speaker, you wanna talk like a native speaker.

Native speakers are usually the go-to people for grammar questions and instruction, tutoring, language exchanges, things like that. They're sort of like this pinnacle [00:04:00] that everybody is trying to kind of strive for. 

Jeremiah: So in today's episode, we're going to take that fact, interrogate it, and try to find out why this bias in favor of native speakers is so prevalent and what effect it has on language learners like our listeners.

So really what we're kind of talking around is what we call the native speaker fallacy, and you might be able to tell from the name that this idea that native speakers are, let's just say it, that they're superior is a fallacy. It's a lot more complicated than that. And so that's what we're gonna get into.

So the native speaker fallacy is the belief or assumption that native speakers of a language inherently possess superior language skills and knowledge compared to non-native speakers. 

Marina: Just by virtue of being a native speaker. 

Jeremiah: Exactly. Even if they haven't even taken classes that, you know, teach like the grammar, just the linguistics of their language.

Just, just [00:05:00] by, just by speaking the language from birth, it's assumed that, not only are they superior to like learners of the language, but they are superior to people who are learners of the language who have studied the language in depth. And maybe already you can see why that's maybe a little problematic.

Marina: Mm-hmm. 

Jeremiah: And honestly, even the term "native speaker" is kind of loaded with this bias because that idea of like, "Oh, it's a native speaker," it kind of carries a positive connotation. It says like, "Oh, they're a native speaker. That, that sounds like a good thing to be." Whereas non-native speaker has that sort of exclusionary sort of negative connotation, which is why in the field of second language acquisition, we tend to avoid those terms.

We actually use L1 and L2 speakers, or L1 and L2 users, L1 being first language and L2 being second language. And referring to them as even L1 and L2 use-- users highlights this idea that knowing a language is about more than [00:06:00] just speaking it, and the competence in a language is more a question of what you're able to use it for. 

Marina: So what does the native speaker fallacy look like in practice? 

Jeremiah: So the native speaker fallacy presents itself in, in a few different forms. One of them is just purely linguistic. Native speakers are believed to have a superior command of their language. That includes things like pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and idiomatic expressions.

And it can lead to expectations that non-native speakers should try to sound or communicate exactly like native speakers. And that's a belief that ... that other people might hold: employers, whoever. But it's also a belief that is often internalized by learners themselves. I think most of us, we're all trying to sound like native speakers, even if we don't realize it, or even if that's not what we think we're doing.

Um, you know, when we, when we try really, really [00:07:00] hard to roll our Rs in Spanish, you know, we're not saying that's a bad thing, but that's maybe kind of an example of us trying to more closely approximate how native speakers of Spanish talk. 

So examples of this could be insisting that learners should adopt a native-like pronunciation or accent. Um, and you know, you just see this culturally all the time, like if somebody in the US is, is speaking like, you know, accented English from wherever, probably a Latin American country, um, you know, if they're speaking with like quote-unquote, like a "Spanish accent," it's not uncommon to have people in the US be like, "Oh, why don't you talk American?"

Marina: Or you know, not really trying to understand what they're saying. 

Jeremiah: Definitely. 

Marina: For example, or being annoyed by the fact that they have an accent. 

Jeremiah: Yeah, for sure. Mm-hmm.

Marina: You can see that ideology as well when somebody [00:08:00] refers to, "The language is broken." Like, "Oh, they speak broken English," 

Jeremiah: For sure. 

Marina: Or something like that. 

Jeremiah: Yeah. Another example could be mocking non-native speakers for their language mistakes. Um, And also overlooking contributions of non-native speakers in language related fields like linguistics and language teaching. 

Marina: Let me pose this to you. What does a native English speaker sound like? 

Jeremiah: That's a really good. Well, let me answer your question with a question. Are you a native speaker? Do you consider yourself a native speaker of English? 

Marina: I think so, yes. 

Jeremiah: See, that's interesting because I consider myself a native speaker of English. But as presumably, hopefully our listeners can tell we don't quite sound exactly like each other, do we? 

Marina: No. 

Jeremiah: Let me, let me, let me provide an example. Finish this expression. Okay. Uh, "Oh, you're tilting at ... [00:09:00] blank." 

Marina: …What? [laughs]

Jeremiah: Have you ever heard the expression “tilting at windmills?” 

Marina: No. Oh, I guess I'm not a native speaker of English. [laughs]

Jeremiah: See, there you go. Do native speakers know all the expressions? No they do not. Okay. Tilting at windmills. I don't know exactly what it means. Um, but I have heard it: "tilting at windmills." Okay. Windmill. Say that word. 

Marina: Wind meal. [laughs]

Jeremiah: If you're gonna go to Florence and you want to see Il Duomo and you also wanna see some museums, how are you gonna get around? How are you gonna see all those things? Are you gonna, what are you gonna go on? 

Marina: A gondola. 

Jeremiah: I don't think you can see Il Duomo from a gondola. 

Marina: I don't know what that is. 

Jeremiah: It's-- it's-- it doesn't matter. Uh, you're gonna go on a, on a, on a, on a tour. 

Marina: On a tore! 

Jeremiah: On a, on a what? 

Marina: A tore. 

Jeremiah: A tore? 

Marina: A tore. 

Jeremiah: See, I would go on a tour. That's funny. Yeah. And you know, if you're dirty after a long day, my dad would probably, uh, would probably want to go and, and warsh his hands. And, uh… 

Marina: I would say "wash." 

Jeremiah: You would say wa-- I would say "wash" too. [00:10:00] Sometimes I say "warsh" for funsies. 

Marina: Mm-hmm. 

Jeremiah: Um, so yeah. Is my dad a native speaker? Yeah. I mean, he spoke, he learned English from when he was a baby, and so did my grandpa and so did my grandma, and ... 

Marina: But they're not teaching warsh in your average ESL classroom. 

Jeremiah: No. You know, they're not teaching warsh. I, I don't think they are, anyway. They're not teaching "winda." "Put a pie on the winda." They’re not saying, "Go up on the ruff and, and fix the, fix the dyish." You know, they're not, they're not teaching, "Ah lahk waht rahce," that's not really the English that they're, that they're teaching.

So are people, you know, from certain parts of the South who say Ah instead of Ai uh, are they native speakers of English? 

Marina: I mean, technically yes, but you know, they're not usually treated that way. 

Jeremiah: No, they're, yeah, it's almost like ... and this is getting a little out there, so put on your tinfoil hats, I guess. It's, it's almost like, you know, this idea of what a native speaker [00:11:00] is, the definition that we gave at the beginning, um, isn't really a real thing.

Or if it is a real thing, it's not what people are talking about when they say they want to sound like a native speaker of English. 

Marina: It's not as concrete as it appears at first. 

Jeremiah: Not at all. And you know, those, those are just dialects within the continental United States. And I think generally when people think about, "Oh, America, like that's where they speak the good English."

It used to be, you know, Britain. And I think for some people it still is. Like that's where the really good English is spoken. But generally, I think around the world, if you're learning English as a second language or as a foreign language, probably maybe, depending on where you are, you're learning American English or are you? Because you're not learning "Ah," you're not learning "winda," or "ruff," or "warsh."

So are you learning American English or are you learning a specific idealized version of American English? That's interesting. And you know what? Let's make it even more complicated. Say that you're born in, [00:12:00] I don't know. What's a country? Gimme, gimme a country. 

Marina: Any country? 

Jeremiah: Any country that isn't a BANA country.

Marina: That speaks English? 

Jeremiah: That ha-- sure. 

Marina: India. 

Jeremiah: Perfect. So say that you're born in India and both of your parents speak English and you are raised speaking English from birth, alongside, you know, whatever local language you speak -- Hindi, or another language. So by our definition, again, you are a native speaker of English, but are you gonna be treated like a native speaker of English if you're speaking Indian English?

Marina: Unfortunately, that's often not the case. 

Jeremiah: Often not the case. So, yeah, I think, I guess what we're finding is that "native speakers" quote-unquote, don't all speak the same, so whatever native English sounds like, uh ...

Marina: It's not as black and white as it seems, right? Even just between the two of us, we both speak a pretty prestigious [00:13:00] dialect of English, you know, kind of West Coast, California.

Jeremiah: Mm-hmm. 

Marina: But even between the two of us, we say a lot of things differently. And so this idea of a native speaker is so fuzzy. It's this idealized, imaginary concept that we think we know what it is. We think we know what it sounds like, but when you really start to interrogate it, it really starts to fall apart.

Jeremiah: Exactly. And I think basically what we're getting at is that whether you are treated as a native speaker and whether your language is upheld as being ideal by other people doesn't actually have to do with whether you have been speaking English since you were born. It probably has a lot more to do, uh, or at least it, it, it correlates a lot more with your race, with your class, [00:14:00] with your nationality.

Basically, are you a white person from Britain, North America, uh, Australia, New Zealand. Did I get 'em all? 

Marina: I think -- the BANA countries. 

Jeremiah: The BANA countries. Okay. So there's a fun one. When we say BANA countries in uh, language teaching, language acquisition, we're talking about Britain, America, right? 

Marina: Uh ... 

Jeremiah: New Zealand, Australia.

Marina: Yeah, I think so. 

Jeremiah: Right, because those are, those are the countries that are, how would you even describe them? They're English speaking, but there are lots of countries that are English speaking that aren't BANA countries. 

Marina: Right. The BANA countries, if you'll notice, they are all, I mean, do we even need to say they're Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and America? I don't know how else to say it. 

Jeremiah: Exactly. They, you know, they're, there are countries with, first of all, they are countries with [00:15:00] very colonial histories, very white colonial histories. 

Marina: Mm-hmm. 

Jeremiah: Um, they aren't white countries exactly, because, uh, most of those countries have plenty of people who aren't white in them. Um, people who were there a lot longer than the white people were, but you know, I think we've made our point.

So, if whether you're a native speaker doesn't actually have to do with whether you're a native speaker and it has a lot more to do with, you know, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, um, then what is it that everybody's trying to sound like? Because you can't really sound white, you can't really sound American. I mean, I guess like, okay. Really what we're talking about is an, an idealized version of the language. Because if you really interrogate it and you look at what native English is supposed to sound like, nobody really talks like that.

Marina: Yeah. 

Jeremiah: Do you wanna say more about that? 

Marina: And I think the same thing applies to other languages other than English.

I think, you know,[00:16:00] when you're thinking of, like, let's take Spanish for example as well. Um, usually in the United States you'll either be learning Mexican Spanish or Spain Spanish, um, and then all of the other dialects of Spanish tend to be kind of like asides.  Um ... 

Jeremiah: They get a little culture corner in the bottom of one of the pages of the textbook.

Marina: Right. I've even seen, you know, things on the internet talking about like Chilean Spanish for example, seems to get the brunt of this for some reason. Um, calling it broken Spanish, calling it incorrect Spanish, calling it dirty Spanish, I've even seen. It's really intense. 

Jeremiah: Yeah. 

Marina: And even though, you know, a Chilean person, somebody who was born in Chile or grew up speaking Chilean Spanish is a native speaker. Why aren't they valued in the same way as, you know, a native speaker from Spain? For example. 

Here's another really funny [00:17:00] example: I, I stumbled across this, um, AI accent reduction tool, teaching tool online recently. And it's a thing where it's advertised to be able to help you improve your accent in English to make you sound more like a native speaker.

And so they had this test on their website to let you try out the AI program or whatever. And so I tried it and it had you read a couple of sentences in English and it told me that I sound 90% like a native speaker. And they said, oh, that's pretty good, but if you buy our product, you could sound even better.

You could sound even more like a native speaker, but it even marked all of the like, mistakes that I made. It was really weird. 

Jeremiah: Yeah, exactly. So like, you know, even people who tick all the boxes, not just for like the, [00:18:00] the most plain definition of an, of what a native speaker is, but people who tick all the boxes of like the secret definition of what a native speaker is that we've been talking about. Even they don't, you know, measure up a hundred percent to this idealized version of the language. 

Marina: Yeah. 

Jeremiah: Which I think just goes to show even more. It doesn't really exist. So what are we aiming for when we're learning a second language and we're trying to sound more like native speakers? Who are we trying to sound more like if even the actual native speakers don't sound like native speakers according to, you know, the robots. [Marina chuckles]

 So the native speaker fallacy, besides just being a purely linguistic phenomenon, it also has significant implications in the field of education. So educational native speaker fallacy. 

Uh, native speakers are often preferred, uh, in language teaching or learning settings based on the assumption that they're inherently better equipped to teach or represent the [00:19:00] language. And you might be thinking, oh, well, I, okay, you might be thinking, “well, yeah, you know, maybe I do want to be taught Spanish from a native Spanish speaker.”

Okay. Or you might be thinking, “That's, that's weird. Is that a real thing? You know, do people really, uh, do, are jobs really like weeding out English teachers if they don't, if they're not like, you know, native speakers of English?” Well, I'm glad you asked because, you know, I did a brief, a brief job search for English teaching, English tutoring jobs.

And I'll just read you one or two of the qualifications from some of these jobs that I found. Uh, this is, uh, online English tutor. Um, and here's the qualifications: qualification number one, “English native speakers,” uh, parentheses “US and Canadian citizens only for now.” 

Marina: For now. 

Jeremiah: Yeah. For, they might open it up. They might in introduce some Aussies at some point. So, you [00:20:00] know. Woof. 

Marina: And that was like after what, like a couple minutes. Not even. Of searching. 

Jeremiah: That was the fourth job that I looked at. 

Marina: Fourth one? 

Jeremiah: Yeah. Here's the first job I looked at. Um, here's their job description. “Our native speaking,”-- this is the first job on, on, on the list – “Our native speaking teachers are all completely fluent and they specialize in teaching English as a second language.” Native speaking teachers, and they're completely fluent, you know, as opposed to all the native speaking teachers who are not completely fluent.

So from that same job description, here's the first requirement, the first qualification, “a clean accent English speaker.” So earlier they mentioned native speakers. Not only that, they want clean accent native speakers. So… what? I mean, okay ... 

Marina: What's the opposite of clean? 

Jeremiah: What's -- Yikes! Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So yeah. And what does a clean accent sound like? I guess we kind of [00:21:00] touched on it maybe with, um, you know, they probably wouldn't consider  a southern-accented speaker to have a clean accent. 

Marina: Yep. Mm-hmm. Maybe not even someone from Quebec in Canada. Or something like that. 

Jeremiah: Yeah. They might not, they might not consider my, my, uh, my aunt who's from Milwaukee to, to have a clean accent.

You know, she'd be like, [Midwest  accent]“oh, can I apply for your job real quick once?” And they'd be like, “no.” [Marina laughs]

[Midwest accent] “Oh, darn. That's a real shame. Yeah.”

Marina: Yep. So it's, this is not something, it's not a thing of the past. This is happening right now. Like we're literally looking at these jobs right now. So it's definitely still present.

Jeremiah: Right? And so, you know, intellectually you might look at that and think like, okay, well, you know, maybe some students or parents prefer that teachers be native speakers. But Marina, as somebody who has just completed a degree in, uh, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Can [00:22:00] you see any, uh, problems with those kinds of jobs that are only looking for native speakers of English to teach, to teach English? 

Marina: Yeah. So when, when the only, or at least the most important qualification for a language teaching job is just being a native speaker, that's a big problem because teaching a language is not as simple as just knowing the language fluently. Right? Any, any teacher knows this, it's one thing to know the subject, it's another thing to be able to teach it. Teaching is a skill, and it's more important to be a competent teacher than your native or non-native speaker status. Right? 

There are, um, like our colleagues for example -- we have a lot of [00:23:00] colleagues in our English language teaching program who are, would be traditionally labeled as non-native speakers. But they have been learning English for years and years and years, and not even learning -- using English competently for years and years and years and years. They have advanced degrees in teaching English. They have experience working with students, teaching English, and yet compared to, you know, somebody straight out of undergrad with a bachelor's degree in chemistry, you know, who speaks English as a native language with a “clean” accent is going to get that job. And our colleagues are not.

Jeremiah: For sure. And that's, you know, that's not just like us drawing inferences and conclusions based on these descriptions that we've been looking at. [00:24:00] Our instructors in our program who, you know, many of them are traditionally non-native English speakers have been in that situation where they were either denied jobs in favor of people who, you know, when they had like 20 years of teaching experience were denied teaching jobs in favor of people with no teaching experience, but who were native speakers. You know, maybe people fresh out of undergrad, um, or they were hired alongside people with no teaching experience and had, uh, the same pay or worse pay than them just because of their non-native English speaking status.

Marina: Mm-hmm. And this is not to say that native speakers can't be good teachers. Like ...

Jeremiah: No, otherwise we'd be out of work. 

Marina: Somebody, please hire us. [both laugh] Um, but it's, it, it's not the only qualification and it's definitely not the most important qualification. 

Jeremiah: Yeah, for sure. On the other hand, you know, I am made of molecules and so I think I'd be a pretty good chemistry teacher. [00:25:00]

Marina: So true! [laughs]

Jeremiah: I haven't taken chemistry since high school, but, and you know, as a matter of fact, I have lungs as well. So I think that I would be a pretty good biology anatomy, you name it. 

I have two feet, so I'd be a good podiatrist. You know, I'll just start putting in my applications, pounding the pavement. 

So there's a good chance that while a lot of this native speaker fallacy stuff is new information to you, maybe you didn't know it was called the native speaker fallacy. Uh, some of it is probably stuff you already knew but never really thought about. I think that we take it for granted, most of us, that native speakers are experts in the language that they speak.

And this might seem harmless or even, you know, beneficial in certain cases. Like, “oh, my teacher's a native speaker, this is gonna be great.” But as we've seen, and hopefully as we've shown, there can be real consequences for L2 users, L2 learners, non-native speakers, whatever you wanna call them.[00:26:00] 

But as we've seen, there can be real consequences for L2 users or “non-native speakers.” So we know what the native speaker fallacy is, but you know, maybe you're not convinced that it's such a bad thing. You know, after all, aren’t we learning the languages that we're learning to talk primarily maybe to native speakers?  And you know, lots of people maybe are ...

Marina: Or at least they think they are, right? U nless you know the exact context in which you're going to be using the language, it's hard to predict when you're going to have that interaction in the target language. Like for me, the majority of my interaction in Spanish has been with L2 speakers. You know, um, my peers, you, Jeremiah, um, you know that it's not always the case.

And also does it really matter, right? I mean, like we talked about, even quote unquote native speakers all sound [00:27:00] different. And so who you're talking to, as long as they're respectful of you as a learner of the language, doesn't really matter. Who you're talking to doesn't really matter most of the time.

Jeremiah: Excellent. So, this is what native speaker fallacy is. This is what some of its effects are, and we've talked a lot about specifically effects for teachers and professionals, but for people who are just learning their second language, for people who are just studying a new language, how can the native speaker fallacy actually affect them?

Does it have negative effects? For people who are learning a second language. 

Marina: I think one of the things that I've noticed is that, uh, it can really put a damper on students' confidence and overall motivation because when you are comparing yourself to this idealized version of the language, like you said, as spoken by native speakers, [00:28:00] it becomes this almost unachievable goal.

And it is unachievable because it doesn't exist. Right? 

Jeremiah: Yeah. Not, not only does it not exist, but I feel like we just need to get this out there. Even if you're try-- even, even if you're trying to sound exactly like people who are native speakers who do exist, you wanna sound exactly like one specific person because everybody sounds a little bit different.

It is unachievable. Really, it is impossible because there's nothing that you can do as a second language learner that will make you a first language user.  You just won't, you will get, you know, incredibly proficient in your second language. You might know a lot more about that language than somebody who speaks it, you know, natively, and you will have advantages that they don't have, but they'll also have advantages that you don't have. I think grammatic-- grammaticality judgments to go back to that are something that native speakers just tend to be better at. And it's [00:29:00] just a result of having learned the language in this specific way.

But next we're gonna talk about why that is okay. There's nothing wrong with, you know, not being able to be a native speaker. And as a as a matter of fact, it does come with certain advantages, being a ... being a non-native speaker. 

Marina: I mean, unless you have a time machine where you can change your first language, right. Like you said, it's just not going to happen. Right? There's no point in trying to become another monolingual person.

So I would say just embrace the fact that you are this multilingual person that you are, this successful, competent L2 user, you know, that's really freaking cool. Right? That's, um, something that this, you know, ideal, like, deified, monolingual native speaker doesn't have. 

Jeremiah: Exactly. And you know, if you are trying to [00:30:00] sound like a native speaker, and that is your goal, you're setting yourself up for failure. But if you have a goal that actually is attainable, if you know what you want to use the language for, and it's a realistic goal, like, "I want to use the language to talk to my friends," or, "I want to use the language to succeed in a, in a university setting abroad," "I want to use the language to be a teacher."

Those are things that you can do with the language and you can be really, really good at it. And when you have goals that are attainable and then you attain them, uh, that's gonna feel a lot better than constantly trying to sound like a native speaker and constantly being treated like you're not one. 

 So how can you know we as language learners, how can we work past this native speaker fallacy? How can we, you know, learn to live with it? Because even if we understand that, "Oh, you know, I don't have to try to sound like a native speaker." Um, you know, most people are still probably gonna have this view that native speakers are better than non-native speakers.

So, you know, [00:31:00] how ... how do, what, what, what do we do? 

Marina: I think there's a couple of important mindset shifts that can happen to help with this. Um, for one thing, um, one of the symptoms of the native speaker fallacy is that language learners tend to view their first language as an obstacle to be overcome. Right? As if like, "Oh, you know, I, I'm just thinking too much in my first language. I feel like I'm translating between my first language and my second language. I feel like I, you know, the grammar of my first language is interfering with how I use my second language." Um, and while all of those feelings are valid, right? I would encourage you to try shifting that mindset away from that of an obstacle to that of an asset. So thinking about your L1 [00:32:00] as an asset. You are a highly competent user of your first language. That is not something that you should forget, right? You have this wealth of knowledge and resources that you can draw upon to help yourself with your target language, with your second language. Um, and so it's not there to get in your way. It's there to help you. And that's also something that makes you unique. It's a part of your identity, your first language, you, that's not something that you can easily throw aside even if you wanted to.

Right? So, um, that helps a lot with overcoming some of that internalized native speaker bias or this idea that you have to completely abandon and forget your first language in order to pursue your target language. 

Jeremiah: Exactly. And, you know, maybe it's hard to actually visualize, like, okay, well how, how do I use my first language when I'm learning my second language?

That's a good question. So let me provide [00:33:00] an example using a second language and a third language, or, two second languages, however you want to think about it. When I learned, when I was learning Norwegian, I found that there were a lot of similarities between it and English that I didn't realize that there were, and that was really helpful.

Now that I'm, you know, starting to try to learn Old Norse, which is hard, I'm able to use everything that I learned for Norwegian to help me understand old Norse. And obviously those languages are pretty different. Maybe it's not obvious. Those languages are pretty different, but because they are related, because they have certain things in common, there are things that I don't struggle with as much with Old Norse. You know, there are words that I learn in Old Norse that I'm like, “oh, that looks like this word in Norwegian, because, you know, this Norwegian word comes from that Old Norse word.” Um, or, “oh, these grammar concepts are, are, are pretty similar.” [00:34:00] 

And it's not just the similarities, even differences like, “oh, uh, Norwegian, you know, doesn't have any case endings, whereas, uh, Old Norse does.” Looking at the differences is another way to help understand what you're learning. And just like how I used Norwegian to help me understand Old Norse, you can use your, your first language to help you understand your second language. You know, what do they have in common?  Um, what ... what can you bring in from your first language into your second language so that you don't have to rebuild it all from scratch? And what can you use in your first language that's different from your second language, um, to help you understand, you know, those differences? 

Marina: And then another takeaway from this native speaker fallacy idea is that we encourage you to seek out resources and instruction from both L1 and skilled L2 users, [00:35:00] right? So are you going to get a lot from, you know, the guy sitting behind you in your Spanish class who cheats off of your test, right? No, probably not. Maybe sometimes, but probably not.

Right? But if your Spanish teacher is an L2 speaker, they are a fantastic resource to go to. Same thing goes for content creators online who are L2 users of the language and are, you know, teaching the language as well. They have different things to offer than the native speaking teachers or the native speaking content creators, right? They both have valuable things to offer, so try ... try getting input from both. A combination of both. 

Jeremiah: Absolutely. You know, look at it like this, okay. Say you wanna swim from France to England, you wanna swim across the English channel, okay? Right. Uh, are you gonna take advice from somebody who was born in England and has never left England?

Or are you gonna take advice from somebody who has swam from France to [00:36:00] England, who has actually done it? 

Marina: So true. 

Jeremiah: It's the same with the language. It's not exactly the same because there's a lot that you can learn from, you know, native speakers of your target language. But the non-native speaker is the person who has done what you are trying to do. They know what you're struggling with in a way that native speakers, uh, kind of can't. 

Marina: Right. 

Jeremiah: And so just by that alone, they can offer you advice that, you know, a native speaker probably can't. 

Marina: Right. So try and find stuff from both. Is our best advice. 

Jeremiah: For sure because I've, I've had, you know, excellent teachers of Spanish who were not native speakers and I've had teachers of Spanish who were native speakers who I didn't get as much from.

Marina: Again, nothing inherently wrong about being a native speaker. 

Jeremiah: No. Because you know what? We're all native speakers of something and so we can't exactly diss ourselves or, or others in that way. 

Marina: But our point here is, there is this often untapped potential in L2 users as sources of input, as sources [00:37:00] of instruction that we believe would be, you would be remiss to neglect.

Absolutely. Absolutely. 

So we hope that this discussion about the native speaker fallacy helped with raising awareness of this bias that is so prevalent in langu-, in the language learning community and in still a lot of scholarship as well.

And hopefully you walk away from this with a more open-minded approach to language learning and teaching. 

Jeremiah: Yeah. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. 

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Thank you for tuning in to How to Language. If you want to keep in the loop regarding upcoming episodes or just want to enjoy some language themed memes, be sure to follow us on Instagram @HowToLang and on the platform formerly known as Twitter under the same handle.

Marina: Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us improve and it helps others [00:38:00] discover the show as well. 

Jeremiah: See you next time! 

Marina: Bye! ​