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Interesting topic. On the contrary of this example, a person who has epilepsy may be talking normally, yet this person has no idea of what he/she is talking about. In my opinion, I believe we can think without languages, depend on how you want to define "think". But I wonder, can we do maths...

Hi, Lexico, how are you? Haven't seen you on MSN for a very long time, and you are still so active here. Glad to see you here again. Can I say "objection" to this question? Because I don't think we can say one language is more difficult than the other. Why? Every language has its own depth...

usually "ofen" (silent "t") usually "direct" usually "esosiate" ("c" pronounced like "s")

Hi, nice to meet you. No doubt the Malay language equivalent of "You are welcome" is "sama-sama", however, the meaning of "sama-sama" is not "You are welcome". In the Malay language, when a person says "thank you", the person will reply " the same / same to you". Meaning that, "sama-sama"...

First of all, I think it is ok for gays to get married, why not? As long as they love each other, and those involved parties consent...then let them do what they want. Others should not have any right to object. They are the one living their lives, not thoes who object. Just wondering, a gay...

This is something worth taking a look at. It will help our discussion. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm Looking at the statistic, although English is currently the most widely used language on the internet, how long more can English still remain as the most widely used language on...

From a linguist point of view, yes, you are right. However, from a point where everyday life is concerned, following the linguist definition is impractical, and could even lead to more problems, especially those terms, such as nativeness, first language, mother tongue. That is why I open this...

Empathy. Feel the difficulty faced by your student, understand his/her feeling.

In my opinion, as long as a person is able to command the language just like the native speaker, he is considered proficient in that language, whether or not it is his mother tongue or his first language. Going back to your example, why not? This child will be a true trilingual. There are...

Yes, Cantonese does have a writting system. You may go to Hong Kong can get yourself some Hong Kong magazines, some of them are written in Cantonese. You may attempt to use Mandarin to read those megazine, but you will find a lot of words unintelligible. In fact, some other dialects such as...

I can't agree more with you. But for the sake of discussion, I will stick to how the majority chinese perceive. When I say full-fledged language, I mean a language that has a well recorded rules of grammar, well recorded rules of pronounciation and a well recorded way of writing. This is an...

The reason why so many Chinese will tend to say that their mother tongue is Mandarin rather than Cantonese is because Cantonese is not considered as a "proper language" in the Chinese community. Cantonese is considered a dialect in the Chinese community. Of course, I knew this is very...

They are taught by people who are qualified to teach English. I would say that they can speak and write perfect English, just that their accent don't sound like the British or American.

Lexico, excellent definition. Bossel, under normal uncomplicated circumtances, I will tend to stick to your definition, and I believe it will suit most people. However, let's see the situation below: One of the very controversial examples is Singapore. Singapore was a British colony. After it...

I like the way you define, but I am not nit-picking. I ask the opinion of this because it has to do with the definition of native speaker. By the way what is your definition of native speaker.

I wouldn't use the term "world language", because English is not and has never been a world language at anytime of history. However, English is the most prevailing language in the world, the most widely learnt language, although Chinese is still by far the largest, it is not as prevailing as...

Just wondering, is there a different between the terms "first language" and "mother tongue"? Although it is used interchangeably most of the time, I still ponder if there is a significant different. For example, a person's mother tongue can be French, but in his whole life, he uses English as...

How would you define "native English speaker"? Someone who has been speaking English since the day he was born? Or someone who come from an ethnic group which orginally speaks English?