It's definitely a real thing.  Despite the common mantra on this forum that enough exposure will grant you 100% native level proficiency, that only happens for a lucky few, if at all.

Motivation is surely one of the factors; the further you advance it would be natural to have less motivation to go back and study basics.

Mushi wrote:

I wouldn't consider this to be a defining difference between native and non-native speakers. Native speakers also acquire such characteristics, just to a lesser degree.

Most native English speakers I know have one or two malapropisms they commonly make, thinking a word means one thing when it actually means another. Or unable to avoid repeating the same grammar mistakes, such as saying, "anyways" and "somewheres", or even pronunciation mistakes such as "aks" instead of "ask". I even know some native English speakers who make more of these mistakes than many non-native English speakers. Looking around me, it's a matter of degree.

This is very true; it's not like your average native speaker can flawlessly use their native language. There's a reason schools usually have the country's national language as a subject, and (at least in my country) students usually suck at that subject. Educated adults make basic mistakes all the time too, in both speech and writing.

However, I've observed that the kind of mistakes natives and non-natives make are usually very different. In my native language, there's a bunch of language pitfalls that natives fall into so often that many don't even consider it incorrect, and yet a Dutch language learner probably wouldn't ever express something in such a way. Conversely, non-native speakers often express things in a weird way that would feel intuitively wrong to any Dutchman.

Mushi wrote:

I wouldn't consider this to be a defining difference between native and non-native speakers. Native speakers also acquire such characteristics, just to a lesser degree.

Most native English speakers I know have one or two malapropisms they commonly make, thinking a word means one thing when it actually means another. Or unable to avoid repeating the same grammar mistakes, such as saying, "anyways" and "somewheres", or even pronunciation mistakes such as "aks" instead of "ask". I even know some native English speakers who make more of these mistakes than many non-native English speakers. Looking around me, it's a matter of degree.

Those aren't mistakes, they're dialect differences.  It's not the same thing as the mistakes made by second-language learners.

What is your L1 undead_saif?

EDIT: But you write very well…

Last edited by Marumaru (2013 January 20, 5:37 am)

yudantaiteki wrote:

Mushi wrote:

I wouldn't consider this to be a defining difference between native and non-native speakers. Native speakers also acquire such characteristics, just to a lesser degree.

Most native English speakers I know have one or two malapropisms they commonly make, thinking a word means one thing when it actually means another. Or unable to avoid repeating the same grammar mistakes, such as saying, "anyways" and "somewheres", or even pronunciation mistakes such as "aks" instead of "ask". I even know some native English speakers who make more of these mistakes than many non-native English speakers. Looking around me, it's a matter of degree.

Those aren't mistakes, they're dialect differences.  It's not the same thing as the mistakes made by second-language learners.

I've always wondered why when a language learner makes a mistake(even when it's intentional) it's a mistake, but when natives make it it's a regional/dialect thing. It doesn't seem fair. If you consider all dialects to be correct, then there is no right or wrong pronunciation, and grammar loses its meaning*. If a native can't separate correct English from his regional variation, doesn't that make his English flawed?

*there are enough regional variations in the English language to safely assume that almost all pronounciation and grammar variations are used.

@Unexpected. That's Chomsky taken to the extreme now, innit. Chomsky's nativist theory is only one of many language acquisition theories and imho the most discouraging. If it were true, then we'd never have people become fluent in any language that they start learning after the age of 10, and new forms of grammar would be incomprehensible (so a Japanese man would never grasp the concept of the future tense as a separate tense from the present). Also, people wouldn't be able to adapt to new dialects in their own language if they had the slightest grammar variations (which, as any person who moved to a different side of his country can tell you, is not true).
Also, natives do make mistakes and change the language along with them, as seen in the fact that languages change over time via simplification which is often caused by natives not "getting" it. Or have you never heard "swimmed" used by a native, to give a common example? This goes against Chomsky's theory that native children grasp all irregular verb use by the time they're 7. Saying that they are unable to make mistakes is about the same as saying that you can't trip when you walk because you've been doing it all your life.

Zgarbas wrote:

I've always wondered why when a language learner makes a mistake(even when it's intentional) it's a mistake, but when natives make it it's a regional/dialect thing.

It's just the way language and dialect are defined.  If enough speakers are using the form, it's a dialect feature.

It doesn't seem fair. If you consider all dialects to be correct, then there is no right or wrong pronunciation, and grammar loses its meaning*. If a native can't separate correct English from his regional variation, doesn't that make his English flawed?

Only when viewed from the standpoint of a dialect.  There's no such thing as "correct English".  There's a particular dialect that's considered the educated, standard dialect.  So you can have a "mistake" when viewed from that dialect.

there are enough regional variations in the English language to safely assume that almost all pronounciation and grammar variations are used.

Not even close.  There are a large number of mistakes that foreign learners consistently make that are not common to any dialect of native speakers.  In English, the mistakes that many foreigners make with articles and prepositions are found in no dialect of English.

Also, natives do make mistakes and change the language along with them, as seen in the fact that languages change over time via simplification which is often caused by natives not "getting" it.

Languages change over time, but not "via simplification", they just change.  All languages are equally complex (this is a fundamental linguistic "law").  A language with fewer irregular verbs is only simpler in a superficial sense; the number of irregular verbs has nothing to do with what you can do or express with the language.

Or have you never heard "swimmed" used by a native, to give a common example? This goes against Chomsky's theory that native children grasp all irregular verb use by the time they're 7.

You don't really understand Chomsky's theories if you're using this as a counterexample.

I've been studying Japanese now for over five years, lived in Japan on exchange for one of those years, worked in a Japanese company emailing and using the phone in Japanese, talk and chat daily with friends via skype etc using Japanese, passed N2 and recently sat N1, and this year I am training to become a Japanese teacher and I still make mistakes. Generally I would say I make mistakes with particles, not because I don't know how or when to use を vs が vs は or whatever, but because when I am thinking and speaking Japanese simultaneously, I am concentrating on what it is that I am trying to say and trying to keep the whole communication process going rather than to pre-construct every sentence in my head before I say it. If a sentence comes out with awkward grammar or a wrong particle etc, I know because it sounds incorrect as I am saying it. Generally most of the time I would say the other person understands what I am saying and if they don't I'll take a second to think about it to make sure it is correct and repeat myself.

I'm not necessarily sure you can say that making mistakes is through the influence of my L1 (English), as English doesn't have any particles like Japanese as such. But without a doubt it does effect how I might say something, which could come out in unnatural Japanese. My brain is 'hardwired' to English and no matter how much I cross my fingers and wish, that is not going to change. What's more I make mistakes in English all the time - and this is definitely not a result of not knowing how English grammar works. Sometimes people just get tongue tied and the words don't come out as correctly as they should. Mistakes happen. Unnatural sentences happen. It really isn't a huge deal. Granted if the mistakes are so bad that it impedes on understanding then there is a problem, but the whole point of language is to communicate with other people, not construct 100% perfect sentences every single time you speak.

Last edited by SendaiDan (2013 January 20, 8:21 am)

I think there are only a few types of real mistakes that native speakers make.

Spelling mistakes, forgetting to type words, or a sentences comes out wrong because the speaker changes what he wanted to say while he was writing/saying it and didn't adapt the rest of the sentence.

Leaving spelling aside because not every native speaker can spell everything correct, I think the main difference is, a native knows when he made a mistake. A native can reread a sentence he wrote and find the mistakes in it.

When it comes to language I believe, since grammar rules where made after language was already there, that a mistake is no longer a mistake if it's used by a large group of people.

For example, if you every read reddit, you have surely read "I could care less..." and then the response "It's 'I couldn't care less...'". My opinion is that the phrase is widely used among native speakers, widely enough for everyone to recognize what it's actually supposed to mean. So both parties know the intended meaning of the phrase, however #2 has to correct #1 because "it doesn't mean what you think it means". Well yes it does. Because you are thinking it too. So I don't really consider this a real mistake.

I'll try to define what a mistake is now:

A mistake is when you are speaking in a way that is not recognized as a way of speaking by natives of the dialect you are trying to speak in.

For example there might be a dialect somewhere where people leave out the third person "s" or use only dictionary forms (as in "He be very kind to me."). However, when trying to speak standard English, this would still be a mistake.

edit:

Quick edit. The thing that concerns me most when learning Japanese is how to not get stuck on incorrect readings. For example, reading いる where it's supposed to be はいる.

Last edited by apirx (2013 January 20, 9:32 am)

I said I'll try to define what a mistake is, so don't hang me up on it.

My defense of the definition would be that you weren't trying to speak their particular dialect, because the dialect they were natives in didn't include the word coherent. Also, if you knew beforehand that they wouldn't understand the word coherent, I would probably consider it a communication mistake if you still used it.

Now for "If I was you". Sounds correct to me. Probably because I've heard a lot. I'm pretty sure I've heard it in sitcoms or movies too. So it seems widely used. I don't see the point in labeling it as incorrect if it's widely used and understood.

Last edited by apirx (2013 January 20, 10:06 am)

Languages change over time, but not "via simplification", they just change.  All languages are equally complex (this is a fundamental linguistic "law").  A language with fewer irregular verbs is only simpler in a superficial sense; the number of irregular verbs has nothing to do with what you can do or express with the language.

Simplification is just one of the main ways in which languages change. When something is too much of a drag to use it stops being used. Just because some things get easier does not mean you can express less with it =/. Dropping things which are needlessly irregular/complicated/etc is done throughout all languages. Sure, sometimes it raises other issues (see the mess that is English/French spelling). The fact that language complexity is a constant does not mean that changes do not happen thanks to people trying to simplify manners.

Languages that simplify in one area usually create more complexity in another area to compensate. Languages that lack case systems, like Chinese and English, have stricter word order rules than languages that use case systems, like Latin and Old English. Languages where the verb is inflected for person/number, like Spanish, can often drop subject pronouns; English can't.

You don't really understand Chomsky's theories if you're using this as a counterexample.

Why? Chomsky does claim that thanks to kids' language organ they master irregular verbs by the time they're 7, without having to rote memorize them (since rote memorization of grammar would go against his theory, and Chosmky hates things that go against his theory). Using regularization one way to show that knowledge of irregular forms is taught rather than instinctively figured out. If native speakers still accidentally regularize instead of using the correct irregular form after being exposed to the term so much, then they are not using their language organ to learn irregular forms, they are learning it via rote memorization enforced by exposure.

Steven Pinker's book "Words and Rules" is a really good book that covers irregular verbs from a more-or-less Chomskyist point of view. In his view, we don't "rote memorize" irregular verbs any more than we have to rote memorize any other aspect of our native language vocabulary; it's just that we have to learn them as *words*, rather than learning them as rules that can be applied to any verb.

So, usually when you want to put a verb in past tense you just put an "-ed" on it and you're done. But if it's an irregular verb, then as your brain is applying that rule, it gets interrupted -- "Wait! We have a dictionary entry for that!" -- and the irregular past tense gets applied instead. When people fail to apply the irregular form, it may be because they don't know it, or it may be because there's a failure in the interrupt mechanism -- for example, if the verb is rare enough that you don't find the dictionary entry before you put on the "-ed", and rare enough that "swimmed" doesn't sound weird to you. ("Swim" is pretty common, and I have no idea whether the person who said "swimmed" made a random processing error or what, but there are plenty of verbs in English that have become regular, or are in the process of becoming regular such that both the irregular form AND the regular form sound kind of weird -- "tread," for example.)

Interestingly, there's actually been research done on how fast people can locate the correct past tense form for verbs. They're faster at locating common irregular forms than uncommon irregular forms, and faster at locating common irregular forms than regular forms in general -- but all regular verbs, common or uncommon, take the same amount of time. That's pretty consistent with the theory.

Just skimmed the thread.... but according to Khaz (alljapaneseallthetime) there is research that points to the reason for this being language production too early.

Ie. Language listening/reading should be done for a long time before attempting language production

Because it's a demeaning to say that a native is allowed to make mistakes and have poor vocabulary, whereas a foreigner should carry the burden of always being wary of who he's talking to and perfectly adapt his speech (to the point where one should magically realize that they're talking to someone with such poor English that they don't know the word "coherent"). Also, calling mistakes a dialect, when a dialect is much more complicated than that; there's no dialect called "I have poor vocabulary".
Why should a foreigner bear such responsibility, when natives don't adapt their vocabulary or accents when talking to another native from a different area. I'm supposed to instantly adapt to every dialect whereas a native only knows one and still the native is considered to be of a higher level? It's absurd. What is even the point of learning a language beyond the level of "John see cake. John like" if you're going to get this treatment anyway?
It's similar with accents. People who have even the slightest foreigner accent are going to be instantly judged, whereas I don't see anyone telling the folks in Black Country that they're not natives; this despite the fact that you can actually understand what the foreigner is saying.

It's just such a prick attitude that serves nothing but to make foreigners seem like inferiors, of course I'm antagonistic. Even when I bring such a painfully common example of a mistake such as "If I was you" (which I've heard natives from different areas use), someone is quick to link it to a foreigner's attitude.

Also I really hate it when people throw Chomsky as if he were an undisputed god of linguistics; partially because Chomsky also does that, which is why I can't take him seriously. His reaction to an opposing theory is to cover his ears and say "I can't heaaar you", and he conveniently ignores anything that might so much as modify his theories.