Am I a native speaker of Mandarin?

[allf100]

Hello,

Questions:
- Is English my second language or third language?
- Am I a native speaker of Mandarin?

I'm Chinese from the mainland of China. Hokkien aka Taiwanese is my mother tongue. I started learning Mandarin since I was seven years old when I was almost admitted to the grammar school.

Except for talking to street vendors, shop owners, family, neighbors, most of time I speak in Mandarin. The inner voice of mine is Mandarin most of time. It's a bit of difficult for me to try to express myself in complex ideas in Hokkien. I would say my English is more fluent than my mother tongue Hokkien, because when I write or say something in English, and I usually mostly don't have to translate my words from Mandarin to English mentally.

Hokkien is generally considered as a dialect by Chinese linguists in the mainland of China, while it is considered as a language among many Western linguists as I knew.

Mandarin is an artificial language based on Beijing dialect and Hebei dialect. Just a few people, in term of portion, actually can speak Mandarin perfectly if without training in China. Those professional news anchors of Mandarin who were almost all corrected with their accents in their majors relevant to broadcasting or journalism etc. in universities.

People in the north of China generally mostly can understand with each other in their dialects, and it is something like Dutch speakers can understand the low German dialect of some German speakers. Yet, Hokkien is very difficult for other Chinese people to understand if they don't speak it.

Mandarin has four tones, while there are seven tones in Hokkien.

I used to say I am a native speaker of Chinese. I think the word of 'Chinese' is perfect for me, because Chinese covers all kinds of different dialects in China.

I just looked up the definition as below from an online dictionary, and I don't think if I can call myself a native speaker of Mandarin. If so, I would say 99% of Chinese people cannot call ourselves native speakers of Mandarin which is an artificial language.

of NOUN
a person who has spoken the language in question from earliest childhood:

A few days ago I wrote 'English is my second languge on the forum', now I am not sure.

After I thought them over again and again, now my own answers to myself are:
English is my third language.
I'm a native speaker of Mandarin. (Generally)

Would you please share me with your opinion about them?

Thank you for your reading!

Edit for solecisms.

[allf100]

It is pretty strange that up to 70%, I would say 90%, strange people greet me in Mandarin since I was teen.

Whenever people ask me where I am from, and I tell them I am the local, usually they respond in a surprise, 'really'?

There's something exuding from me which tells I don't belong to here. I don't dress myself unusally. My parents didn't have such a problem.

Our security guards, familiar shop owners tend to speak in Mandarin with me, even they know I am the native speaker of Hokkien. But they don't do that to other people.

My maternal grandfather emigrated from China to Burma, and my mother was a Burma born ethnical Chinese Burmese. Her Chinese/Hokkien is as good as that of other Chinese people here. Do you think if it is revelant?

Sorry if this post is not relevant to languages. You can ignore.

[allf100]

...

Thank you very much for your input.

[Irena]

Of all the possible languages someone speaks, the native language is the one in which they are the most comfortable narrating to someone for 30 minutes, without any preparation or pause, their entire life story:

- without any grammatical mistakes, but possibly with colloquialism, slangs or misplaced register;
- without any mispronuciation;
- with no more than a faint accent, the definition of which being: the listener may realise the speaker has a light accent, but should only conclude it's a regional accent that they can't quite place.

Hmm... I'm not sure about that. In my case, it's very clear that my native language is Serbian. When I was 10 years old, I was a monolingual Serbian speak, with only a little bit of English and a microscopic amount of French. I completed my primary and secondary education in Serbia, attended Serbian schools, and spoke nothing but Serbian at home. So, I don't see how anyone could claim that my native language is anything other than Serbian. However, today, I'd be more comfortable giving you my life story in English than in Serbian. I'll have a Serbian accent if I speak English, but American intonation if I speak Serbian. You may find little grammatical glitches in my English, but more pauses and slightly awkward translations from English in my Serbian. I don't think this is particularly unusual for people who leave their home country as young adults and use an L2 orders of magnitude more frequently than their L1.

Interestingly, if I'm learning a foreign language, I would much rather use English as a "bridge language" with my teacher than Serbian. If I use Serbian, I get interference, whereas English is somehow "neutral": I can go back-and-forth between English and any one of my other languages, but other combinations (very much including Serbian and anything other than English) is something of a challenge. (Going back-and-forth between any two of my Slavic languages results in something of a linguistic shipwreck...) Still. My native language is Serbian, and nothing other than Serbian.

allf100's case is more complicated. I'd be inclined to say that Mandarin is his (her? sorry, can't tell) native language, and Hokkien is his heritage language.

[Irena]

According to my definition it is entirely possible for someone to have no native language.

Okay, but then I don't think it's a very useful definition. A better definition would account for the fact that one's native language need not be the same as one's dominant language. Otherwise, you'd have to argue that quite a large percentage of the global population lacks a native language.

[allf100]

Interestingly, if I'm learning a foreign language, I would much rather use English as a "bridge language" with my teacher than Serbian.

Me too. I mean when I tried to learn other Indo-European languages, I prefered using English as a bridge language, because those target languages from vocabulary to grammar are relatively closer to each other than Chinese.
I am comfortable in using English though I still struggle to learn it.

allf100's case is more complicated. I'd be inclined to say that Mandarin is his (her? sorry, can't tell) native language, and Hokkien is his heritage language.

I really like the phrase of heritage language that makes sense to me.

I'm a woman. I'm fine if anyone refers me as he or she (or it, just for kidding.) Generally few Chinese people will take issue with gender addressing. By default, in Chinese, we just use 'he' to refer anyone online if we are not sure about the gender. This has nothing to do with sexism. I don't even correct them if they refer me as 'he' unless necessarily. Just my two cents. (I'm not 100% sure if other Chinese persons will agree with me.)

I knew in Western/non-Chinese cultures, this is very important about political correctness. I'm always very careful about this. If I am not sure, I will refer them as 's/he' in English.

Thank you very much for sharing your story, and comment.

[tungemål]

I think you can change your home or dominant language. Irena's explanation seems right. I'm reminded of all the Norwegians immigrating to the US in the late 19th century, often as teenagers. (among them some of my relatives). They would usually lose their Norwegian, having trouble speaking it in old age.

It's probably hard for native English speakers to imagine one's native/heritage language not being the dominant one. English is so dominant in our world. I'm aware that I should probably read more Norwegian as I feel that all my English reading is at the expense of my Norwegian skill.

(corrected spelling)

[allf100]

Thank you very much for your input.

I'm aware that I should probably read more Norwegian as I feel that all my English reading is at the expense of my Norwegian skill.

I would like to speak in Hokkien with my Hokkien folks here. Whenever they try to speak in Mandarin, and I mostly intentionally respond to them in Hokkien.

Sadly, whenever I try to speak in Hokkien with my friends, I will often unconsciously switch to Mandarin sooner or later.

For the reasons:

- This is the way I validate myself as the local, specially while something strange exuding from me tells my folks that I am an outsider, yet I am not. Otherwise emotionally I will lose my Hokkien root and identity. Emotionally I don't belong to any other places in the world but here.

- I like languages.

[rdearman]

They would usually loose their Norwegian,

Should be "lose" not "loose" different meanings.

@allf100 I would say that you are a native speaker of both Hokkien and Mandarin since you learnt them both at a young age.

[allf100]

@allf100 I would say that you are a native speaker of both Hokkien and Mandarin since you learnt them both at a young age.

Thank you very much for your confirmation. I did think so before.

Just a few days ago, the more I thought about it, the more I got confused.

I am happy to find out this now.

Thank you for your help again, everyone!