 Re: what is a native speaker?
I have actually heard of someone who had a similar problem. He was the child of a German mother and an English father (or the other way around, I don't remember), but his (German) mother always spoke English to him and his (English) father spoke German. As a result he grew up without a native language and has terrible difficulty because of this -- he can't always express himself adequately in either language. Exactly what his parents were thinking bringing him up like that I have no idea, but it does demonstrate that it is very possible -- although, I hope, extremely rare -- for someone to have no native language at all. |