<p>Well, I was just curious. I wonder what are the easiest ways to know someone is not native (English) speaker over Internet without asking them directly? I guess from my writing you could easily notice I am non-native, since it might look awkward. What are the few words that can tell s/he is not native?</p>
<p>If your “Location” weren’t Mongolia, I wouldn’t assume that you were a non-native speaker of English. </p>
<p>Confusion of pronouns “he/she,” “him/her?”</p>
<p>I usually have a hard time telling since so many non-natives are really careful about how they type things (sometimes you can tell because they are overly cautious and you wonder if they are an English teacher or something). I really had no clue you weren’t from here until I read kwu’s comment and I looked at your location. </p>
<p>In real life, it can be quite easy to tell. They often forget articles and they pronounce certain letters wrong.</p>
<p>Well, in real life I can tell if people are from China by looking at their handwriting. It’s strange, Chinese immigrants write really angular-ly. Like their letters have no curvature.</p>
<p>Dunno about other countries.</p>
<p>It’s easier to tell by accent anyway.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This sentence is a little awkward; probably grammatically correct, but not how a native speaker would phrase it. I agree with kwu, a lot of times non-native speakers confuse pronouns. Improper verb conjugations tend to be another clue.</p>
<p>My mom types words exactly how they sound; she types “haus” instead of “house”</p>
<p>There actually exists an interesting group that’s campaigning for the radical simplification of English spelling, because it’s just so arbitrary and unusual.</p>
<p>“haus” is a very efficient and sensible spelling of house.
The “au” diphthong makes an identical sound to the “ou” one, and that silent “e” is just sitting there waiting to be ignored.</p>
<p>^ good one!</p>
<p>Fizix, now that you mention it, I have a Chinese friend whose handwriting is all angles and no curves, at least for printing. I suppose that comes from the idea that in Chinese, if you add a curlicue, you make a different word, so people just don’t do that.</p>
<p>In text, it’s difficult to tell a non-native speaker, except for small quirks that might arise. For instance, I have a Spanish friend who always puts a space before and after the comma. (For example , she does it like this.) I’ve also seen non-native speakers misuse or omit pronouns, and confuse the subject-verb agreement rules. Other than that, it’s hard to tell. Writing comes much easier than speaking when it comes to foreign languages.</p>
<p>I usually can tell from when people don’t put “s” where it belongs…and a constant lack of subject-verb agreement.</p>
<p>
‘natives’ can tell, non-natives can’t.</p>
<p>Confusion of definite and indefinite articles</p>
<p>
I’m a non-native, and I can generally “tell”. Non-natives tend to misuse or omit articles a lot, and sentence syntax is often awkward. Sorry for reviving this thread. :)</p>
<p>I couldn’t tell that the OP was not a native English speaker.</p>
<p>Things that do make people stand out as probably being non native English speakers are using the words “advices” or “maths” .</p>
<p>While the below is awkwardly phrased, many native English speakers including me make such errors in informal written communications such as on Internet boards.</p>
<p>“What are the few words that can tell s/he is not native?”</p>
<p>I am from China.
I think you should talk something about English-speaking talk show or some Amrican-famous person to figure it out. Such as “How do you like Oprah?” </p>
<p>And hello by the way.</p>
<p>Sometimes you can tell, and sometimes you can’t.</p>
<p>Sometimes people who don’t have English as their first language will use grammatical structures that are incorrect or unusual in English. For Spanish speakers, an article might be included where it is not common or incorrect to place one in English</p>
<p>Sometimes they will not capitalize nationalities, names of languages, days of the week, and months. If their first language is German, they might capitalize all nouns.</p>
<p>Native English speakers from other countries might use words that are uncommon in American English or different spellings.</p>
<p>In general, people who have a first language other than English, but learned English at an early age will write the same way as people who have English as their first language. In these cases, the process to learn the second language is independent of the first language. People who learn the second language well after the first tend to apply principles from their native language to the learning process, and this can show on their usage of English.</p>
<p>BTW, I am not a native speaker of English either.</p>