Hi Fediverse! I’m writing this post to ask you to share your experience on learning your native language through your fundamental education or your private life.
As a non-native English speaker but currently using it as working language, I can survive in my daily life e.g., technical terms, talks with customer services or so. But when I really try to watch movies, series or read literature books, it is so discouraging that many words, which are essential to native speakers, are strange to me. Let me show you some words that are recently added into my learning list: paranoid, cursive, intricate, ameliorate… There are thousands of them not even including words from fantasy novels or those D&D things.
I believe that a random six-year-old wouldn’t know those higher level words (in terms of comparing to ‘hello’ or ‘nice’) either. Even a native speaker acquires those vocabulary gradually. So I am curious what is your language education look like? Since when do you realize that you understand most content in your native language and what have you done before that?
I do have English as an example but any other language is also welcome. Feel free to share anything. Thank you in advance : )
Native English speakers often only pick up these “advanced” words from the same sources where you’re seeing them: in fiction & literature.
Literary authors usually draw from larger vocabularies than textbooks or news articles. And then specific phrases from famous literature become idioms in the language, which again changes what people use them to mean.
That’s part of why reading literature in a second (or third, etc.) language is an important part of advanced language education.