native speaker
native speaker noun: a person who grew up with a particular spoken language as their mother tongue.
Noun
native speaker (plural native speakers)
- A person who grew up with a particular spoken language as their mother tongue.
- Native speakers of English get paid much more than locals in the schools.
- The differences between acceptable constructions like "Have you a book on modern music?" and unacceptable ones like "Read you a book on modern music?" need no Chomskyan signposts for a native speaker[.]1985, Robert Burchfield, The English Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 155
- Antonyms:
- non-native speaker
native speaker meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Tagalog and Arabic
native speaker in Tamil
- தாய்மொழியாளர்
native speaker in Bengali
- person who grew up with a particular language as their mother tongue
- আহলে জবান ahle zôban
native speaker in Tagalog
- person who grew up with a particular language as their mother tongue
- katutubong mananalita, katutubong tagapagsalita, katutubong tagapagwika
native speaker in Arabic
- person who grew up with a particular language as their mother tongue
- نَاطِق أَصْلِيّ nāṭiq ʔaṣliyy
More languagesFewer languages
- native speaker in Malay
- penutur jati
- native speaker in Indonesian
- penutur jati, penutur asli
- native speaker in Thai
- เจ้าของภาษา jâo-kɔ̌ɔng-paa-sǎa
- native speaker in Vietnamese
- người bản ngữ
Antonyms of native speaker
Forms of native speaker
| plural | native speakers |
|---|
Words formed from native speaker
Questions about native speaker
- What does native speaker mean?
- Native speaker means a person who grew up with a particular spoken language as their mother tongue.
- What is native speaker in Tamil?
- Native speaker in Tamil is தாய்மொழியாளர். See Native speaker meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is native speaker?
- Native speaker is a noun.
- What is the plural of native speaker?
- The plural of native speaker is native speakers.
Words near native speaker in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: native speaker (page history and authors); native speaker (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-native speaker.wav.
Cite this entry: “native speaker.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/native_speaker. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.