Near-native
adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A person who is not native.
"[…] these data constitute little support for the notion of generalized competence differences between natives and near-natives."
- 1 Nearly native; close to be seen as indigenous to a particular habitat. not-comparable
"On the other hand, Coppieters' (1987) study of nearnative speakers of French, selected by nativespeaking friends and colleagues for perceived nativeness in production, showed nonnative intuitions on the perfective/imperfective distinctions in French in a judgement test."
Example
More examples"On the other hand, Coppieters' (1987) study of nearnative speakers of French, selected by nativespeaking friends and colleagues for perceived nativeness in production, showed nonnative intuitions on the perfective/imperfective distinctions in French in a judgement test."
Etymology
From near + native.
Related phrases
More for "near-native"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.