linguistics - I am trying to decide if I can consider myself a native English speaker



I was born in Amsterdam, Holland. I learnt Dutch from my parents and in school. Around the age of 5-6 I started learning English. I watched English television and had English conversations with my mother and we also had frequent English speaking guests in our home, with whom I spoke English. I spoke English well before I started learning it in school around the age of 11. When I was 13 I moved to Denmark and lived in an all-English speaking community for 9 years. I also continued my schooling in English as well as further studies.


Now I speak English as my first language. I still speak Dutch, but it's not quite as fluent as English. These days people assume I'm American when they hear me speak. I work in English, I speak English at home, I read English fiction for leisure, etc. I also tend to find grammatical and typographical mistakes very quickly, and I speak better English than most people I know, including slang.


So now I'm interested to know if English is really my first language, and if I am a native English speaker.




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