native speaker

plural native speakers

1. human sciencesA 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.

   2 more examples

   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

   In the past, secondary classrooms have perhaps been seen as largely native speaker environments, but this is certainly no longer the case and secondary teachers are fully aware they need pedagogies and materials that support the different language backgrounds and proficiencies of contemporary classrooms.

   2018, Clarence Green, James Lambert, “Advancing disciplinary literacy through English for academic purposes: Discipline-specific wordlists, collocations and word families for eight secondary subjects”, in Journal of English for Academic Purposes, volume 35, →DOI, page 106

   Antonyms: non-native speaker