Exactly my thoughts, Phil and Gray. Why is it that an unknown word or phrase can be equally unfamiliar to a native speaker and a proficient non-native, and yet the former infers the meaning without missing a beat while the latter is completely thrown?

As you say, it comes down to context, familiarity with grammatical patterns and - in the case of spoken language - also the ability to pick up on subtle phonological clues which the non-native might be less attuned to.

There's also the 'good enough' factor: a non-native may be determined to get a precise 'meaning' or even an equivalent in their L1, whereas as native speakers we're satisfied with a much more general understanding. Then there's the confidence factor, of course: we don't <em>expect </em>to fail to understand our own language, whereas a learner might.

@Miriam -- Sorry, I can see how all of our comments would have come across the wrong way. I don't think it even occurred to any of us that you would think we were talking about you. (I used myself as an example of someone who can't understand new words in my target language just based on context. I'm barely even conversational, so I certainly wouldn't have compared your level of English with my level of Chinese!)

A further thought on this: I have a Russian-born friend who speaks both Russian and English fluently, and also several other languages at varying proficiency levels. She recently commented in an online forum about thinking it was strange that she would sometimes confuse words from some of the other languages she knows (e.g. someone asks a question in French, and she accidentally answers in Italian, or she needs to name something in Italian, but she can only think of the German word), but she never mixes these languages up with either her native language (Russian) or her second language (English). Several other people replied to her with comments saying that they'd had the same experience: once they'd achieved a high level of proficiency in a language, it became fully distinct from all other languages in their minds. I recall one of the commenters saying that it seemed like the brain had one mass-storage area for "foreign languages," and other separate areas for languages you actually <em>know</em>.

I think if a person really understands a language, they won't run into the problem that Phil and Su.Ki. and I were trying to describe. At a certain point, you've become a speaker rather than a "learner," and your brain handles the language in a different way. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter whether you're a <em>native </em>speaker or not -- but I think you do need a very high, maybe almost native-like <em>proficiency </em>(which you clearly have!), for this to happen.

Phil, I've been wondering about this too. I know enough Chinese words at this point that I think I <em>should</em> be able to fill in a lot of blanks based on context when I hear or read new words, but it doesn't work that way -- I often can't even figure out the grammar of the rest of the sentence until I look up the new word.

I feel like our intuitive grasp or our native grammar may have something to do with it. A native speaker can easily tell what part of speech is missing from a sentence, because the rest of the grammar all fits together naturally for us. We know <em>what sort of thing</em> is missing. That's why we can read a poem like "The Jabberwocky" without any trouble, despite the fact that the vocabulary is mostly nonsense.

Which, incidentally, tends to corroborate the claim you've made before about language effectively <em>being</em> grammar.

Miriam: I certainly was not referring to you. It’s just that Gray’s experience of easily understanding her native language despite the totally new word reminded me of how language students (including myself as a learner) often find ourselves completely thrown off by an unfamiliar word in a foreign language. There are such posts all the time in the Answers section. Also, it happens to some of my new students from time to time. Sometimes during a listening exercise, a student will tell me “I can’t understand anything. I didn’t understand X, I couldn’t hear the word between Y and Z.” I think this has a lot to do with what Su.Ki. said about expecting to fail. I’ll tell them to never mind what they can’t understand, just tell me what they *can* understand. As it usually turns out, they get more than they think they do, but they somehow dismiss it as unimportant and focus all their attention on the one little word that eluded them. Now, sometimes that one word is key, but as often as not, it can be easily guessed or simply ignored with no loss of comprehension.

Actually, "to cop on" means to realise. E.g. "He never copped on" - "he never realised."

And "to have no cop on" means to have no common sense. E.g. "Have ye no cop on at all?" This can also be used when someone does something that is socially frowned upon.

Both phrases form part of everyday speech. I've still never heard the original phrase, though.