A person who speaks the first language he or she learned, which may or may not be the person's dominant language or language of primary competence. Native speakers can have a grossly inadequate knowledge of their native language, depending on their education and the country where that education was obtained.

For example, a person born in Mexico who immigrated to the United States as a child and received all his education here, is a native speaker of Spanish but will have a very limited knowledge of that language; his dominant language will be English.