Native Speaker is the debut studio album by the Canadian experimental pop/art rock band Braids, released by Flemish Eye/Kanine Records on January 18, 2011 (April 11 in the UK) to critical acclaim.

– Raphaelle Standell-Preston, Q interviewStandell-Preston, the chief lyricist, said the album describes "the changes in her life from Calgary schoolgirl to Montreal musician, and the discovery of sexuality and relationships along the way".

"Braids' uniquely feminine experimental pop is largely a success", argued Allmusic, mentioning Animal Collective, Björk, Karen O, Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie Sioux, and Yeasayer as possible influences.

[1] According to Spin, the album "pairs glimmering, pastoral post-rock with foul-mouthed lyrics", making this girl's psyche preparation a fascinating thing to watch.

[6] Ian Cohen of Pitchfork noted the peculiarity of the quartet's brand of dream pop, saying, "There are dreams, there are nightmares, and then there are those night visions that don't quite qualify as either, the unnerving images and dialogues that rattle about your head in your waking life for the rest of the day and reveal strange, forgotten details every time you pick at them.

[7] As Rolling Stone put it, the band's debut "takes the beatific psychedelic washes of Animal Collective back to the testy clatter of punk-folk wild women the Raincoats — an at times nutty, at times serene, mash-up of pastoral guitar babble, minimal orchestral drones, loopy chorale vocals and porous, roiling rhythms".

[6] "Rarely do teenage kicks result in such eloquent, nuanced records as this", wrote Q reviewer Dan Stubbs, pointing out the way "the band's youth shines through the lyrics".

[3] "The quartet's bracing debut... is almost Inception-like in its warping of reality, equally tactile and dissolute, cerebral and surreal and ultimately haunting for its refusal to answer questions the same way twice," according to Pitchfork.