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It's true. I can often spot people online for whom English is not their first (and often, only a written) language because they, having learned it correctly and been graded on correctness, speak English correctly. Native speakers got points for "creativity" instead of actually getting the language right, and write like they speak, if even that well, so they write like slobs. While there are some things which are common mistakes for non-English-speakers (for example, noun/adjective order in speakers of Romance languages), by and large, if someone can actually communicate reasonably well in a language, the better they are with it, it seems that the less likely it is that they're a native speaker. Depressing, that.
One of the things I like about MobileRead is the number of exceptions to this rule of thumb, possibly because anyone who writes in teenage text-speak is soundly laughed at.
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