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Claiming to Speak a Language - Pet Peeve | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| kaibri Triglot Newbie China Joined 4814 days ago 12 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, German, Mandarin Studies: Indonesian, Portuguese | Message 89 of 164 16 October 2011 at 9:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I get annoyed at those arrogant types as well, but honestly I find it hard to know what to say about my language
abilities and I'm sure many language learners are the same. For example, I am pretty functional in German. When I studied in Germany, I had lots of friends that I only spoke German to. I can make myself understood on just about any topic in general conversation, but I make a lot of mistakes and, while I can understand radio or TV quite well, I am often lost when a native speaker runs their words together or uses slang. I definitely would not call myself fluent. Should I say I speak "a little bit" of German? That's unnecessarily humble - I actually speak a fair amount. I wouldn't say that I "am studying" German, because I'm not and haven't been for almost 8 years. My standard response is to turn it into a bit of a joke. When someone asks me if I speak German or Chinese, I just say "I try!" 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7122 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 90 of 164 16 October 2011 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm very wary of claiming fluency in any language apart from my own, native English because I know that, as a non-native, I will never really be 'fluent' to the same standard as I am in English, and in a foreign language, you can always find someone eager catch you out! Contrast that with people who claim to be able to 'speak' such and such a language when their linguistic skills stretch no further than greetings at the appropriate time of the day and the ability to order a coffee and an ice cream.
It's a difficult one to call, actually. You don't want to sound boastful, but then again, you can downplay your skills to a point where it actually sounds condescening and insulting. Living in Japan, I grow tired of hearing some people, who are actually very good at English, say how bad their English is, and argue with me if I try to reassure them that is isn't. I won't play that game anymore now, and just give a neutral 'Oh, I see' kind of answer. I think it has been mentioned on this thread before, but Barry Farber addreses this issue in his book on language learning, and the answer he gives is 'I speak English. But I am a student of...(now mention all the languages you want).' 'I get by' works well too. It lets you off the hook while not sounding too condescending. 'I studied _____ at university' is one I've also used, because while it implies a certain amount of expertise, it can allow for not being as good as a native speaker, or knowing the foreign for some obscure term that you 'should' know because you're supposed to be 'fluent'. There's that tricky word again - fluent! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| KimG Diglot Groupie Norway Joined 4978 days ago 88 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Portuguese, Swahili | Message 91 of 164 16 October 2011 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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We Norwegians often can get into this issue too, since we're so used to Swedish we often forget we are not Swedes. We see on Swedish TV programs, often know and speak to people from Sweden regularly, and often we are able to read books in Swedish, read swedish newspapers, see undubbed swedish films without texting, etc.
But, we're not Swedes, we would fail on basic grammar tests in the language.. But still, if a Swede or Dane understands Bokmål spoken, I'd prefer to speak to them in my own language than to converse in English, even if I quite good in Engish, having spoken with Danes and Swedes long before I learned English, it just feels more natural. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 92 of 164 16 October 2011 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | ||
A bit off-topic (and a variation on a question I asked in another thread): if you moved from Norway to Denmark or Sweden to live, would you make a concerted effort to learn Danish or Swedish "properly", or would you carry on doing what you do now? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 93 of 164 16 October 2011 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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The use of other Scandinavians' languages is a complicated issue. There are certainly people who try to the ease the understanding for other Scandinavians by speaking in their native language, but with more or less wellmotivated loans from the other languages. Travel guides with mixed tour groups are herostratically famous for this.
My personal view is of course that I want to hear clear and unadulterated versions of the other languages, and I have done some work to learn them properly, but I still have some qualms about speaking those languages in public. If I (as a Dane) do it I'm effectively saying to the other person that he or she is incapable of understanding Danish - which in fact may be the case. Now, my attempts to acquire active skills are fairly recent and since I started them I have only visited the areas of Sweden and Norway which are closest to Denmark, and in these regions many people actually understand Danish, which made it even harder to switch to Swedish and Norwegian. However I answered several times in the local languages when I was asked short easy questions- for instance when I was asked the way to the castle in Malmö, and I met no reaction at all at any time, which must be a good sign. If some Scandinavian tried to strike up a conversation in English I might also answer in the local language to make clear that conversations in English among Scandinavians is a serious faut-pas (at the level of farting in a church). Finns or Icelanders that don't speak or understand Danish are of course exempt from this rule. Back to the theme: would I ever try to pretend that I understand or even speak a language which I don't know? Not willingly. I have regularly constructed short texts in languages which I don't really know using dictionaries and grammars, but (hopefully) not without specifying that what the deal was - an experiment or a joke. And I have also repeatedly pointed out that it is possible (after serious and longwinded, but hopefully fruitful preparations) to make videos in languages in which you can't strike up a decent conversation due to lack of conversation practice. But those are borderline cases. Pretending that you know a language just to be unmasked a moment later must be a fairly humiliating experience, and being taken seriously by people who should know better isn't funny, just tragic - like some kind of 'candid camera'. Edited by Iversen on 17 October 2011 at 12:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 94 of 164 17 October 2011 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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As everybody here has noted, this whole debate really centers on how we (here at HTLAL) and others define what it means to speak a language. I have always remarked that people who are seriously studying a language tend to very modest in the assessment of their ability to speak the language. This is because, I think, we are so aware of how difficult and daunting it is to actually speak a foreign language well, especially with native speakers. So, in fact, we should admit that the ability to speak a foreign language must be assessed on a sliding scale from beginner to native-like. But isn't that what the various systems of language performance assessment claim to do?
I don't get upset or peeved because people say they speak, let's say French, when in fact they can barely put a correct sentence together. I just say that they are a CEFR A1. No problem. Other people are a B1 or a C1. Just to say that you speak a language is pretty meaningless to me. I'm much more interested in what you can really do with the language. And that's where the value of a system like the CEFR model comes in handy. So, let's stop beating around the bush here. Edited by s_allard on 18 October 2011 at 4:46am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 95 of 164 18 October 2011 at 9:26am | IP Logged | ||
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When you state that you are at CEFR A1 in a certain language nobody outside HTLAL have a clue about what that is - they may even think that you are extremely advanced because A1 normally points to something extremely excellent. So if you want to get a job and can't really speak a certain language then just claim that you are at level A1 in the CEFR, and you'll get the job - leaving the guy with C2 behind you wondering what happened.
I prefer beating around the bush. Say what you can and what you can't. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 96 of 164 18 October 2011 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree, of course, that many people do not know what the CEFR scale is. But this is changing, especially in Europe. Most university students in Europe today in Europe have heard of it because it is widely used with reference to exchange programs between universities. And certainly the human resource departments of large employers are refer to the CEFR in assessing the language skills of employees Similarly, here in Canada, among federal government employees, there is a widely used three level scale (A,B and C) in the official languages test. What is the alternative to some sort of objective scale? It's exactly the situation that we have been discussing here. We don't have to go very far. All of us here at HTLAL have language profiles that say "Speaks ..." Most people have at least two languages, including their native tongue. When I read: "Speaks X, Y, Z, etc.", I have no clue as to what that person can do in those languages. What exactly does "speak" mean? Truth be told, it means only that the person can say something in the language. What that it is, nobody knows. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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