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Claiming to Speak a Language - Pet Peeve | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 97 of 164 18 October 2011 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This is completely off-topic, but I am intrigued, as I am sure others are, by the use here of the extremely rare adverb "herostratically". I had never seen this word before and did a bit of poking around the Internet to find out that the word exists in two forms only in the expressions "herostratic fame" and "herostratically famous." If my understanding is correct, the word is used to characterize the act of committing some heinous crime to gain notoriety. The word comes from the Greek word Herostratus, the name of a young man who burned down the temple of Artemis in Ancient Greece. As Wikipedia says: "Herostratus' name lived on in classical literature and has passed into modern languages as a term for someone who commits a criminal act in order to bask in the resultant notoriety." Given this, I'm really curious about travel guides with mixed tour groups in Scandinavia. This is not at all meant to be a criticism of Iversen's usage of the term. Can someone explain what do these travel guides do to make them herostratically famous? 3 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 98 of 164 18 October 2011 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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OK, maybe it is a little hard to put them in the same cathegory of the person who burned down the temple of Ephesos just to become famous. Actually those guides don't try to become famous. The just mix two languages: a Danish guide will for instance speak in Danish, but every time Swedish has a different word for something he/she will use that word. And as a result neither the Swedes nor the Danes fully understand what they say. The term might suit those better who participate in Big Brother or similar shows - at least they want to become famous! Edited by Iversen on 18 October 2011 at 3:28pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Deerhound Triglot Newbie England Joined 4906 days ago 30 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, German, Toki Pona Studies: French, Mandarin, Esperanto, Greek, Latin, Welsh | Message 99 of 164 18 October 2011 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Me: 'I speak a little bit of German'.
Other person: 'Oh, I can speak a bit of German, too!' Me (excited about being able to speak a bit of German with someone): 'Wirklich? Toll!' OP: 'Erm...yar. Ish spretche a bistchen Deutsch. Hallo. Erm...yes, I've forgotten most of it.' Me: :-/ 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 100 of 164 19 October 2011 at 4:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I was once having a cup of coffee with an American friend, and this German girl I knew, and inevitably the girl and I chatted in German for a little while. After she left, my friend said something along the lines of "Holy shit! I was f***ing impressed with your English when I finally got you speaking, but this is f***ing awesome, you speak German just as well as English!".
Now, this was a completely ridiculous claim, so I explained to him that I would need at least one year to reach again the German level I once had, and probably a couple more to make it as good as my English. The important thing, however, is that I was left wondering how he could think my German was so good in the first place. The simple answer was, he spoke no German at all. So, if even someone with a bit of experience with foreign languages can assess language skills totally wrong, what can we expect from 'newbies'? Certainly not assessment accuracy :) The thing is, this little story provided me with a 100% effective retort (so far, that is) I use every time I meet someone who I suspect may be exaggerating his skills, inadvertently or not. When one of those types says 'I speak X', you just reply 'Oh really? You mean, just like you speak English -or whatever-?'. Works like a charm, every time; the braggarts take it as a warning and shut up altogether, and the overconfident think it over and usually give a more meaningful description of their abilities. Last but not least, it's also a lot easier to cast in an innocent-looking way :) 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Remster Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4806 days ago 120 posts - 134 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: German, French | Message 101 of 164 20 October 2011 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The languages I speak are Dutch and English, I'm confident in those, but even though my German and French are actually improving, I don't have the guts to say I can speak them well.
I could never ever type on a German and French thread when I say that. Atleast not untill I can speak/write both. I completely agree with you, of coure it's rather abstract, but a few basics do not make you proficient, at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| birthdaysuit Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4818 days ago 48 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Swedish | Message 102 of 164 18 December 2011 at 8:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think sometimes (or in my case) it's a newbie error. At the beginning of my Spanish
studies, when I had no idea just how much work went into learning, and when I had no idea just how much I'd have to learn, I thought I spoke Spanish. How wrong I soon realised I was... The whole process has humbled me and, with the exception of those fraudsters who claim they are super polyglots or whatever, I think many people are simply unaware of how much they DON'T know. A few months of dedicated study should open their eyes. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6866 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 103 of 164 26 December 2011 at 1:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I never say "I speak x languages". Instead, I say "I have studied x languages, and have varying abilities in each". Thats the safest way :-)
10 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 104 of 164 26 December 2011 at 2:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Actually it is even worse for all-Norwegian groups who always get Danish guides who insert Swedish words, in the firm belief that it will make it a perfect Norwegian. And it is evidently not possible to get through to them in any way (believe me, I have tried) that as Danish and Norwegian have most of the same vocabulary, what they are doing when removing Norwegian/Danish terms and putting in Swedish terms is to make it twice as difficult to understand. Swedish I can handle, Danish I can handle, but Danish pronunciation with Swedish words is the 7th level of Hell. Oh, and incidentally, herostratically famous is not an uncommon term in Scandinavia when used by people of a certain educational level. It usually just means that the people they are referring to are famous for having done something wrong or stupid. It does not have to be anything of the magnitude of burning down the temple of Ephesos. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 26 December 2011 at 2:10am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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