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Claiming to Speak a Language - Pet Peeve | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6784 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 41 of 164 04 December 2009 at 12:43pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't know this guy's story, maybe he is just a fraud. But I wasn't talking about those dedicated polyglots you are representing here, and those people would probably be too humble, having realized through their own learning what a long and insecure road it is, to expose other people for lack of skills. Instead I'm talking about the people in that audience, and at home, who -- and try to deny this -- got a kick out of seeing this guy getting the squeeze put on him. People who aren't polyglots and probably only speaking one language. Those are the people I was talking about. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6154 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 42 of 164 04 December 2009 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | ||
In your defence you did 'say anyone in that room' but nonetheless your main summary was that jealousy was the cause of their reaction. I just don't agree. How can we possibly know what people in that room were thinking? I for one felt extremely uncomfortable watching him and so did many others no doubt. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6154 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 43 of 164 04 December 2009 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry to double post but I've just remembered a great example of a famous person exaggerating their language abilities. Tom Cruise was being interviewed in the UK by Jonathon Ross for his film Valkyrie. Half way through the interview Ross said he'd heard that Cruise had learned German while filming. Cruise nodded and confirmed he had actually learned German fluently. Little did he know that Stephen Fry, an English comedian, actor and writer, who was sitting in the studio could speak German very well.
The camera went on Fry who confidently said something in German. Then Cruise came on the screen with this weird smirk on his face. He blatantly hadn't understood so his only response was 'I don't know what that was but it wasn't German'. It was awful to watch. What annoyed me was that Fry is a highly fluent speaker of German and Tom Cruise who clearly knows next to nothing in the language attempted to hide his own embarrassment by belittling Fry's abilities. Edited by Jimmymac on 04 December 2009 at 1:14pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5839 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 44 of 164 04 December 2009 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh gosh - the Cruise story is just too embarrassing!
How could he be so stupid! And what a silly thing to lie about! I mean - he could have just said "Yeah I took some lessons and now I'm able to speak about the weather and order coffee in German..." Well it doesn't matter much that he can't speak German, because I read that he's banned from Germany (which is very much against Scientology which Cruise follows...) In my experience it's almost always better to DOWNPLAY ones language skills. If you end up in a situation where they are needed, then let people know, else why even mention it? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6784 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 45 of 164 04 December 2009 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | ||
I totally agree. If there is someone in the group who's interested in languages and pays attention to that, it won't take them long to figure out that you have the command of a language and you'll get the "credit" (recognition) for it. Meanwhile you won't get the shallow credit from people who have no real interest in the subject anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JS-1 Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5984 days ago 144 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), German, Japanese, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic (Written) | Message 46 of 164 04 December 2009 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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While it doesn't bother me that people try to exaggerate their linguistic skills, I do
take a certain pleasure is seeing them make asses of themselves in front of proficient speakers. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elwing Tetraglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5509 days ago 43 posts - 51 votes Speaks: Swedish, Finnish*, English, French Studies: Norwegian | Message 47 of 164 04 December 2009 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I always play down my language skills. According to this website I have basic fluency in French but I don't feel at all comfortable with the language and therefore "I've studied French for 8 years but I still don't speak it although I do understand okay" is what I usually say when someone asks.
I think the main reason I do this is exactly the fact that I find it annoying when people claim to speak a language which they clearly can't speak. For example there is a German girl in my French class who claims to speak French (even to me - and I sit next to her in the lessons) but her pronunciation is terrible and in writing she makes more spelling- and grammatical mistakes than I do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Envinyatar Diglot Senior Member Guatemala Joined 5537 days ago 147 posts - 240 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 48 of 164 04 December 2009 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Claiming to speak languages when that's not true is very common but in my opinion most people who fall in this category certainly believe they do and let's be honest, it's very probable all of us here have suddenly realized we're not as proficient as we thought and we could have said to other people "hey, I speak XX" but then we find out that we don't. Maybe we have been more fortunate and we have only lied to ourselves.
I'm not going to throw dirt at anyone but myself: I believed my English was very good, I was like "I only need to improve my pronunciation a bit" but then I realized that I was wrong, completely wrong. Realizing that kind of stuff is humbling and embarrassing at the same time but it's much better than living in a fantasy. Knowing that, I'd not make fun of someone who thinks that he speaks something that I know they don't because he simply could be deluded. Of course there are some others who know very well they're not proficient and still claim that, but I guess they're like that for everything! 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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