You are not a real polyglot if... (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

You are not a real polyglot if...
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

299 messages over 38 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 37 38

maydayayday
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5229 days ago
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Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish^B2, French^B2
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Message 297 of 299

19 December 2013 at 9:08am | IP Logged

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

Actually a quick test can often be more revealing than any official document. When I went into maternity
leave I interviewed the candidates in English and French, and several of the ones I interviewed had the
documents to prove their skills, but not the actual skills. Later when a new candidate was needed my boss
did the interviewing and he felt it would be ungentlemanlike not to trust their documents, so he hired a guy
whose French turned out to be horrible.

Oddly the same in reverse caused me to be selected by a Japanese company over other UK candidates as I had 'conversational Japanese' but no certificate or were languages even mentioned on my application. A year later my Japanese was much more than conversational.
1 person has voted this message useful

mrwarper
Diglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Spain
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Joined 5236 days ago
1493 posts - 2500 votes

Speaks: Spanish*, English^C2
Studies: German, Russian, Japanese

Message 298 of 299

22 December 2013 at 8:04pm | IP Logged

Solfrid Cristin wrote:

Actually a quick test can often be more revealing than any official document. [...] several of the ones I interviewed had the documents to prove their skills, but not the actual skills. Later [...] my boss did the interviewing and he felt it would be ungentlemanlike not to trust their documents, so he hired a guy whose French turned out to be horrible.

People who can't (or can't afford to) test every candidate by themselves are bound to trust their documents, call somebody else, etc.

While I am one of the naive ones who generally try to be honest and would put 'self-assessed level: C2, certified level: B2', or 'certified level: B2, current level: rusty B1' in a CV, people out there are more than happy to inflate their CVs and go for 'that happy period between the lie and being found out', because it works apparently often enough. This of course puts honest people at a disadvantage that might be temporary but critical, so as an employer I'd hint to candidates that they're going to be tested to see how they react.

After all (I think one of us said this in another thread, but please do not make me link it right now), if you say you're at level X, why would you be afraid of being tested at that same level? Interestingly enough, I've met enough people who complain about actual testing being required at places "because they're already certified" to get an idea of how [no] good official documents are sometimes, too ;)

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Anya
Pentaglot
Senior Member
France
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Speaks: Russian*, French^C1, English, Italian, Spanish
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Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi

Message 299 of 299

22 December 2013 at 8:19pm | IP Logged

For me, getting an official certificate is a part of the challenge of language study, no more, no less...But I would not
mind if having a certificate will help me finding a new job.

1 person has voted this message useful

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