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A dead honest language CV... | ||
Tags: Curriculum Vitae (CV) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 25 of 104 02 November 2013 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've never taken a certification exam to assess linguistic competency and so my description of them is vague. It certainly doesn't help that I'd need to take a plane to go to a city which gives such tests for my target languages (if such tests exist - I don't know of any yet for Northern Saami ;-))
English and French: Fluent, can and have used them professionally. Everything else: Whenever these are on my resume I qualify them with intermediate-level (e.g. for Hungarian, Polish) or basic (e.g. Finnish). Given the number of languages that I've dealt and my desire to keep things succinct, I rarely include languages for which I deem myself to be a beginner, let alone objects of dabbling. In any case, listing even a few of my target languages often attracts a question or two from the hiring manager in an interview. This opening lets me be more natural and relaxed in the interview in talking about something that interests me instead of burning up time with devising nonsense to answer one of those canned and inane questions that HR personnel adore (e.g. "If you were an animal, which one would it be?"). 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4663 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 26 of 104 02 November 2013 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
I guess, but the topic would be less interesting. I'd rather get more details. Why should we sacrifice information in favor of sticking to a particular test standard? This is a discussion, not a test. Is it so bad if a few levels here and there might diverge a little from what a test would show anyway? 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 27 of 104 02 November 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Wrong. In English, I am an A0: I never passed an official exam. Neither did I sit one. Obviously, if I wanted to use the CEFR scale to apply for a job, enroll in university or apply for citizenship, the level to use is the one I actually passed an exam in. But perhaps we aren't talking about the final exam result, but about whether our skills are equivalent to a certain level in the framework of reference. In which case I personally think it is completely justified to assess every skill by itself. I myself tried being honest but ended up debasing myself. The only one with some objectivity in it is: French: Enrolled in a class that ends with a B2 equivalent exam about four months from now. Self-evaluation: Comprehension between B1 and B2, written production A2, oral production A1 at best. Teacher said I'm in the right course, though. Edited by Bao on 02 November 2013 at 10:20pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4652 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 28 of 104 02 November 2013 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A fair warning: all my languages suck as far as pronunciation is concerned, with Spanish and Polish sucking the least (yes, Spanish phonology is easier than Polish, and yes, my sessions with a therapist in childhood only paid off a little, I still mispronounce a lot of stuff)
EDIT: All of those, unless passing an exam is mentioned, are estimates :) Polish - native, C2. English - passed a C1 exam at university in June. Comprehension: C1, production: C1. German - comprehension: A2 production: A1. I was always better at comprehension, especially reading, than production. Spanish - passed a B2 exam at university in June. Comprehension: B2, production: hovering between B1 and B2, depending on the day :P Arabic - comprehension: sucks unless someone speaks very clearly. Can read some stuff and use a dictionary. Halfway between A0 and A1, I'd say. Production: A1 (I can ask some basic stuff and get understood). Edited by Zireael on 03 November 2013 at 6:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4254 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 29 of 104 02 November 2013 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hmm.
Finnish - native language English - I think I'm pretty good all around, I've been complimented with not having "much of an accent", I can read basically anything I want to with ease and my grasp of the grammar and spelling are adequate for professional usage. Swedish - I could live in a Swedish speaking society and function more or less pretty well by using Swedish only, I don't have many problems with it but I guess my vocabulary is relatively small due to not having read much 'skönlitteratur'. Norwegian - A shadow of my Swedish and currently nothing to write home about, I've chatted with a few Norwegians and I think know the cardinal differences between Swedish and Norwegian and such. I am listing this here because I have actually went out of my way and practiced and used Norwegian, so this is not just listing the skill transfer from Swedish to Norwegian. Russian - I've been teaching it to myself for more or less six months considering the weeks I've been inactive, I went to uni and asked the Russian teacher what to do, she poked at my skills and put me on a B1-level conversational course where I think I am doing all fine. Estonian - Slowly but steadily, I am still pretty bad at it, yet not far from breaching the wall from beginner to intermediate. Will just require some more work. My Danish friend told me after we talked an entire day this; "two weeks in Copenhagen and you're fluent in Danish!" but I think he was just being nice, and thus I don't consider myself having any skills in Danish whatsoever. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 30 of 104 02 November 2013 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
Edited by Serpent on 02 November 2013 at 8:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5670 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 31 of 104 02 November 2013 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Luxembourgish: native language. Professional translator into Luxembourgish and one of the few people who bothered to learn the correct spelling ;-) Sworn translator for Luxembourgish (sworn translator = authorised by the Ministry of Justice to translate official documents, such as birth certificates, diplomas, notarial deeds, court decisions, police records etc.).
French: second native language. Professional translator into French. Diploma in translation into French and French law degree. Very slight regional (Luxembourgish) accent, but passes as French. Sworn translator for French. German: C2+ near-native. Passes as German. Learned to read and write in German. C2 business German diploma (WiDaf) and Goethe Institute C2 diploma (Grosses Deutsches Sprachdiplom). Diploma in translation from German to French. Sworn translator for German. English: C2 Certificate of Proficiency in English, University of Cambridge. Diploma in translation from English to French. Sworn translator for English. Spanish: C2 Diploma de Español como lengua extranjera (nivel superior) from Instituto Cervantes. Diploma in translation from Spanish to French. Sworn translator for Spanish. Italian: B2 Certificato di conoscenza della lingua Italiana, Università di Perugia. Passive (reading) skills probably at C1. Will sit C1 exam in a few weeks. Dutch: passive estimated B2, active estimated A2. Can read books, but speaking is still rather basic. Russian: A2 diploma from the Moscow State University (2005), but a bit rusty, currently taking beginner classes to revive it. Indonesian: basic level. Latin: studied for 6 years in secondary school, but very rusty. Portuguese: good passive skills, understand written Portuguese very well, spoken Brazilian quite well, spoken Portuguese a little, active skills very basic. Catalan: good passive skills, can understand written and spoken Catalan quite well, but no active skills. 10 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 32 of 104 02 November 2013 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In all this frenzy of letters, I think I should repeat a suggestion that I made in another thread. In addition to "speak"
and "study," we should have a category "certified" for which one has passed a certification test (not an assessment test). This does not take away anything from what people are doing now; it just forces people to respect some objective standard. This, in my opinion, is what is happening now anyways. Isn't that exactly what the CEFR was designed to do?: Define and measure an objective standard of language proficiency. Schools and some employers now ask for specific levels of certified proficiency. Going are the days when you can write "functional French" on your CV. And, of course, many instiutions impose their own language tests. For example, for certain jobs with our federal government you have to pass language tests regardless of what you put on your CV. That's the way to go. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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