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Claiming to Speak a Language - Pet Peeve | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 81 of 164 30 December 2009 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, this is the real problem with people who claim to speak a language -- when they don't understand you or you don't understand them. You're suddenly landed in that awkward situation where they try to save face by putting you down, like with Cruise's line "I don't know what that was but it wasn't German". The last time it happened to me it was "you don't even understand something simple like (whatever it was he said)?" and I was left trying to decide whether it was worth telling him that I would have understood it if he'd said it properly. It's a bloody petty argument and neither comes out of it looking good, but it's an embarrassing position to be in when there's no native speakers around to arbitrate. Of course, when you're a well-respected intellectual TV type like Fry and it's Tom Cruise slagging you off... well, you know who the public is going to trust. But in a pub, it is massively infuriating. (Of course, Fry does speak every language with a very heavy English accent, but it should never be a problem for a "fluent" speaker....) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5482 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 82 of 164 28 February 2010 at 6:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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I know this thread is older but I just had to post this incident that recently happened to
me. Ok so some German students at my school are going to Germany this summer to go to school and stay with a host family. I'm going because I take German at my school, even though I technically already speak it from exposure to it through my grandpa as a child and later learning on my own (it's an easy A for those of you who are bilingual and going through high school). Anyways, there was a meeting to see a power point that the kids who went last year made, and they were talking about their experiences. One kid who went said, "Yeah, and by the end of it I could pretty much speak German!" Now mind you, the only other people I know in America who speak German are my German teachers, my grandpa, my neighbor, and my mother (who only understands). I was pretty excited. After the presentation I went up to him and I started rapidly speaking saying how cool it was to know that there was another kid in the high school with whom I could speak German, etc. His response was a short "was?" I repeated myself, but slower. He said, in an accent which made my ears bleed, "oh, ich kann dir nicht verstehen. SORRY." I can't even believe this kid claimed to speak German when he used SORRY in a sentence AND USED THE INCORRECT PRONOUN WHICH IS LIKE ONE OF THE EASIEST THINGS TO GET IN A SENTENCE LIKE THAT! I corrected him and he was like OH YEAH THANKS! I was more pissed about the fact that he couldn't speak German rather than the fact that he exaggerated his abilities :(. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5423 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 83 of 164 28 February 2010 at 7:31am | IP Logged | |||||
But as for me, I don't even tell people I'm studying Spanish. A couple friends know, but I tell most people I pick up stuff from Hispanic friends. If someone tried talking to me in Spanish, I'd say,"Yo no entiendo mucho español, pero I will try to follow along." I can't say that last part in Spanish yet :(. My passive ability to read (and to some extent hear) and understand Spanish is better average, I would say, because I've had 3 years of Latin in school, so seeing and understanding vocabulary isn't that hard. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5554 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 84 of 164 28 February 2010 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ha. This story reminds me of one guy in my psychology class. The professor asked those who are multilingual to raise their hands. There was one guy who was raised in a Serbian household who spoke fluent Serbian, and then, a loud American who claimed to speak German because he lived in Germany for a while. He never said what the hell he was doing there but I assume he probably just took classes in English there for 4 months and then came back claiming to speak German. I wish I could speak German so I could have embarassed him in front of the whole class, because I could tell he was lying through his teeth. The thing is, if you speak a second language, you wouldn't brag about it like that. Speaking another language fluently is a mystical and wondrous thing only to monolinguals. To the rest of the world it's a part of daily life. And I know I said he was lying, but really, these people aren't lying. Monolinguals do not, for the most part, have any concept of what it means to speak a foreign language. For them, knowing a few basic vocabulary, phrases and stock sentences/conversations is enough to be considered "speaking a language." WOW does it ever get on my nerves. 3 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 85 of 164 01 March 2010 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I really enjoyed this thread because it illustrates again and again that people who are serious about learning a foreign language tend to be very humble about their language skills. They are very aware of their own limitations.
I don't want to repeat what has been already said here, but I would like to add that we all probably agree that becoming fluent in another language at an adult age is extremely difficult. I'm not saying that it's impossible. Just difficult. It's like the old saying: the best way to become rich is to be born rich. There's also the proverb in French: Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois. Roughly translated, it is: "the land of the blind, the one-eyed are kings" Edited by s_allard on 01 March 2010 at 6:29pm 3 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 86 of 164 15 October 2011 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
This one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9epa1I2Itfs I think Mr Cruise has been misrepresented. 3 persons have 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 87 of 164 16 October 2011 at 3:19am | IP Logged | |||||
Unless there were relevant bits we didn't see, I agree. In any case, I think Fry is too much of a gentleman to embarrass a fellow artiste in such a situation. And had he been put in that position, he is clever enough to have got around it, e.g. by saying that he'd been speaking a different dialect than the one Tom was using... Plus it's possible Tom Cruise genuinely thought he knew more than he did. German can be a bit like that. You learn the mechanics and the basic vocabulary, but it's like driving a car. It's only after you pass your driving test that you really start learning how to drive. 1 person has 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 88 of 164 16 October 2011 at 7:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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Tom never claimed fluency, he said, 'Yeah, I can speak a few words' and his 'smirk' was a reaction to Jonathan Ross' fake German. If you look at the video segment again, at around 6.45, his reaction to Stephen Fry's German was 'Was that French?' but I didn't take it as an insult to Fry, but as Tom's joke on himself for not being able to understand it, because he has already stated that he can only speak a little German. Admittedly, if he couldn't understand what Fry said, that it must be very little, but I think that the accusation made in this thread is a mistaken one.
4 persons have voted this message useful |
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