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Claiming to Speak a Language - Pet Peeve | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 25 of 164 03 December 2009 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I saw some people talking about a "CV". What is that? Is that like a European word for "resume" (or "Résumé" if you prefer)?
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| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7166 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 26 of 164 03 December 2009 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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CV stands for curriculum vitae (like, your "life's course") and is similar to a resume, but usually much more comprehensive, emphasizing education and (your) publications.
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| Serpensortia Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5523 days ago 18 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English*, Russian*, Spanish | Message 27 of 164 03 December 2009 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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And here is why I don't like the language-profile thing on this site! Apparently, I'm listed as speaking Spanish, although I chose "Basic Fluency" for it. The way I see this, it means that I can read well and carry on a conversation with someone who knows that I'm only learning (i.e. takes care not to slur, etc.). I would not say that I can speak it, though.
My point being, that it's not always the person's fault that they end up falsely claiming knowledge of a language, so I wouldn't be too harsh on them. Edited by Serpensortia on 03 December 2009 at 11:12pm 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 28 of 164 03 December 2009 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The word 'speaks' does not imply that you can speak fluently without errors. Due to the mechanics of this site the word "speaks" covers both 'basic' and 'advanced' fluency. The exact meaning of those words is naturally also something that is debatable, but personally I take 'basic fluency' to be the level where I can live for several days in a foreign country speaking only the language in question. I should be able to discuss simple things like politics and nuclear physics and language learning without resorting to English or Danish, but I will inevitably make a number of mistakes and my accent may not be spot on. Likewise I may not able to eavesdrop on the resident teenagers or use the correct word for every flower within sight.
I think it is important that we as language learners don't set ourselves unrealistic goals from the start, and if you can have a conversation with a sympathetic and non-threatening native then you shouldn't be afraid of seeing your name on the "speaks" list to the left. Those people that some of us are somewhat wary of are those that just have learnt a few set phrases and believe that they then can claim to 'speak' a language. Edited by Iversen on 04 December 2009 at 2:18am 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6035 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 29 of 164 04 December 2009 at 12:08am | IP Logged | |||||
I take it, the term "CV" is not used at all in the US? It means Curriculum Vitae as other forum members explained above. It's sort of like a resume, but 2 pages long so you go into more detail; Academic CV are normally longer. In the US a resume of 2 pages would probably be too long and no one will bother to read it.
It is not an irritation for me but these people are putting themselves in a very embarrassing situation. It's stupid to raise the expectations and then show just how little you know. Edited by Sennin on 04 December 2009 at 12:10am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpensortia Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5523 days ago 18 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English*, Russian*, Spanish | Message 30 of 164 04 December 2009 at 12:16am | IP Logged | |||||
Each to his own. I suppose I didn't make my point clearly. What I meant was that although it is silly to pretend to know something you do not, and it comes down to straight-up lying, I do not think that all the people in these stories did this intentionally. It could easily be a misunderstanding on their part. I'm disappointed with the, ah, villains in the stories here, but I want to check myself to ensure that I'm not becoming elitist over it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| global_gizzy Senior Member United States maxcollege.blogspot. Joined 5704 days ago 275 posts - 310 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 31 of 164 04 December 2009 at 2:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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I dream of being able to speak several languages. I aim to really MASTER the basics of a language that are covered in three college courses (Assuming its Elementary Language 1, 2 and the Intermediate language) I have a standard introduction/inquiry process I do with Spanish speakers.
When I meet them and they have an accent I'll say "Oh, habla espanol?", sometimes I catch them off guard and they ask me to repeat myself. I repeat myself and asked "De donde eres/es?" and if they say yeah and inquire about my Spanish speaking I just tell them "(Yo) estudio espanol a un clase a mi escuela, perro me gusto mucha la idioma. (yo) practico un poco todos los dias perro no mi es muy bien cuando hablo espanol" (I dont have an international keyboard I know that's not written correctly.) Also, I've never had a native/teacher correct the grammar in that little spiel, but I'm careful to put in a disclaimer quickly when I meet a native speaker. I'm sure they can tell just how far along I am by the fact that I make mistakes in even that simple speech. I have a tendency to be arrogant in the privacy of my own head and sometimes outside my own head also, about most things academic but I know better than to claim to speak a foreign language. I always say that "Oh, I study that language" or I am learning to speak a little of that language" I am always being careful of that pitfall. I will harp on and on about how I want to learn languages or dabbled in the very basics of a language and learned some basic phrases and simple grammar. P.S. I don't think that it's fair to ridicule (even to oneself) someone who says they can SPEAK a language because they can't write in that language. Speaking and writing are two different things and its very possible that one may be able to do one but not the other, its even harsher if that someone in question can SPEAK the language (to a reasonable level) but can barely write in that language. 1 person has 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 32 of 164 04 December 2009 at 2:24am | IP Logged | |||||
It was not just a joke. Technical lingo has generally a lot of international words (often from English, but based on for instance Latin), and the structure of the sentences is often fairly straightforward. If scientific articles of any kind are your preferred diet then it won't be a big deal to speak about such themes. In fact ordinary daily talk with a lot of slang and broken sentences may be worse. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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