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Claiming to Speak a Language - Pet Peeve | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| pfwillard Pro Member United States Joined 5700 days ago 169 posts - 205 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 33 of 164 04 December 2009 at 2:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I worry more about something along the lines of: You work out the general idea of something written in language L and then your co-workers or friends go around telling everyone that you speak language L--thus setting you up for a perfect fail when an L-speaker appears out of the blue.
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| cesar.ewok Diglot Newbie Brazil Joined 5470 days ago 3 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German | Message 34 of 164 04 December 2009 at 3:49am | IP Logged | ||
That's absolutely true. Just last week I met this guy who TEACHES English and has an incredibly poor control of his grammar as well as vocabulary. Many people here claim to speak fluent English even though they're some sort of basic intermediate speakers because they're hardly ever in touch with English-speaking people here and their English just has to be good enough to comprehend a silly song. I have NEVER met someone here who speaks English in an advanced fluent level in person. One of my friends claims to be knowledgeable enough to read advanced literature, but that's somewhat hard to buy given the only words you'll see him utter are "take it easy, man"!! Also, many people here believe they can pass for great speakers of Spanish due to the similarities between this language and Portuguese. Too bad that they ARE NOT THAT SIMLILAR particularly the spoken varieties of these languages (as a Portuguese speaker I can understand the Spanish News, but I can definitely NOT understand a conversation in a movie without the subtitles in Portuguese). The best they can do is something we call “Portunhol” (Português + Espanhol). ;P And maybe not even that. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tezza Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5679 days ago 41 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 35 of 164 04 December 2009 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I couldn't agree more. I never say 'I can speak x y or z' I usually just say I can understand it a bit, or quite well depending on what language it is. Better to err on that side anyway. Rozumiem po polsku, ale nie dobrze! Je comprends le français, mais pas trés bien etc etc.
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| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5987 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 36 of 164 04 December 2009 at 10:47am | IP Logged | ||
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For an amusing example of claiming to speak languages that you don't speak, check out the youtube video of Ziad Fazah trying to answer questions in various languages. He claims to speak 58 languages or something ridiculous. At the 7:50 mark you can see the chinese guy ask him "what is the only man-made structure on the earth that is visible from the moon?", and he has the question repeated again, and Fazah still gets it wrong.
I'll admit I didn't get the whole question the first time, but I recognized "on the moon...able to see...on the earth...construction", which was enough to figure it out. He gives a big preamble about "since chinese is pretty tough, i'll give you an easy question", which also would have thrown Fazah off if he didn't understand that much. For those curious, I think the actual question is "在月球上能够看到地球上的唯 一的人造工程是什么?", but I certainly didn't get the whole thing on the first try. there are some other ones that he doesn't get in other languages, like "how long will you stay in chile?" and "what day is it?". Sure, the guy clearly knows something about a lot of these languages, but he doesn't seem to be able to speak most of them. Edited by doviende on 04 December 2009 at 10:48am 1 person has 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 37 of 164 04 December 2009 at 11:01am | IP Logged | ||
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But it's jealousy too, right? I mean this guy may be exaggerating his abilities, but I'm sure he's still done more language learning than anyone in that room. And the attitude is "let's expose this fraud!" If he's selling a product with false advertising, then I guess he should be exposed, but if he's just a guy claiming to speak languages then does it really matter? People seem to get this vindictive satisfaction out of exposing people who claim to have done what they themselves aren't able to do. "If I can't have it you can't have it either."
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| katilica Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5472 days ago 70 posts - 109 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: French, Catalan | Message 38 of 164 04 December 2009 at 11:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Oh dear Lord, and I thought I was the only one! =] I hate it when people claim to speak a language and in reality have no idea what they are talking about. I can only claim to speak Spanish and English. Spanish is my first language and English my second. I took French in high school but slept through most of it. Somehow I always managed to get an A on my tests and did well in pronounciation as well. What bothered me though, is that most kids claimed to speak French after only a semester in class. One girl bragged that she could tell her family what her name and age were. Others bragged to their famiies and other teachers at school that they knew French because they could apparently say, "j'ai 17 ans". What they should've been saying is, "Je parle français comme une vache espagnole" (I speak French horribly). I would not dare make the claim that I speak French because I obviously don't and haven't paid much attention to the language for about 2 years after my 2 semesters of high school French. I can understand a lot of what people say in movies and even more of what I read, but I have never practiced answering back. I see a lot of French people claim they know English but their grammar is horrible. I am not demanding perfection since I am no expert on the matter, but some of it is just frightening. I guess I could make conversation in French but I am too hung up on grammar and word order. I will have to get over it in order to improve, but I am not focused on French right now seeing as how I sometimes don't even know how to speak English. This brings up another point, most of these so-called multilingual people don't even know their native language well enough to even consider being fluent in another one. Anyway, my rant was most likely incomprehensible since I am out of it and don't care enough to go back and check for any mistakes. Those are just my 2 cents on the subject.
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| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6154 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 39 of 164 04 December 2009 at 11:47am | IP Logged | ||
I don't think that's true at all. The fact that you think you can narrow down the dislike of this sort of behaviour to one small factor (jealousy) shows you have a very limited understanding of human thought and behaviour. There are true polyglots out there, studying damn hard, getting great results who stay humble and receive limited recognition. Then we have this fella who claims to the world he can speak x amount of languages, gets into the Guinness World records and potentially furthers his career and earning potential all based on a lie/exaggeration. This idea of "If I can't have it you can't have it either." is utterly ridiculous. I, like many others, am inspired by those around us who achieve excellence in a particular area. Never have I resented anyone for achieving something great. If it's something that interests me, like language learning, then the first thing I want to know is how they did it and if I could learn anything from them.The last thing anyone would want is for the world to be full of mediocrity simply out of jealousy. Edited by Jimmymac on 04 December 2009 at 11:52am 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| katilica Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5472 days ago 70 posts - 109 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: French, Catalan | Message 40 of 164 04 December 2009 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
Yes! My friend once caught me with a bunch of flashcards during class, and since she always thought I was smart (for some odd reason) she told the class I spoke French. Suddenly people got all excited and started asking me, "Oh my God, you speak French?" (I do not) I didn't answer, and luckily the teacher walked into the classroom and the questioning stopped. Another time, I started arguing with a girl in Spanish when all of a sudden, I hear, "You speak Spanish!?" I do in fact speak Spanish but then the same girl who claimed I spoke French said, "Oh, she speaks like 5 languages" 0_o. Well at least the claim I spoke Spanish turned out to be true and luckily for me, the Fench incident occured during my last month of high school so there was never room for any French related questions or an encounter with a native. =p 1 person has voted this message useful |
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