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Too good feed back from natives | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | Native Speakers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 45 07 September 2011 at 10:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Now and then I see people on this forum who say that they are fluent in this or that language or at the very least speak it very well, "because native speakers have said so". Personally I have found native speakers to be very unreliable in assessing your skills. Both because natives have a 100 different definitions of fluency (much like us here on the forum :-) ) and also because they can be polite, make the evaluation after only a few words, or simply have so low expectations that any understandable output will be highly praised.
I admit that when I on one particular occasion, and within a time frame of 10 minutes was asked by a Spaniard if I was Spanish, an American if I was American, and a Frenchman if I was French, I felt extremely flattered. They were however judging from one or two sentences, and anyone can get two sentences right. If they had listened for a couple of minutes, they would have known that I was not native. I have also twice been told that my Russian was very good, when all the person was judging from was one single sentence - and I could not have followed that sentence up with anything understandable to save my life. The latest of these occasions happened in St. Petersburg in August,when I asked the guide how you said a specific sentence in Russian. She answered and I repeated it. And then she says "You speak Russian very well". Hah, I would have a carreer as a parrot is more like it. If my Russian was good, I would not have needed help with such a simple sentence. So given my experience of how easy natives will give you compliments, I wonder whether one should take such compliments with more than a grain of salt. What are your experiences? Do you trust every linguistic compliment you get, and do you consider a random compliment sufficient proof in order to consider yourself or other people good/fluent/native? 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 2 of 45 07 September 2011 at 11:34am | IP Logged | ||
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getting compliments is always a pleasure, but we usually feel how fluent we are. We see
if we can express our thoughts effortlessly and if we understand everything we are said to. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 45 07 September 2011 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm definitely aware enough to know when the comment really means something and when it doesn't. It depends on the language I'm speaking/writing, and of course the comment itself. If all I'm saying is "thank you" in Chinese (no matter how perfect the tones might be) and get the comment "Wow! You're Chinese is really AMAAAAAZING!" I won't take it too seriously.
This being said, not all language learners (or for that matter, singers - "Idol" anyone?) have a clue. (Many of us probably remember a certain forum member who claimed fluency based on the comments he had got from natives) 2 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 4 of 45 07 September 2011 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is not a very unusual occurrence if the speaker has good phonology. For example, when answering the telephone, the very first word--the equivalent of "hello"--can trigger the perception that one is a native speaker. The problem, as has been pointed out, is that it is usually all downhill afterwards.
On a more serious note, this phenomenon is actually the basis for the so-called "chunking" hypothesis or approach that itself is derived from the lexical approach in second-language learning. Briefly put, if you learn entire phrases or dialogs by heart, you can begin to interact meaningfully with native speakers and this will be accelerate the process of developing speaking proficiency, especially fluency. Note that I distinguish proficiency and fluency, in case anybody cares. Edit: Additional material I just want to add that this phenomenon highlights the importance of prosody in the perception of "good" accent. I think that as learners we are often too concerned with trying to reproduce individual sounds in the target language when in fact what people tend to hear is the overall sound pattern of the phrasing. This is particularly noticeable in real unscripted natural speech where often it's hard to distinguish what has been really said. People perceive patterns not the minute elements. Edited by s_allard on 07 September 2011 at 2:12pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 45 07 September 2011 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree that those kind words by natives are often caused by them not expecting you to know the language at all (or at most at "how are you" level). However what can be seen as a compliment is, that the native can understand you and answers in their own language. But even that is a compliment only up to the point when you want more, when you want not only to get understood but to tell everything you want exactly the way you want without the need to describe things with basic vocabulary or to say something slightly different instead.
Only you are able to tell whether you are already there or you are not. You and partially examiners of international language certificates-those won't flatter you for sure. But the truth is, that all those people-natives, examiners of certificates, language teachers examining you to put you in a course of "appropriate level", all of them have only a limited amount of time and limited amount of speech to base their opinion on. But is the same everywhere and it is the main reason why school tests have only limited informational value. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 7 of 45 07 September 2011 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||
Only native speakers can tell you whether you sound like a native or not, so it's not an inadequate source of information. However, compliments are one thing, and to be mistaken for a native after the course of a full conversation or debate is quite another -- and the difference is obvious to anyone willing to assess their ability with honesty. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 8 of 45 07 September 2011 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have quite high standards for myself when it comes to pretty much anything,
especially my languages. Usually I only believe compliments from native speakers when the compliment pertains to a language that I consider myself good at - hence why my language profile says that I can speak only English and German. I find that you are the best judge of your own abilities. I like getting compliments from native speakers, they fill me with confidence and spur me on to become even better, but for me, that's all they do. I went to Slovenia last year around Christmas and natives told me my Slovene was great all the time - but they don't know me, they have no real idea of my limitations in Slovene. I know it's good in a fairly limited number of situations and conversations. But after a point, and that point is reached pretty often, I fall apart. There are a number of other languages that I can communicate in to a meaningful degree, in both writing and speaking, but until I can use them as effortlessly as I can English and German, before they truly become a part of me, I won't say I can speak them. German is the only foreign language with which I can sit down with friends or old teachers and chat for hours on end about anything and not have any difficulty in expressing what I want, enjoy the conversation and know that the people I'm talking to are getting exactly the meaning I want them to. Expressing myself isn't ever difficult, but I am very rarely mistaken for a native - I have been on numerous occasions, but by foreigners. Other learners have told me I sound German, but I know I don't. Because I'm not that bothered if I never sound like a native, it's just not one of my goals. I meet up with my old German teacher fairly regularly as we're now more friends than teacher/pupil - we only speak German, it's now really odd for me to use English with him at all, and at the end he always tells me that my German is really good. He knows me, he knows my high standards all too well, and would not pay me a compliment unless he knew I truly deserved it. I trust his judgement - in short, I trust the judgement of people who know me. I listen to other compliments, they give me confidence, but I don't necessarily believe them quite so easily. They tell me I'm doing something right, but not much more than that. Jack Edited by LanguageSponge on 07 September 2011 at 3:50pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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