|
 |
Too good feed back from natives | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | Native Speakers | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| 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 9 of 45 07 September 2011 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
|
There was a satirical guide on how to interpret comments on your level of Japanese by natives floating around on the internet. I can't find it, but it concluded that once people stop complimenting your language level and start treating you like any other native speaker, you've actually become good.
I enjoy getting compliments, but I interpret them as meaning 'I can see you're making an effort and the result is not all that bad' rather than actually meaning I'm good. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 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 10 of 45 07 September 2011 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | ||
|
[QUOTE=Bao] once people stop complimenting your language level and start treating you like any other native speaker, you've actually become good.
QUOTE] I agree. I had a Hungarian friend when we were studying, whose Norwegian was excellent, but who would occasionally mess up the articles (female gender for neuter for instance). He was furious when we laughed or teased him about it, but I told him he should take it as a compliment. Had we considered his Norwegian to be bad, we would have been far too polite to make any comments. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 11 of 45 07 September 2011 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I'm not too picky with honest well-intentioned comments, I love getting any positive feedback from natives. However, it's when strangers talk to you comfortably for a good while, totally unaware that it's your second language, and then only later ask or are surprised to learn where you're from, that you know you're really starting to get somewhere. ;)
2 persons have 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 12 of 45 07 September 2011 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | ||
... or when they start making disparaging remarks about speakers of your first language, for instance. It's happened a few times that English speakers here in Canada have made negative comments to me about French or about Québec -- they obviously didn't think French was my first language. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6126 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 13 of 45 07 September 2011 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||
|
With Japanese, 99% of the time, the more I get complemented, the more I suck. How it usually goes is that the conversation starts, goes for a bit, and then after a mistake or baffling utterance that the complements start. After that, the conversation goes into customary little dance, oh I'm not so good, oh yes you are, and then it all grinds to a halt and ends.
To be fair, I think what's happening is when say some strange thing, inside their brain they're going "what the hell was that?" and outwardly they go jouzu jouzu, just in order to not stand there like a statue. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5035 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 14 of 45 07 September 2011 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
|
When I lived in Finland, I reached a high intermediate level in the language (B2 at best), and when describing my ability to others I told them I was "just good enough to be bad."
As others have mentioned, beginners get all the praise and encouagement. It's actually later when one really has some skill that the criticism comes. It would be great to have some compliments at that point, but it also ties in with the fact that with greater skill, one must use a finer standard of measurement. So that's why I was "just good enough to be bad." I started being in the place where I could get some honest correction. Edited by jdmoncada on 07 September 2011 at 6:00pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6126 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 15 of 45 07 September 2011 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
|
With Finnish guys the comment I got was "I actually understood that!" like this was an amazing thing in itself. Maybe it happens more often than not that beginner Finnish is completely incoherent. I wouldn't be surprised.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6253 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical) | Message 16 of 45 07 September 2011 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||
That sums it up very nicely. I hope, however, that I never become so much of a language snob or perfectionist that I cannot take at least a small amount of pleasure from a compliment like this. Language mastery is a marathon, not a 100 meter dash. Comments like these can give me the boost I need to not give up because I feel that I am not progressing quickly enough. Putting native speakers into one category is an oversimplification. Their feedback will depend on a lot of things: 1. Their education level in their own language 2. Their experience with non-native speakers 3. How good or bad the non-native speakers with whom they have had contact are at speaking their language 4. Their experience with dialects of their own language 5. Social context 6. Whether or not the non-native speaker was talking about something new or something he/she had talked about many times 7. Whether or not it is polite to criticize in their culture, even constructively 8. Their relationship with the non-native speaker I'm sure there are others but that's all I've got right now. Edited by portunhol on 08 September 2011 at 10:13pm 7 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
