|
 |
Too good feed back from natives | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | Native Speakers | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6904 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes  5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 34 of 45 25 February 2013 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Very true! I used to take part in Polish-German events a lot, and the best compliment I could get while talking in German to native speakers was "so how did you learn Polish?" :). Plus getting questions such as "how long have you lived in Germany?", "so you're living in Germany now, aren't you?" or "are your parents German?", and general disbelief as the reaction to my answers :). My sweetest victory was during a seminar held in German which I attended with German native speakers at the university. I participated actively in discussions, and after a month or so when we were discussing something related to second language acquisition or German as a foreign language, I referred to my German learning experience. Everyone was confused and someone asked: "what are you talking about? You are a German native speaker, aren't you?". (This was Switzerland though, I don't think I could have pulled it off in Germany :)). OK, no more bragging and boasting ;). But it's true that usually, the better we actually speak language, the least we get complimented, and at some stages of learning this may even be frustrating. Edited by Julie on 25 February 2013 at 11:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 35 of 45 26 February 2013 at 12:18am | IP Logged | ||
|
That's the assumption people make when I speak English, that I'm from England or New
Zealand or someplace... Although it's always nice to get a "je n'en reviens plus comme tu parles bien français! Tu es déjà venu en France?". I guess that means I did something right. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aspiringplyglot Triglot Groupie United Kingdom aspiringpolyglot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4578 days ago 40 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB2, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Esperanto, Polish, Scottish Gaelic, French | Message 36 of 45 26 February 2013 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
|
I believe the biggest compliment you can receive is if your chat-partner says nothing about your language skill and
simply talks at a native speed and not 'dumbing down' any of the vocab. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5101 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 37 of 45 26 February 2013 at 1:11am | IP Logged | ||
|
My French needs alot of improvement and I know it. Therefore I simply soak up the compliments and enjoy them, but I know that not having anyone remark would be the highest praise.
2 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 38 of 45 26 February 2013 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | ||
But even at that stage you may still have an accent and make errors. I tend to avoid conversations in my weakest languages so when I finally start people normally fire happily away at their normal speed and with no obvious concessions. And I don't get many direct comments .. and that's good - hurray! But I know I still make errors even when people speak to me as they would talk to a native stranger. In the few cases where I speak to native speakers about my attempts to speak their language it is mostly about why and where I learned it, rarely about the level. But I do remember one braindead young man in the ticket sale at the Montpellier Aquarium who spoke in English to me "because I had an accent". Oh well, he apparently had understood me when I asked for a reason, and eveybody else I had spoken to that day had just chatted happily away without any scruples. Should I really care about this person's assessment of my French? In some cases I have a feeling that people assume that I live in their area, even though they can't be in doubt that I'm not a native speaker. For instance I once talked to a museum guide in Strasbourg and we came to discuss some costumes in the museum. She then rattled off a string of local placenames, and when I told her I was Danish and had arrived two or three days earlier she looked genuinely surprised. But I don't take that as a sign that I had become indistinguishable from a native Frenchman. Strasbourg is after all full of EU employees and other foreigners with a lot of experience in speaking French. I assumed that she had categorized me as one of them and that's all I ask for. Edited by Iversen on 26 February 2013 at 4:06pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4370 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 39 of 45 26 February 2013 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I think I would ultimately not want my language skills to be brought up in conversation. Thinking about it, I really don't compliment non-native English speakers if their English truly is very skilled; it just doesn't become part of the conversation.
What I do see as a compliment though is when I've had German speakers tell me that I don't have an American accent. I do believe that one because I spent hours trying to listen to the accent and learn how to correctly place the sound, so it's nice to know that the work actually had some benefit! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4652 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 40 of 45 27 February 2013 at 9:19am | IP Logged | ||
|
My Yemeni friend says/writes "It's impressive!" whenever I write something to her in Arabic. I guess she means the fact I'm writing anything, and not my actual knowledge of the language.
2 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. |
