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Americans and Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3534 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes  Studies: Serbian | Message 25 of 41 02 April 2015 at 2:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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1e4e6, you might be onto something. I was reading an article awhile ago about foreigners
coming to Silicon Valley for IT start ups and how angel investors are getting use to british culture - namely that while young american entrepreneurs are cocky, outgoing and will promise you the world - the british entrepreneurs are reserved, don't oversell and make are calculating. These traits make these investors think the british are not confident in what they have to offer and don't have the drive needed to make a successful company. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4288 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 26 of 41 02 April 2015 at 2:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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But that makes little sense that being overconfident and unrealistic is better; if you
say that you are C2 and are barely A1, you look like a complete fool in addition to being a liar, rather than the reserved A1 who says that she or he is A1 from the start. Then it is known what to expect. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| basica Senior Member Australia Joined 3534 days ago 157 posts - 269 votes Studies: Serbian | Message 27 of 41 02 April 2015 at 3:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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No disagreement from me *shrugs*.
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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 28 of 41 02 April 2015 at 3:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I can do both because 1. I don't feel achievements and claims of others that are
not cefr-tied to be any inferior to my exam 2.because I have first hand experience with both the advantages and short comings of the exam. It has been an important and motivational goal in my French learning but it is not the end and it doesn't mean I am perfect at it in all the situations. And the fact simply is that majority of people will keep using the non-cefr terms like "I am fluent" no matter what. That is a fact one needs to count with, not complain about the world not changing.
Yes, that is a great observation. Now that I think of it, those people who had underestimated their abilities often sounded angry with the natives.
Good question and good lines of explanations. However, I see a third one that I believe applies to many. The people have invested lots of time into learning in a wrong way. The schools (both the usual chain from kindergarten to high school and the private language schools) have been convincing their students that they were learning in a correct way and therefore should end up speaking the language, especially if they kept having good grades. So, it is just a little bit too dissappointing to admit the failure. I don't think you need to be entirely awesome to already converse with the natives quite freely (I think around B2 is totally sufficient, if we are to use the cefr for more clarity. Even a B1 speaker with great social skills can converse with natives without being a burden from what I've witnessed) but the normal schools usually don't get you even there. The schools usually spend many years to officially get their students to B1 (or is anywhere B2/C1 the standard?) or even not there. The coursebooks or levels in a language school carry proud names like Advanced. Perhaps it is partially the delusion in what it means to speak a language, as Sallard mentions, but I'd say it is more the fact that people base their expectations on the years spent learning rather than anything else. 1e4e6, I like your metaphore. I'd say it's more like this: 1.You spend years training to become a car racer 2.Everything seems to be correct, you buy a great looking car the shop assistant claims to be a race car, your teachers are convincing you that you are working towards the car racing and you are not a hopeless case, everyone around is working towards becoming a car racer the same way you are 3.In the end, you get just the driver's licence, even though it might be on a fancier paper so that it looks more important and your teachers claim that you are ready to dive into racing (and either learn further on your own or kill yourself trying) 4.You are faced with the fact that you've just spent five or more years (and lots of money) just on the driver's licence. That is a hard, huge and bitter pill to swallow. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sizen Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4337 days ago 165 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Catalan, Spanish, Japanese, Ukrainian, German | Message 29 of 41 02 April 2015 at 4:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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I was going to suggest that this kind of behaviour could be explained by the Dunning-
Kruger effect (where someone, limited by their restricted understanding of a field, overestimates their knowledge and competence in said field), but the truth is, with a few exceptions, I've only really seen (North-)Americans doing this. I would assume that the cause might be more cultural. Having gone through it myself, I've seen many, but not all, French-Immersion graduates touting their "amazing" French skills, but in general, their understanding of French is flawed and their production abilities are close to nil. I'd love to chalk this up to the fact that these people don't understand the monumental size of language, but I've also met people who appear to have a good passive knowledge of the language and assume they can therefore speak fluently and correctly when this is clearly not the case. Interestingly enough, as far as I can remember, these people had usually never really left their hometown/province, or when they had, they stayed in big resorts where English was more than enough to get by. I'm not really the best placed to come to any conclusions, but I wonder if the geographical distance between many North-Americans and other large communities of speakers of a different language could be a factor. Of course, this wouldn't really explain the difference in attitude of the British that basica described, but I'd be curious to see if any research has been done on the subject. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 30 of 41 02 April 2015 at 4:04am | IP Logged | |||||
And this is fairly problematic. There is a difference between vastly overselling your skills and being confident. I am confident I can handle a fair amount of Chinese (given that I do so every day) but that doesn't mean I say I speak perfect Chinese. However if I say I don't speak much Chinese at all will lead people to undersell my ability, meaning I will not improve because they will fear my level, and dumb down their interactions unnecessarily (or in the worst case scenario speak English to me if they can, although that only ever happens at work with some of the English teachers). You need confidence to sell yourself in the business world. There is a fine line between modesty (on which side I often err) and empty bluster, but we could all do with a bit more fire and brimstone in Europe in this regard. As for exam levels, Dutch central language exams are coupled to the CEFR. English for tertiary education pathways is set at B2 minimum (and usually people reach C1 for university). For more obscure languages like Russian or Chinese, the level is set more at B1. I believe the ministry of education uses a table to determine the academic exam levels. In my experience it counts for nothing, because my brother passed the German exam by scraping by and he certainly doesn't speak B1 or B2 German. It's just an academic figure even if theoretically the two are linked. English is the only language in which the correspondence can be perceived to be fairly accurate. Edited by tarvos on 02 April 2015 at 4:09am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaisyMaisy Senior Member United States Joined 5378 days ago 115 posts - 178 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 31 of 41 02 April 2015 at 7:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have seen many Americans try to use their limited Spanish, but I have very rarely seen anyone try to act like they are fluent. It's a pretty hard thing to fake, really. Doesn't take more than a sentence and a blank look and it's pretty clear there is no communication happening.
What I see a lot is someone who knows a few phrases and has a poor accent but is either unaware of how bad they sound, or is just wanting to say what they can. I'm sure there are rude people who arrogantly think they can pass themselves off as fluent, but I hardly think the US is the only place in the world where this happens :) So there are definitely people who overestimate their abilities. But I see many more people who think their skills are terrible and cringe when they say anything, repeatedly apologizing for how bad their Spanish is. I do find it irritating to listen to someone who makes zero effort to pronounce things correctly. Like Spanish words just pronounced with English sounds. Ugh! I guess it's good that people are trying to learn Spanish, right? Better than making nasty remarks about "English only". I'm not sure if there is any passive learning that goes on, but tons of things are double signed in Spanish and English at the stores, the bank, government offices, etc and there are Spanish option voicemails at companies. You have to choose English or Spanish at the ATM before you can get any cash out. I hear Spanish spoken multiple times a day, including all the bus and streetcar instructions and stops. So it's around a lot. Maybe people are seeing the benefits of learning Spanish. If we have to tolerate a few boorish bar patrons, I guess we can live with that. :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4288 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 32 of 41 02 April 2015 at 10:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well it is true that things are double signed in Spanish, but in California, things are
signed not only in Spanish, but Mandarin and Cantonese, Vietnamese, and other languages as well. But I have never seen anyone try to feign a high level in any of those other languages to a native. If an American can ring the USPS if they have a delayed parcel for example, and press the button for the Spanish option to speak with a Spanish operator to find out what is going on with their stuff, then that would be an example of proof that they are higher than A1. But saying, "I speak Spanish" and then going to order food saying, "Um, like, un burrito por favor?" and pronouncing "burrito" like Anglophone "burido" that is asking to look foolish. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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