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Finish pimsleur Spanish before doing FSI? | ||
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| buhrahyun Newbie United States Joined 5149 days ago 24 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 13 31 March 2010 at 9:43am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks. So would your definition of "basic fluency" be around a B2 CEF level? Even the CEF level definitions (http://www.world-english.org/cef_language.htm) are somewhat unclear to me. It seems like it could be more clear if they also defined what you can't do at each level. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ajijic10 Diglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6710 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 10 of 13 31 March 2010 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
For me, it's being able to express yourself much in the same way a native speaker would, and being able to understand native speakers without effort and translation. Let me give you some examples: You're looking at a watch in a store window and your Mexican friend asks "¿Vas a comprarlo?" Well, you want to say "I can't afford it" but you don't know the word for "afford" in Spanish so you look it up in your trusty Larousse Dictionary and you see the the translation as "permitirse", so you say "no puedo permitírmelo". Great, except where I live I've never heard anybody say that. A much more natural way to express "can't afford" is "no me alcanza" or "it doesn't reach me". Or you're sitting at the bar and you want to ask the bartender "Could you get me a beer please" so, knowing the word for "get" is "conseguir" you ask “¿Podrías conseguirme una cerveza, por favor?" but later on you realize everyone at the bar is saying "¿te encargo una cerveza?" which is how a native here would express the same thing. It's things like this plus about a thousand others that, to me, separates the fluent from the proficient. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5578 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 11 of 13 01 April 2010 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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bah, Ajijic, this is just a regional thing, conseguir looks strange to me too in this context DUE TO ITS BASIC MEANING*, but in Spain they use poner not encargar (but both would be understood in both places), as for permitirse it is understood everywhere, and still used a lot in Spain, though the construction with alcanzar would be understood here too. Do you have to speak the local dialect to be fluent? Is a Spaniard not fluent in Mexico and vice versa?
For completely neutral equivalents how about: una cervexa por favor, and "no tengo suficiente dinero para comprarlo"???? * I think you need a better dictionary! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ajijic10 Diglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6710 days ago 161 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 12 of 13 01 April 2010 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's why I made the distinction between the "fluent" and the "proficient". "No tengo suficiente dinero" is usually what a proficient speaker would choose. "No me alcanza" is what the fluent speaker would say. The Spaniard living here would instantly pick up on the regionalisms and it would be his or her choice to use it or not. The proficient non-native speaker doesn't have the luxury. He must learn by repeated exposure and investigation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5217 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 13 02 April 2010 at 5:10am | IP Logged | |||||
Edit: Here is the Wikipedia page for the CEFR levels, I think it explains it pretty good. Edited by Johntm on 02 April 2010 at 5:11am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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