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Language Bragging | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| deej Tetraglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5118 days ago 31 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Hindi, English*, Italian, French | Message 1 of 58 07 November 2010 at 12:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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I was just wondering about your views on this and the way you guys act in relation to
showing off about your languages. I have to admit that I take most opportunities to tell people(perhaps girls more so than boys) that I 'speak' 9 languages(even though I don't really speak 9 languages at all by the standards of this forum-see my profile for my language levels) and I also tend to look for opportunities to be able to speak these languages with others, especially native speakers. I'm not sure entirely why I have these tendencies-of course, I enjoy it when people compliment me/are impressed by how many languages I speak/know, I'm also probably proud of the fact that I've managed to get to at least a half-decent level in a few languages and then languages are a fairly big part of my life and a great passion. What are your opinions on this? Should I not be going around telling people 'I speak X languages? How do you act in relation to telling others about your languages? Thanks 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5922 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 2 of 58 07 November 2010 at 1:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think most people on here would argue that it's better not to brag about your abilities, if only because if you say you speak so-an-so language there is always the chance that there is someone there who can speak it better than you, and can put you to shame. Besides that, you of course don't want to make yourself look arrogant.
I also like it when people compliment me on my linguistic skills, but I don't go out seeking these comments on purpose. To do so would just be annoying and...almost rude, in my opinion. If you want to let someone know about your language abilities, you could discreetly slip in a comment about something in such a language, but make sure that if asked you remain modest and downplay your abilities. A particularly annoying thing for me is that people at my school know that I like to study languages, but most of their standards for considering oneself able to speak one or being fluent in one are appallingly low (thus making me "speak" several more than I actually do). I'm often interrogated about how many languages I speak, and I always answer one of these: 1. "It depends." This would then be followed up by asking them what THEY consider being able to speak a language, and then I try to adapt my abilities to that scale as best I can, although you should still be modest. 2. "A couple." // "A few." Again, this can lead into an inquiry about their own standards. 3. "I don't know." I use this one when I'm really tired or annoyed and just don't want to have to go through the trouble of clarifying and explaining and all the rest. This comment usually gets the person to back off. Another annoyance for me is when a teacher somehow finds out about this and then announces this information to the class, who then bombards me with these silly questions. It's happened just this year in my German class, when we were going around telling an exchange student from Germany something about ourselves. When it got to me, I introduced myself, said where I'm from, and said that I'd been learning German for about two years. My teacher then interjected something like "Philip ist ein Genie für Sprachen. Er kann Englisch, Deutsch, Griechisch, Spanisch, Französisch...aber er lernt auch Japanisch, Suaheli, Russisch...was sonst noch?" (Philip is a language genius. He speaks English, German, Greek, Spanish, French...but he also is learning Japanese, Swahili, Russian...what else?) I was of course mortified and extremely embarrassed, because I just don't like having my abilities (or lack thereof) thrown around in public like that, but I still had to answer the question so I added "Und Portugiesisch und Italienisch," (and Portuguese and Italian) and even so leaving out several others that I study which she hadn't mentioned. Another occasion was when I won some sort of award at my school and my counselor asked me to fill out this sheet ("for colleges") where one of the questions was asking about something that I do well. I wrote about my languages, only to find out that this answer was to be read aloud by the principal to the whole audience at the awards ceremony--I felt like crying! In short, my advice is to remain modest and not go parading your language talents around, because you might be shamed or perceived as pretentious, and perhaps even dishonest. Also see what the administrator has written about this topic, which I think is very good advice for people learning and speaking multiple languages: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/guide/language-show-o ffs.html 12 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6330 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 3 of 58 07 November 2010 at 2:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with it. I'd say it depends on your personality. If it motivates you,
great. If you worry people might consider you to be a braggart, you may want to avoid it. I've found that most people say they don't care what people think, but in reality, they do. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 5905 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 4 of 58 07 November 2010 at 3:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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I could do with more conspicuous display of language ability on this board. I find the English-Only discussions kind of a disappointment, really. Some of the best language learners on the planet check into this board, yet the conversation muddles along in English just like any other BBS. It's like just a trip to Europe, where everyone speaks English but in a slightly odd accent. Where's the fun in this? -- especially for me as a native English speaker. Discussions in multiple languages are left to the multilingual ghetto and that just isn't as lively as the main forums.
What I imagine this would be like, and maybe this is just a fantasy, is that there would be conversations where people just drop into other languages at whim, maybe to make a point, maybe to show off (and that's fine with me), or to practice his or her increasingly forgotten Jr. High School Spanish complete with mistakes. For the readers either we know the languages, we struggle along, we use Google translate, or we just fail -- it's all good. This would be a shark tank that I couldn't survive in myself, but I think it would be fun to watch and try to keep up. For me, it would very exciting to see those who are fluent in multiple languages replying to many threads in my different languages, switching between them -- even if this was a little difficult to follow. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4953 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 5 of 58 07 November 2010 at 10:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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I feel modesty is the best policy. I used to try to show off a little when I was much younger, about the very modest number of languages I know something about - I sometimes feel a fraud compared with some of the people on this forum - but I was given put downs by many of the people who knew me who thought I was "too clever by half" anyway. I think as I am at the higher range of age for this forum (51) I have learnt it is important to do things for yourself. You may never know the 20 languages you wanted to know, but if you end up learning 5 then you have stretched yourself. Whatever your religious or philosophical beliefs I believe strongly that the reason we are here - if only for ourselves and nothing else - is to be the best possible version of ourselves we can be. Anything else is cheating yourself.
6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5546 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 6 of 58 07 November 2010 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When I was applying for university, my German teacher (who was the tutor helping me with the application process) asked me what level of Russian course I was going to apply for. He knew I had been studying it in my free time for some years (partly because he had been helping me with it) and so didn't think it right that I apply for an ab initio course. I wasn't sure how to reply because although parts of my Russian were very good at the time, there were also parts of it that were frankly terrible. So I asked him what he considered the point to be where I could say "I speak Russian". His reply, translated, was "You can speak Russian when you can speak as well and in as relaxed a manner as you are speaking German to me now". So, since then, whenever I mention how many and which languages I can speak, I only say English and German.
I can use (and therefore understand) French to a level not too far from my German as well, but I don't like to do this or even mention this unless I really have to. To me, saying you can speak a language doesn't just mean "I am capable" but also that you are comfortable and to some extent *like* using it. For many of us this point won't be at all relevant because most of us like all the languages we know or else we'd not have studied them long enough to get pretty good at them, but I've just got some kind of mental block using French, for the reason that I was embarrassingly bad at it in school and haven't gotten over that. The frustrating aspect thereof is that my friends all know I can speak French (now quite a bit better than when I was in school), and are very quick to mention it to anyone else around me, so I end up saying "Yes, I speak French" anyway, just to get them off my back. Most of the other languages I study get mentioned but I tend to downplay those. Now having written all this, I feel like this in itself was all bragging. Great :P 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5449 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 58 07 November 2010 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ma naħsibx li tkun idea tajba. Ingliż huwa l-unika lingwa aħna lkoll jistgħu jitkellmu hawn. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kounotori Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5124 days ago 136 posts - 264 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Russian Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 58 07 November 2010 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
そうだよなぁ。どう考えても英語フォーラム で英語しか使わないと良いではないか。練習 したい人のための他のフォーラムもあるし。 1 person has voted this message useful |
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