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What impresses you? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5606 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 25 of 73 14 November 2011 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
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1. Someone who has studied a language that is not related to their own (i.e. from a
different language 'family'). If I meet someone who is Spanish and speaks Italian and Portuguese then that's good but I'm far more impressed by a Spanish person who 'only' speaks Mandarin or a German person who 'only' speaks Arabic or a Japanese person who 'only' speaks English. 2. Anyone who does/has done something in their second language that would normally require a very high-level of mastery of the second language. For example, fanatic's travels/speeches in Germany or Brun_Ugle's studying at a university level in Norwegian. 3. I don't think it's too difficult to speak a language related to your own (because of shared vocabulary/word order) but I do think it's difficult to speak any language well/accurately regardless of it's relation to your native tongue. For example, I can speak Spanish but I can't truthfully say that I speak it well as there are some areas that I know where I would likely make mistakes in that I'm constantly on the lookout for in native material. What I want to say in English would sound sloppy at best in Spanish just because of subtle differences/mistakes that English speakers can make without realising it (as I did when I was a lower level than I am now). In regards to this, as I can only judge someone's English accuracy (as I'm a native speaker), I'm always impressed by any forum member who writes English flawlessly when English is not their native tongue (especially since I'm an English teacher). I don't mean well; I mean flawlessly (posts I've seen by valkyr and mrwarper lately for example have left me flabbergasted as to their levels). 4. Anybody who gets a C2/highest level in a language exam. It doesn't make you fluent, nor does not having it make you not fluent (messy sentence) but it does require an enormous amount of time, effort and knowledge and I'll be damned if I'll ever achieve something like that. 5. The monumental effort and dedication some forum members put into learning their target languages. Reading the entire Harry Potter series in Czech, Teango's 'fighting windmills' L & R experience or the KoreaninKuwait guy's consistent effort. 6. (Personal) Koreans who speak English flawlessly and non-Koreans who speak Korean to a high-level (can't judge if it's flawless) as I know how difficult Korean is for someone who's not part of the culture and alternatively how different/challenging English is to a Korean. Edited by crafedog on 14 November 2011 at 10:54am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Iwwersetzerin Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Luxembourg Joined 5457 days ago 259 posts - 513 votes Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, DutchC1, ItalianC1 Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 26 of 73 14 November 2011 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm impressed by:
- people who learn several totally unrelated languages to a high level - writers who write beautiful literature in their second or even third language (Nabokov, Joseph Conrad, etc.) - linguists who spend long periods of time with tribes somewhere in the jungle to learn and document their language in order to preserve some of it for posterity - high-level conference interpreters - Jodie Foster's flawless Parisian French accent 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jo15 Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4616 days ago 13 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 27 of 73 14 November 2011 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree, I speak English and French fluently and am now learning German. When I speak French I speak it with an English accent and when I speak German I speak it apparently with a French accent!! I don't know what the difference is as I can't hear it myself and I hope I can make my accents better in both languages. Do you guys know the German actor Christoph Waltz ( he was in Inglorious Bastards with Brad Pitt) he can speak English, French , German perfectly and he even spoke Italian really well in that movie.It was so impressive! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5191 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 28 of 73 14 November 2011 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have no idea what impresses me. In terms of languages or something else. Never came
across anything that impressed me. I guess I just consider everything to be normal. If someone speaks one language or 20 obscure ones makes no difference to me. Edited by Delodephius on 14 November 2011 at 5:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5169 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 29 of 73 14 November 2011 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think there is a difference between what impresses me in real life and what impresses me on a global scale. The Internet has made the world such a small place that it's become difficult to impress anyone as so many people which such great achievements are easily accessible.
A superficial knowledge of many languages no longer impresses me as anyone with a little determination or thirst for attention could do it, but I certainly would be happily surprised if I met someone like that at a dinner party. Nevertheless, this falls more within the category of hobby, which is much less impressive than mastery. So many people give up at good enough. Few language learners reach a level of proficiency where they can thoroughly manipulate a language and express complex ideas concisely, with little hesitation, and -- and this I care about -- with a near-perfect accent. I'm sometimes impressed by people who do that in their own language. For instance, Stephen Pinker's surgical precision in English can sometimes impress me, as was the case the other day in an interview with Stephen Fry. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fomalhaut Groupie United States Joined 4691 days ago 80 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 30 of 73 14 November 2011 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm impressed by anyone who takes the time and effort to learn a new language. or to learn anything.
i'd hate to belittle the hopes, goals or dreams of anybody anywhere. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| WentworthsGal Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4676 days ago 191 posts - 246 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Spanish | Message 31 of 73 14 November 2011 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure if it's because of my view on English people as being lazy at learning languages, but I'm still impressed when meeting someone with a different native language and being able to speak English to a high standard. Even though there are so many people out there who study it from childhood, I'm still impressed by it.
I'm also impressed when I see someone in a film etc and then find out they're actually not speaking in their native language or they're using a different accent. E.g finding out Collin Farrel was Irish not American, Alexander Skarsgård was Swedish, also not American. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PaulLambeth Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5161 days ago 244 posts - 315 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Hindi, Irish | Message 32 of 73 14 November 2011 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | ||
I noticed that with Colin! The first film I watched with him in was Phone Booth, in which he was a New York businessman and I was convinced he was American. The second was the considerably better In Bruges, and I marvelled for the first 5 minutes about his Irish accent until I was told he's actually Irish. Leonardo Di Caprio can be commended for this too - he pulled off a decent (to my English ears) South African accent in Blood Diamond. Of course, these two examples are just dialects of English, but it's still an achievement, and you have to be brave to do it in front of a camera to millions of people. I'm equally constantly impressed by the fact that I have fluent English conversations when almost all my friends are from other countries. I'm not sure it's that we're lazy, just not motivated or encouraged. Other peoples' perfection of English was the primary reason I got interested in foreign languages - I don't want to be the one who always has it easiest in a conversation. Edited by PaulLambeth on 14 November 2011 at 7:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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