At what level do you say you speak? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

At what level do you say you speak?
Tags: Fluency \| Speaking
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

Poll Question: When do you claim to "speak" a language on this forum?
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
below A1	0	[0.00%]
A1	3	[3.00%]
A2	5	[5.00%]
B1 or B2	70	[70.00%]
C1 or C2	22	[22.00%]
You can not vote in this poll

63 messages over 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next >>

montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4610 days ago
2371 posts - 3676 votes

Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

Message 49 of 63

01 July 2012 at 3:24pm | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

And soon Esperanto, which I only speak at congresses and where I will have to speak
another language outside the congress facilities. But I have promised to deliver a one
hour free lecture on the subject of wordlists in a couple of weeks' time in Galway, and
if that goes well I'll take it as a sign that my Esperanto has become of age.

Are you going to be in a position to (& be willing to) make a video of this (or have it
made for you)?
1 person has voted this message useful

montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4610 days ago
2371 posts - 3676 votes

Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

Message 50 of 63

01 July 2012 at 3:34pm | IP Logged

A problem that I have, regarding the display of languages on the left-hand-side of the
forum posts, is that you only have the choice (as far as I know), between "speaks" and
"learning". You can't show, for example, languages that you currently have "on hold". You
can't accurately show languages at which you achieved a good level of fluency in the
past, but don't have chance to, or choose not to practice now, and are slowly "rusting"
away, and which you might no longer claim to "speak", but leaving them off all together
would also give a false picture.

There is room for a bit more detail in the profile, but I'm not sure if it quite covers
all the possibility, and probably people don't spend much time looking at profiles.

Edited by montmorency on 01 July 2012 at 3:35pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

druckfehler
Triglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4650 days ago
1181 posts - 1912 votes

Speaks: German*, English^C2, Korean
Studies: Persian

Message 51 of 63

01 July 2012 at 4:01pm | IP Logged

emk wrote:

It's a cool paper; the authors conclude that "Infant Directed Speech" and "Foreigner Directed Speech" both involve careful articulation and very clear vowels. And we're not necessarily talking about a huge blatant effect—it might be as subtle as the difference between how you speak on the telephone, and how you speak in person.

Very interesting research! But I have to say that while it is certainly true for a great many people, I'm sure it isn't for everyone - or not to the point where it's actually helpful. I've met enough people who were unable to accommodate non-native speakers. Maybe they will think that they use "simple" speech, but what they deem simple is in truth extremely idiomatic. Some are a little misguided and use short sentences with not so easy vocabulary, which is even harder to understand than "normal" speech. Other successful language learners are most often able to grasp what is simple speech for a non-native, but not all of them are able or willing to speak in such a manner.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6379 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

Message 52 of 63

02 July 2012 at 12:22am | IP Logged

tractor wrote:

Kyle Corrie wrote:

Practically any typical person doesn't fully understand the varying levels of speaking
abilities. So their only frame of reference is what they can do and as a native. To them, that is speaking.

Do you really mean this?

Depends on the country, I suppose. In countries where most native speakers have taken a foreign language at school but didn't reach fluency, the assumed level will be the level they should've reached but didn't. They'll assume you're like the best learners from their school or a bit better.
On the other hand, if you're from Luxembourg and say you speak German, everyone will assume you're at advanced fluency.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6485 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 53 of 63

02 July 2012 at 10:51am | IP Logged

montmorency wrote:

Iversen wrote:

I have promised to deliver a one hour free lecture on the subject of wordlists in a couple of weeks' time in Galway, and if that goes well I'll take it as a sign that my Esperanto has become of age.

Are you going to be in a position to (& be willing to) make a video of this (or have it
made for you)?

I doubt that that can be arranged - so far I don't even know whether there is a projector ('projekciilo') in the room.
1 person has voted this message useful

Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5116 days ago
4143 posts - 8864 votes

Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

Message 54 of 63

02 July 2012 at 2:02pm | IP Logged

atama warui wrote:

I voted "C1 or C2".

I mean, what are we talking about here? I thought it was "the point when you switch to _speak_ here on HTLAL".
Why would I claim to be better than I really am?

Besides, just getting my point across somehow isn't speaking in my book. It's some kind of "somehow being able to communicate" and thus, "learning".

But this thread is pretty interesting. I was always pretty impressed by the number of languages people claimed to speak. Now I know better. ^^

Are we confusing "speaking" with "fluency" here? (Yes, the term we all love to hate :-) When people ask me how many languages I speak, my response is either "5 and a half", or "I am fluent in Spanish and English, almost fluent in French (only speaking, mind you) and I get by in Italian and German.

I differentiate in how I describe my abilities, because there is a sea of difference between my levels in Spanish and German, but even in German I can carry a conversation when I need to. In Italian I have spoken uptil 6 hours Italian only with native speakers without problems, so why would I have to be almost at native level before I say I speak it? I cannot see that saying you speak a language equals claiming to be better than what you are, just because you are not at C1/C2 level.

A German friend tried to speak so fast that I would not understand him the other day, to test me, but I had no problems following him. Had it been a technical topic or football, or whichever topic did not interest me, then I might have had to throw in the towel, but regular conversation - no problem.

I am not sure that I understand this need to raise the bar to an almost unreachable level.
6 persons have voted this message useful

DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5933 days ago
1947 posts - 2923 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

Message 55 of 63

02 July 2012 at 2:45pm | IP Logged

I voted for B1\B2, but I'd also prefer if these levels were recorded separately. I think Basic Fluency, which is what triggers the speaks listing under your profile, as B2. I think Intermediate is B1 and Advanced Fluency C2, possibly C1+.

Edited by DaraghM on 02 July 2012 at 2:47pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

maydayayday
Pentaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5001 days ago
564 posts - 839 votes

Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish^B2, French^B2
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese
Studies: Urdu

Message 56 of 63

02 July 2012 at 2:54pm | IP Logged

Solfrid Cristin wrote

Quote:

I had no problems following him. Had it been a technical topic or football, or whichever topic did not interest me

This is so true: some of the bigger holes in my everyday Spanish vocab are because I have no interest in subjects such as football. I am therefore not exposed to certain words in everyday usage. I only meet them when I deliberately set out to and add them to a word list.

1 person has voted this message useful

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