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A dead honest language CV...

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
104 messages over 13 pages: 1 2 35 6 7 ... 4 ... 12 13 Next >>
Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6916 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 25 of 104
02 November 2013 at 5:13pm | IP Logged 
I've never taken a certification exam to assess linguistic competency and so my description of them is vague. It certainly doesn't help that I'd need to take a plane to go to a city which gives such tests for my target languages (if such tests exist - I don't know of any yet for Northern Saami ;-))

English and French: Fluent, can and have used them professionally.

Everything else: Whenever these are on my resume I qualify them with intermediate-level (e.g. for Hungarian, Polish) or basic (e.g. Finnish). Given the number of languages that I've dealt and my desire to keep things succinct, I rarely include languages for which I deem myself to be a beginner, let alone objects of dabbling.

In any case, listing even a few of my target languages often attracts a question or two from the hiring manager in an interview. This opening lets me be more natural and relaxed in the interview in talking about something that interests me instead of burning up time with devising nonsense to answer one of those canned and inane questions that HR personnel adore (e.g. "If you were an animal, which one would it be?").
3 persons have voted this message useful



Avid Learner
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4422 days ago

100 posts - 156 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 26 of 104
02 November 2013 at 5:13pm | IP Logged 
cathrynm wrote:
If we're going for 'dead honest', it seems to me your level should be whatever is the lowest. So if you have C2 level reading ability but A1 speaking, your rating is A1.

I guess, but the topic would be less interesting.

I'd rather get more details. Why should we sacrifice information in favor of sticking to a particular test standard? This is a discussion, not a test. Is it so bad if a few levels here and there might diverge a little from what a test would show anyway?
4 persons have voted this message useful



Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5526 days ago

2256 posts - 4046 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 27 of 104
02 November 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:
Secondly, the descriptors (A1..C2) refer to overall proficiency. I know what people are attempting to say with "Passive B2 Active A2" but the CEFR doesn't work that way. You're an A2.

Wrong. In English, I am an A0: I never passed an official exam. Neither did I sit one. Obviously, if I wanted to use the CEFR scale to apply for a job, enroll in university or apply for citizenship, the level to use is the one I actually passed an exam in.


But perhaps we aren't talking about the final exam result, but about whether our skills are equivalent to a certain level in the framework of reference. In which case I personally think it is completely justified to assess every skill by itself.


I myself tried being honest but ended up debasing myself. The only one with some objectivity in it is:

French: Enrolled in a class that ends with a B2 equivalent exam about four months from now.
Self-evaluation: Comprehension between B1 and B2, written production A2, oral production A1 at best. Teacher said I'm in the right course, though.

Edited by Bao on 02 November 2013 at 10:20pm

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Zireael
Triglot
Senior Member
Poland
Joined 4411 days ago

518 posts - 636 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish
Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English

 
 Message 28 of 104
02 November 2013 at 6:31pm | IP Logged 
A fair warning: all my languages suck as far as pronunciation is concerned, with Spanish and Polish sucking the least (yes, Spanish phonology is easier than Polish, and yes, my sessions with a therapist in childhood only paid off a little, I still mispronounce a lot of stuff)

EDIT: All of those, unless passing an exam is mentioned, are estimates :)

Polish - native, C2.

English - passed a C1 exam at university in June. Comprehension: C1, production: C1.

German - comprehension: A2 production: A1. I was always better at comprehension, especially reading, than production.

Spanish - passed a B2 exam at university in June. Comprehension: B2, production: hovering between B1 and B2, depending on the day :P

Arabic - comprehension: sucks unless someone speaks very clearly. Can read some stuff and use a dictionary. Halfway between A0 and A1, I'd say. Production: A1 (I can ask some basic stuff and get understood).

Edited by Zireael on 03 November 2013 at 6:32pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Henkkles
Triglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 4013 days ago

544 posts - 1141 votes 
Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 29 of 104
02 November 2013 at 8:37pm | IP Logged 
Hmm.

Finnish - native language

English - I think I'm pretty good all around, I've been complimented with not having "much of an accent", I can read basically anything I want to with ease and my grasp of the grammar and spelling are adequate for professional usage.

Swedish - I could live in a Swedish speaking society and function more or less pretty well by using Swedish only, I don't have many problems with it but I guess my vocabulary is relatively small due to not having read much 'skönlitteratur'.

Norwegian - A shadow of my Swedish and currently nothing to write home about, I've chatted with a few Norwegians and I think know the cardinal differences between Swedish and Norwegian and such. I am listing this here because I have actually went out of my way and practiced and used Norwegian, so this is not just listing the skill transfer from Swedish to Norwegian.

Russian - I've been teaching it to myself for more or less six months considering the weeks I've been inactive, I went to uni and asked the Russian teacher what to do, she poked at my skills and put me on a B1-level conversational course where I think I am doing all fine.

Estonian - Slowly but steadily, I am still pretty bad at it, yet not far from breaching the wall from beginner to intermediate. Will just require some more work.

My Danish friend told me after we talked an entire day this; "two weeks in Copenhagen and you're fluent in Danish!" but I think he was just being nice, and thus I don't consider myself having any skills in Danish whatsoever.
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6357 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 30 of 104
02 November 2013 at 8:39pm | IP Logged 
Bao wrote:
s_allard wrote:
Secondly, the descriptors (A1..C2) refer to overall proficiency. I know what people are attempting to say with "Passive B2 Active A2" but the CEFR doesn't work that way. You're an A2.

Wrong. In English, I am an A0: I never passed an official exam. Neither did I sit one. Obviously, if I wanted to use the CEFR scale to apply for a job, enroll in university or apply for citizenship, the level to use is the one I actually passed an exam in.

But perhaps we aren't talking about the final exam result, but about whether out skills are equivalent to a certain level in the framework of reference. In which case I personally think it is completely justified to assess every skill by itself.
Also, even if you don't pass, you can still get recognition for your skills. For example, my official paper says I'm C2 at grammar&vocab and C1 in the rest of the skills. If someone fails one part, they'll still get a paper saying they're, for example, C1 in reading and writing but below C1 in speaking and listening. And for a job that deals only with written texts this would be okay, at least if the employer understands that you don't ever "finish" a language.

Edited by Serpent on 02 November 2013 at 8:43pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Iwwersetzerin
Bilingual Hexaglot
Senior Member
Luxembourg
christineschmit.com
Joined 5429 days ago

259 posts - 513 votes 
Speaks: French*, Luxembourgish*, GermanC2, EnglishC2, SpanishC2, ItalianC1
Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Indonesian

 
 Message 31 of 104
02 November 2013 at 10:09pm | IP Logged 
Luxembourgish: native language. Professional translator into Luxembourgish and one of the few people who bothered to learn the correct spelling ;-) Sworn translator for Luxembourgish (sworn translator = authorised by the Ministry of Justice to translate official documents, such as birth certificates, diplomas, notarial deeds, court decisions, police records etc.).

French: second native language. Professional translator into French. Diploma in translation into French and French law degree. Very slight regional (Luxembourgish) accent, but passes as French. Sworn translator for French.

German: C2+ near-native. Passes as German. Learned to read and write in German. C2 business German diploma (WiDaf) and Goethe Institute C2 diploma (Grosses Deutsches Sprachdiplom). Diploma in translation from German to French. Sworn translator for German.

English: C2 Certificate of Proficiency in English, University of Cambridge. Diploma in translation from English to French. Sworn translator for English.

Spanish: C2 Diploma de Español como lengua extranjera (nivel superior) from Instituto Cervantes. Diploma in translation from Spanish to French. Sworn translator for Spanish.

Italian: B2 Certificato di conoscenza della lingua Italiana, Università di Perugia. Passive (reading) skills probably at C1. Will sit C1 exam in a few weeks.

Dutch: passive estimated B2, active estimated A2. Can read books, but speaking is still rather basic.

Russian: A2 diploma from the Moscow State University (2005), but a bit rusty, currently taking beginner classes to revive it.

Indonesian: basic level.

Latin: studied for 6 years in secondary school, but very rusty.

Portuguese: good passive skills, understand written Portuguese very well, spoken Brazilian quite well, spoken Portuguese a little, active skills very basic.

Catalan: good passive skills, can understand written and spoken Catalan quite well, but no active skills.


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s_allard
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5190 days ago

2704 posts - 5425 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 32 of 104
02 November 2013 at 10:10pm | IP Logged 
In all this frenzy of letters, I think I should repeat a suggestion that I made in another thread. In addition to "speak"
and "study," we should have a category "certified" for which one has passed a certification test (not an assessment
test). This does not take away anything from what people are doing now; it just forces people to respect some
objective standard.

This, in my opinion, is what is happening now anyways. Isn't that exactly what the CEFR was designed to do?:
Define and measure an objective standard of language proficiency. Schools and some employers now ask for
specific levels of certified proficiency. Going are the days when you can write "functional French" on your CV. And, of
course, many instiutions impose their own language tests. For example, for certain jobs with our federal
government you have to pass language tests regardless of what you put on your CV. That's the way to go.


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