Yesterday a former co-worker commented that he should be ashamed that he lived in Spain for seven months and was still unable to talk in Spanish. And why would he expect to be able to speak Spanish without any effort whatsoever? Just because he overhears the conversations in the bus, once a large enough period of time has passed, he should, miraculously, start talking in Spanish? A foreign language is hard to learn and easy to forget, a teacher said. Obviously that if you don't listen to the tv, nor open a grammar book under any circumstances, you will never learn a foreign language. At most you would be able to recognize certain words. At most you could speak some simple phrases. Has it been easier, by any chance, learning your mother tongue? A preschool child, even though he can speak fluently enough, still has a limited vocabulary and a simple phrase structure. Only after he reads books, writes compositions, studies the grammar, speaks long enough, starts to become an advanced user. Why would you expect a smaller effort to be needed in order to learn a foreign language? All these unjustified expectations leave me perplexed sometimes.
There are then those who believe that the degree of knowledge of a foreign language is measured in fluency. I had a colleague who spoke French very fast, yet she made many mistakes – discordances, forced constructions, invented words from maternal language, etc. I think that if she had slowed down the rhythm and thought better, she could have reduced the number of mistakes and become more accurate.
Those who believe that fluency is everything are usually the average users of that language. They could make themselves understood and depending on the accuracy they could tend to advanced users. Yet, an average user can't tell an average user from an advanced user. We both talk as fast, so we are the same level! Just that some make more mistakes than others. And, even not making mistakes, some don't know expressions or more complicated phrase structures. Obviously one would understand them both, but when the oportunity to use an expression shows ... the advanced user will use it, while the average one will compose an explicative phrase on the spot. And the average user will believe that the advanced user is very metaphoric and doesn't speak very clear and will even imagine that he knows better the language since he speaks all so clear. Some examples in English.
'Thank you for trusting me' will say an average user, while an advanced user might say 'Thanks for the vote of confidence!'.
'Me too' will say the average user, while an advanced user could say 'Welcome to the club'.
'Not even you believe this!' an average user would use, while an advanced user might use 'Keep telling that to yourself and you'll start believing it'.
I am not saying that an advanced user would choose every single time the metaphoric expression, I'm just saying that, if a particular user constantly picks the explicit phrase is because he doesn't know the complicated one. How do you become an advanced user? Reading and listening a lot. It is harder in a country where all the movies are doubled and the contact to the foreign language is reduced to a minimum. And average users expect to become advanced just by having conversations with other average users with a higher and higher fluency! Again some unreasonable expectations.
Yesterday I went for a meal with my former co-workers. With the great majority I have barely changed some words, so I stayed very quite and almost not interacting at all. Why would I have expected to be more talkative? Those relationships need 'work' ... it's natural to be like this.
Three months ago I went to have a beer with my actual co-workers. (I work in a company where work is worshiped and having a unofficial chat with some colleague looks like stilling from the company. You are paid to work, not to gossip! The work shedule, just as the meal break (half an hour, not more!) are carefully counted and inserted in an application. The timer starts when you get to work and push the button, stops automatically at the beginning of the lunch break, and restarts when you re-push the button when coming back from the lunch break. It stops automatically after the passage of the 8 regulatory hours (plus half an hour the lunch break!). If you come earlier than the beginning of the work schedule, you usually find the door locked, if you want to stay longer, they usually kick you out. I told once my (few) co-workers who come to lunch with me to leave for the lunch break 5 minutes earlier, in order not to appear in the monitoring application that we worked 5 minutes less that day. They answered 'not the whole 5 minutes, maybe just one'. The ability to eat in half an hour is some kind of a virtue. And proposing to cheat starting 5 minutes earlier prooves a lack of morality. Nobody starts eating earlier than the timer starts! Fantastic! It is only missing the alarm to start several minutes prior to pushing the button. And if, by any chance, you forget to push the button, the magnetic polarity of the island will change. We don't know this yet, as nobody dared to stop pushing the button.)
Well, three months ago, with those co-workers, we were kind of bored as well. I talked a bit more, but still we seemed a bit estranged. Why would we have expected to be less distanced? Why, without much un-official talk, would we have expected to interact more and have a lot of fun at that beer?
Disappointed in our big expectations, we decided that our personalities don't fit together (it's logic, isn't it?) and thus we should scarce even more those meetings, because anyway we didn't have much to talk about. Maybe by passing more time, enough events worthy to be told will accumulate. As probable as the belief of my former colleague that - after passing a long time in Spain, miraculously and without any conscious effort – he will start talking in Spanish.
Traducere în română
Traducción en español
There are then those who believe that the degree of knowledge of a foreign language is measured in fluency. I had a colleague who spoke French very fast, yet she made many mistakes – discordances, forced constructions, invented words from maternal language, etc. I think that if she had slowed down the rhythm and thought better, she could have reduced the number of mistakes and become more accurate.
Those who believe that fluency is everything are usually the average users of that language. They could make themselves understood and depending on the accuracy they could tend to advanced users. Yet, an average user can't tell an average user from an advanced user. We both talk as fast, so we are the same level! Just that some make more mistakes than others. And, even not making mistakes, some don't know expressions or more complicated phrase structures. Obviously one would understand them both, but when the oportunity to use an expression shows ... the advanced user will use it, while the average one will compose an explicative phrase on the spot. And the average user will believe that the advanced user is very metaphoric and doesn't speak very clear and will even imagine that he knows better the language since he speaks all so clear. Some examples in English.
'Thank you for trusting me' will say an average user, while an advanced user might say 'Thanks for the vote of confidence!'.
'Me too' will say the average user, while an advanced user could say 'Welcome to the club'.
'Not even you believe this!' an average user would use, while an advanced user might use 'Keep telling that to yourself and you'll start believing it'.
I am not saying that an advanced user would choose every single time the metaphoric expression, I'm just saying that, if a particular user constantly picks the explicit phrase is because he doesn't know the complicated one. How do you become an advanced user? Reading and listening a lot. It is harder in a country where all the movies are doubled and the contact to the foreign language is reduced to a minimum. And average users expect to become advanced just by having conversations with other average users with a higher and higher fluency! Again some unreasonable expectations.
Yesterday I went for a meal with my former co-workers. With the great majority I have barely changed some words, so I stayed very quite and almost not interacting at all. Why would I have expected to be more talkative? Those relationships need 'work' ... it's natural to be like this.
Three months ago I went to have a beer with my actual co-workers. (I work in a company where work is worshiped and having a unofficial chat with some colleague looks like stilling from the company. You are paid to work, not to gossip! The work shedule, just as the meal break (half an hour, not more!) are carefully counted and inserted in an application. The timer starts when you get to work and push the button, stops automatically at the beginning of the lunch break, and restarts when you re-push the button when coming back from the lunch break. It stops automatically after the passage of the 8 regulatory hours (plus half an hour the lunch break!). If you come earlier than the beginning of the work schedule, you usually find the door locked, if you want to stay longer, they usually kick you out. I told once my (few) co-workers who come to lunch with me to leave for the lunch break 5 minutes earlier, in order not to appear in the monitoring application that we worked 5 minutes less that day. They answered 'not the whole 5 minutes, maybe just one'. The ability to eat in half an hour is some kind of a virtue. And proposing to cheat starting 5 minutes earlier prooves a lack of morality. Nobody starts eating earlier than the timer starts! Fantastic! It is only missing the alarm to start several minutes prior to pushing the button. And if, by any chance, you forget to push the button, the magnetic polarity of the island will change. We don't know this yet, as nobody dared to stop pushing the button.)
Well, three months ago, with those co-workers, we were kind of bored as well. I talked a bit more, but still we seemed a bit estranged. Why would we have expected to be less distanced? Why, without much un-official talk, would we have expected to interact more and have a lot of fun at that beer?
Disappointed in our big expectations, we decided that our personalities don't fit together (it's logic, isn't it?) and thus we should scarce even more those meetings, because anyway we didn't have much to talk about. Maybe by passing more time, enough events worthy to be told will accumulate. As probable as the belief of my former colleague that - after passing a long time in Spain, miraculously and without any conscious effort – he will start talking in Spanish.
Traducere în română
Traducción en español
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