Multilingual and Polyglot Wannabee Thread! MK I

Ahh cool man. Will try that out. Learning some phrases to start off with.


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Summer is not 7/8 months long though is it? If you can work effectively on it for five hours a day and enjoy it then sure, go mental. I'm no stranger to protracted concentrated periods of work on this kind of thing - sometimes it just captures your imagination and you can work and work and work. The point is that you most likely cannot keep that kind of level up when you have other things to be doing as well. By all means focus intensely on it when you can, but don't set yourself unreasonable targets and then get bummed out if you don't meet them.


To be honest I'd say TV and radio etc are good enough until you're fluent enough to have a decent chat with native speakers. That kind of thing can quickly run dry if you're not at a good enough level and it gets boring for both of you - plus it's always a fight between who gets to practise the language they're learning. I don't honestly believe it can really work when two people want to learn each others' language - neither is ultimately interested in helping the other, really.


In that case I misunderstood you, sorry about that. Once you approach similar fluency in another language you will most likely realise it, at least if you are exposed to similar challenges in the language - you get that feeling of having been there before and remember going through the same phases in your other languages, and you can quite easily work out for yourself whether you'd be able to do whatever you just did in another language you've learned/are learning. Don't get hung up on the official levels of ability if it's not actually relevant.


You absolutely cannot consider yourself as anything in the A1-C2 framework if you cannot write or read a language. All four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) have to be up to a level before you can consider yourself as at that level. You can always say on your CV that you speak Cantonese (or whatever) to a high/native standard. You may want to mention that you do not write or read it but that's up to you. It just depends whether you think the person reading your CV/interviewing will assume you can, and whether it'll matter.

You don't need to be certificated in a language to put it on your CV. It'll most likely hold more weight if you have recently taken exams in it though. If the job involves those specific languages they may ask you to take a test to make sure you're at the right standard, or they might test you at interview. If the job is not particularly language-based, they most likely won't care about your ability in languages at all (in the UK at least).

For the record, 3-4 hours self-study a night + 2 hours teaching time per week, over nine months, got me to

*drumroll*

A2 standard, in my estimation. You won't get to C1!

People have different work ethic and ability to absorb new information. But meh, you might be right. Thanks

x

Bonjour, comment ça va? How's your French course going? Any grades or anything?

J'ai *past papers* fait. J'ai reçu 43 ou 44 (de 45) *for the reading* mais 21 (de 40) pour * the listening.

Alors ce n'est pas bien.

Aaah, non non, c'est bien!

Reading papers have high boundaries, you'd easily have full UMS there.

Listening papers however, high boundaries. But you can improve!

Do you do coursewoto?

On that paper, 21 was a B. I needed 26 for an A*. Not sure if I have time to get ten marks up. I'm so awful at French. Quel(le) est coursewoto?

Coursework* apologies

Tu amélioreras! Je le sais je fournirais te parler sur Skype, mais je ne sais pas si je le peux sur mon portable (sans une microphone)

Alors, il y a beaucoup de gens qui parleront avec toi sur Skype ce t'aidera avec écoute...

Nous avons *controlled assessments*. Je ne sais si je recevrai des bons résultats.

Je vois as-tu les fini?

Non. Nous avons *one left. A speaking. Je dois le écrire ce week-end.

Si tu trouvais que tu as besoin d'aide, tu n'hésite pas me demander

Il est possible que tu regrettes ça!

Pourquoi hésite? Why isn't it hésites?

Et pourquoi 'trouvais' - il devrait etre 'trouves', n'est-ce pas?

Is that because it's an if-si, not a whether-si?

I could be wrong but I highly doubt it, given that it's the same in every other language I've learned. It's because it's not an unlikely hypothetical situation. You say 'if you find you need some help', not 'if you were to find you needed some help', because you're not asking about what someone would do in a hypothetical situation, you're saying 'if this happens, do this'.

Not sure if I've explained myself well. (Probably because I'm switching between three languages at once!)

I meant: is it "trouves" because it follows an if-si?