I am studying Spanish currently, can I say that I speak Spanish at the job interview?

[Ralph_Kirk]

Originally Posted by southwest88

Yah, I'm used to seeing guagua, f. (fam) B (en Cuba y Canarias) (autobús) bus. Depending on the pronunciation, wa-wa is a fair representation of how the word sounds.

& by extension of use, also in Puerto Rico (which was the context in which I first encountered this use).

My Oxford Spanish Dictionary, c2008, is a big one. But it only shows bus, the means of transportation. SUV has its own entry, translating the components of the English acronym.

But she did, indeed, mean an SUV, which the CS folk knew by a different Mexican slang term.

[southwest88]

Originally Posted by southwest88

Actually, under the old model of foreign language acquisition, in the US during the 1950s-1970s CE or so - in most school districts, students mostly studied the writing system - conjugating verbs, diagramming sentences, reading & writing. What was missing most from that model was any conversational skills, except for those students who soaked up languages like sponges, or for the cirricula that actually emphasized oral comprehension & production.

...

Hmm. I meant curricula, maybe I was daydreaming & looking out @ the cirrus? (Like, maybe run away & join one? Too late, of course, be still, my heart.) Maybe Siri thought I was talking to her? Wool gathering by any other name ...

[Queldorei]

Don't say you can speak it if you can only understand written form. You can know how to read very well and write it well, but when it comes to a native speaker, not only can it be hard for your ears to recognize the words and the pace, which is faster than in English, but they can also use words that students don't normally learn from materials. It happens all the time in all languages.

You don't want to be like Peggy Hill from King of the Hill who mentioned speaking it in an interview and then got asked a long question and she didn't understand. The question was something along the lines of, "As a wife and mother, how do you see the growth of technology affecting society in the next millenia?" And all she did was pause nervously and then say, "...S'i." Then the interviewer just stared, and she said, "...S'i... Amigo?"

[tangelag]

Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk

Heck, it's been 50 years since I took high school Spanish, but I can still worry my way through the Spanish language program blurbs on my cable guide.


My daughter has zero problem reading and writing grammatically correct Spanish--but the slangy Spanglish mumbled around here leaves her hesitant to speak it to folks on the street (although she can understand it, mostly). She can speak like an educated Spaniard, though.

^1. That's not writing.

Okay.

[C24L]

I would not say that you can speak spanish at the job interview.

[dallasgoldrush]

Originally Posted by Mr_Geek

You generally shouldn't lie about things that can be proven untrue in a second.

This ^

[MLSFan]

my spanish = hand them a tool and point at the work
my french = hand them a tool and point at the work
my chinese = hand them a tool and point at the work
they know how to do the job already so no need to babysit them

knowing a language is about how well you get point across, not how eloquent you are, because if they want eloquence, they hire based on looks, ie someone who looks that nationality

knowing a language is not the same as knowing how to communicate

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by monkeyjobs

Hey guys, I have been doing some intensive Spanish studying.

I can read and understand just fine, but listening is still quite difficult as I pretty much never talk to anyone in Spanish.

So when I get a job interview, can I say that I can speak Spanish? Or would that be considered lying?

If you can carry on a conversation in Spanish, then you can say you speak it. If you can't...then...you can't.

I can read and understand more languages than I can speak. I don't say I speak them. For example, I can read Catalan well enough to understand signs, newspaper articles, etc. I can sometimes understand it when people are speaking it. I, however, cannot speak or write a word of it. Ergo, I do not speak Catalan.

Ditto with Czech. I can sort of read it, I can understand it pretty well...but I don't speak it.