Stories from my 14-month study abroad in Buenos Aires, my 16-month post-college move to Miami, and my get-me-the-hell-out-of-Miami move to Denver

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Who's Really Fluent?

So I'm going to graduate from college in May. Pretty exciting stuff. However, as I get closer to graduation, something has started to bother me.

I've been working on my resume a lot lately, and in my resume class, under the "languages" section, everyone feels that they can put "Spanish" if they've taken one year of Spanish in college.

I'm sorry but no!

Whenever I'm talking to someone about languages, or I overhear someone in class say they have "Spanish" on their resume, I immediately start talking to them in Spanish. Just plain conversational stuff, nothing difficult. The answer, in English, is always the same, "Oh, I haven't taken Spanish in a couple years, I'm really rusty."

If you get flustered when someone comes up and makes simple conversation with you in Spanish, how in the world can you put that you speak Spanish on your resume. You speak English! Knowing "Hola" "Como estas?" and "Muy bien" does not make you fluent.





4 comments:

Anonymous said...

asi se habla Patrick!!!
jajaja

Anonymous said...

remind them that if they are hired for a spanish speaking position, they will need to conduct business, take call, lead meetings, etc. at the same level they would do in english. maybe that will scare them into telling the truth. --love sissy g, hooked you up with 4 clicks for now.

Anonymous said...

HOlaaaa.Soy mariel....pasa lo mismo aca en argentina con la gente que dice que sabe hablar en ingles o que sabe traducir ccuando solo saben decir hi and bye... me pone tan nerviosa que digan esas cosas!!te entiendo patito!

Patrick Jones said...

Creo que lo unico que podemos hacer es mostrar nuestra capacidad durante la entrevista de trabajo.