“Intermediate” in x language. Stop
For the love of god stop adding languages to your profile and LinkedIn that you are "intermediate" in or possess "working proficiency" of. You're either a fluent speaker or you leave it off. I've even seen "basic proficiency". Wtf is that? You know how to say "hello"Thank you for attending my TED talk
Some people can fully understand a language or like 80/90% understand it but not speak it. E.g., Nordics region, Spain/France/Italy. Plenty of Italians who get staffed on Spanish deals.
id agree with the cases that you mentioned, but I feel like OP is pointing to some students putting intermediate in Spanish when all they did was take Spanish 2 in high school.
Whilst in the US you are probably totally right (I have never worked there) in London / Europe your take is completely wrong as it can be enough to be an intermediate speaker of a language to be staffed on a deal. I.e. if you are Norwegian and don't speak Danish fluently but can understand enough to get by in written format (same for Italian / Spanish, Spanish / Portuguese etc.)
I have worked from London on engagements with German clients because although I cannot speak German well enough to hold a business conversation, I understand it well enough to read client documents and do market research with German financial information. Intermediate language proficiency is absolutely a thing.
how many languages do you speak and what qualifies you for this opinion?
I just got back from Italy and feel 100% fluent (as confirmed by locals), but don't know how to discuss fully the nuances of probability, risk, market jargon, economic data, etc., so does that not make me fluent? on the other side, I'd argue that many native english speakers don't possess that vocabulary in english, so does that mean they're not fluent?
fluency the way I think of it is the ability to fluidly respond to most types of question with the only hiccup being formulating the thought or searching for the right word instead of translating in your head. it doesn't mean understanding 100% of the vocabulary or being 100% grammatically correct, because native speakers (who are absolutely fluent) often make grammatical mistakes and don't know 100% of the vocab of their native tongue.
as far as the intermediate bit, the CEFR language standards have an intermediate level (B1/B2) and many language learners (myself included) believe you can be fluent and intermediate at the same time (like I am in Italian, I'd guess B2, not quite C1 yet), so I think you may be misunderstanding what intermediate actually means.
finally, as someone who's studying their 4th language, it takes time and effort to learn a new language and patience to become fluent, so I'd argue that showing that interest is a good conversation point or filtering mechanism for job seekers. the only downside would be if you're misrepresenting yourself and you claim proficiency yet all you did was get the level 2 trophy on duolingo, so if that's what's happening we're in agreement, but I don't think you can assume that's the case all of the time
3 languages, reading and writing
congrats! 3 languages is tough. how do you have them listed on your LNKD
As a multilingual professional myself, there are nuances you can mention on your resume. LinkedIn doesn't have the correct steps IMO.
It is very useful to have some level of knowledge in a language when carrying out primary and secondary research. A team which doesn't speak a language at all might benefit from it. But you are right that there are limits about what exactly can be achieved with which level of fluency. That is up to each role and team to decide.
I agree on a different aspect - there are too many people saying they are "native" in a language when they really are not. You can only be "native" when you were born/raised/brought up from a very young age in a country if that language was spoken as a language (or it was spoken at home in international families).Looking at a few resumes, many list multiple languages as "native" when they simply are not fluent. Even if a language is officially spoken in a country, it doesn't mean that it is the only language people use all the time. A good example would be French in Quebec/Canada, with many people around the other provinces speaking it also. Just because French is an official language of Canada doesn't mean all Canadians are "native" French speakers.
For what it's worth, I have 2 first languages - Mandarin and English. I speak Mandarin at home (my parents and friends at home barely speak any English), and I spoke Mandarin FT (plus other local languages) in my day to day life until age 18 when I moved to a British boarding school. However I've read English books and consumed Western media ever since I've had memories, my thoughts (internal monologue) are in both Mandarin and English depending on my mood but I'd say predominantly English. So I'd say I have 2 first languages.
I only process, talk and think about work and finance in English, for obvious reasons. Because it's conducted in the English speaking world. However idk those terms and jargon in Mandarin. In fact idk anything technical in Mandarin. I'd need to catch up with the 'work Mandarin', and even then I'd very much prefer working in English. However, in things like LinkedIn or job applications for example I always put my Mandarin to the highest (native) proficiency because that's what it is. That's why I also think the corporate categorization of proficiency is inaccurate, cuz native ≠ working proficiency. We're in finance so it's not that bad, but I studied everything in school in Mandarin, and for technical subjects like chemistry and physics, the jargon is almost crippling for English-speaking professionals. I know all the chemical elements in Mandarin
Therefore I think nuances in language proficiency is a thing.
When I think about life and normal things sometimes I think in Mandarin, when I think about finance and work I exclusively think in English
You sound like someone who only speaks one language.
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