When is one considered bi-lingual?

Question

I know a couple spanish words and would like to put that on my resume. Do you think I could get by with this tiny fib?

Answer 1

Being bilingual is not being fluent in a language.

Being bilingual means that you have a depth of knowledge of two languages at mother tongue level. That means that you have gained the knowledge of the languages since birth and have not only learned them by "soaking up" the grammar, vocabulary and syntax of the langauges, but you have also gained the cultural nuances of how the languages are used.

I think you know the answer to your stupid question, but I thought I'd treat you to a decent answer anyway. Probably wasting my time, but hey, that's the IQ level of Yahoo Answers users for you...

Answer 2

I can communicate with a reasonable degree of sucess in Spanish and I wouldn't say I was anything close to bi lingual. Instead of lying about it why don't you try and improve your spanish and put basic spanish on your resume. See if you can get hold of the Michel Tomas language course available from Amazon on CD. It's an 8 hour course that just requires you to listen and repeat and at the end of it you will be able to put a sentence together at the very least.

That sort of lie can be risky, if it's not required for the job there's no point in you putting it down and if it is, well you'll be found out pretty quick.

Answer 3

It is when someone is fluent in two lanuages. You could put it down but then you run the risk of it being mentioned in a couple of years and you having to make something up fast.

Say that you go to a spanish evening class instead as this will impress and if anyone asks you about it just say that you werent very good at it or the class got cancelled

Answer 4

Bi-lingual means being fluent in two languages, no I don't think you could get away with that, you have to be able to communicate verbally and in the written word. Go to night classes.

Answer 5

no one's precisely equivalent in different languages--one or yet another is often going to be extra acceptable; this is why translators do extra acceptable translating into their mom tongue. Even interior a language, there are close by variations--a "bag" is a "sack" is a "poke" in English, "jugo de china" es lo mismo de "zumo de naranja" in Spanish. in case you experience valuable in yet another tongue, understand extra or much less each thing that others say (no longer unavoidably each be conscious while they're arguing at warp speed) and can clarify what you advise (even while the precise be conscious escapes you), you may evaluate your self bi-lingual or multi-lingual. Others will constantly argue over those words, forget approximately them.

Answer 6

To be considered bi-lingual you would have to be a fluent speaker of two languages(but you would not necessarily have to be able to read and write). I suggest you tell your prospective employer thay you have a 'knowledge' of Spanish. Good luck in the interview(let's hope they don't decide to do it in Spanish!!!)

Answer 7

No. Bi meaning 2 Can you hold a conversation in 2 or more langauges. I have to admitt I struggle with one. I live in Spain for 4to 5 mths a year and I can string 1 or 2 words together but I don't consider myself to be bi lin.

Answer 8

If you are bi-lingual, you are able to speak two languages fluently. Honestly, I would remove that from your resume because they are going to catch on pretty quickly!

Good luck!

Answer 9

one is considered bi-lingual when they know more than one language.
what if you put that on your resume and they ask you to talk spanish to some ppl?
would you know how?...or would you only be able to say those few good words?
think about it

Answer 10

No, you won't get away with it. Had a candidate like that when I was interviewing who claimed to be fluent in French, unfortunately my colleague on the panel WAS fluent and began a conversation in the language - didn't get very far!

If you get caught out in any lie on your resume, the employer will wonder what else you lied about.