Once I read an article in “El Mercurio” about who is bilingual and who isn’t. In that article, the interviewer said that a bilingual is who can manage a second language perfectly as if they were native like and he’s right.
In Chile there’s a wrong concept of what bilingual is. Because, people think if they can say a few words or understand something in a conversation, they are “Bilingual”. But, Do they now what level of English they need to be a bilingual person?. No, they don’t. The problem is in some Institutes which give classes of “Secretariado Bilingüe” or stuff like that, but those institutes don’t even have good qualifications to be considered specialists in English and make people believe they are totally prepared to speak. I know, Chile depends on other countries, and English is the language of business, and then it is important to be learnt by people to get to a better future, but first, we have to change that perception about what level you really need to be considered bilingual.
Source: http://www.economiaynegocios.cl/noticias/noticias.asp?id=87209
In Chile there’s a wrong concept of what bilingual is. Because, people think if they can say a few words or understand something in a conversation, they are “Bilingual”. But, Do they now what level of English they need to be a bilingual person?. No, they don’t. The problem is in some Institutes which give classes of “Secretariado Bilingüe” or stuff like that, but those institutes don’t even have good qualifications to be considered specialists in English and make people believe they are totally prepared to speak. I know, Chile depends on other countries, and English is the language of business, and then it is important to be learnt by people to get to a better future, but first, we have to change that perception about what level you really need to be considered bilingual.
I'm agree with you about the meaning of beign a bilingual here in Chile... good point of view :P
ReplyDeleteI agree with your research, it's too interesting.
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