Fluency definitions

[polishboy]

Many popel sya they wanna be fluent, but for my some languges I wanna speak well, and some only a little.
For me fluent is person who can communicate with native speakers, of course not on their level, but understands much.
I don't like to pursue flunecy in one language for whole life.
To be perfect.
We have a Phisics teacher in our school who is German, he can Polish very well!
even he knows specail terms in Physics!
I did not noticed any grammatical mistakes, but sometimes the accent was heard.
But I think even if you make some mistakes that is OK.

[Meera]

number two

नंबर दो

[Bubulus]

It's sometimes even difficult for me to understand German speakers on the phone.

How about this one? When I was in Dusseldorf last year, I had to buy a T-mobile cellphone (Handy) and a SIM chip, as I left mine at home. (I only brought my Sprint phone). The Kaufman was obviously Turkish, and he had such a thick Turkish accent I understood almost ZERO of what he said. I asked him 3 times how long will it take before the SIM chip worked. He answered me each time more angrily. I still couldn't understand what he said. I had to go into another store in Frankfurt, and asked another Turkish guy who spoke better German. I finally understood the next day!

Accents? Urghhh!!! How could I forget that?

About a week ago I called into the customer service of my home phone company to sign up for a special International calls service, as my parents were desperate to made some calls to El Salvador. The guy that answered me had a thick I-don't-have-any-idea-what-language accent, and I had lots of trouble understanding him. I could make it in the end however, mainly because it wasn't great ideal; but I can't imagine placing myself in a situation where I'd have to discuss some serious issues with someone with such accent.

I swear he pronounced "international" as ['ters.na] to give you an example.

(BTW Can I say "I called into the customer service"? It seems right to me, but I have my doubts. Wow, judging by that paragraph, I've noticed my English has improved a lot this year. But still 'got a lot to work on. I hope I can reach that level in Mandarin one of these days.)

[KingHarvest]

It would probably be best to say something like, "I called my phone company's customer service line."

[Eoghan]

Hmm, seems to be quite a few Turkish working at T-Mobile in Germany.

Why are there so many Turks in Germany? I'd expect to see more in Italy, but I've been to both Berlin (I saw tons of Turks there) and Rome (almost no Turks).

Even though I'm not German (Heaven forbids ) I've a lot of German-Turkish friends and there are plenty of reasons behind the high presence of Turks in Germany (actually Berlin's often referred to as Turkey's 2nd city because it has so many Turkish citizens).

First and foremost a lot of Turks came to Germany as guest workers, Germany needed them during the 60's, and thus they were allowed to bring their families over to Germany. After a while the Germans wanted the Turks to go back to Turkey but they stayed, despite a couple of different attempts to make them go back.

First, the German government offered money to those that decided to go back, many went back, but then returned, often with their families. Secondly Germany stated that no German citizen would be able to have a dual citizenship, and thought this would make many Turks leave Germany. Instead they stayed and didn't find it all too hard to give up their Turkish citizenships.

Why the Turks have chosen Germany as the main land to emigrate to no one knows, just as no one can know why Italy have a lot of Albanian immigrants, Sweden a lot of Somalians and Iraqi citizens...

[KingHarvest]

Heaven forbids

I may as well point out since we've been talking about subjunctives a lot recently that this phrase has a subjunctive frozen in it.

[Johanna]

Heaven forbids

I may as well point out since we've been talking about subjunctives a lot recently that this phrase has a subjunctive frozen in it.

Which means it should be "Heaven forbid"?

[KingHarvest]

Yes.

[Oleksij]

Hmm, seems to be quite a few Turkish working at T-Mobile in Germany.

Why are there so many Turks in Germany? I'd expect to see more in Italy, but I've been to both Berlin (I saw tons of Turks there) and Rome (almost no Turks).

Even though I'm not German (Heaven forbids ) I've a lot of German-Turkish friends and there are plenty of reasons behind the high presence of Turks in Germany (actually Berlin's often referred to as Turkey's 2nd city because it has so many Turkish citizens).

First and foremost a lot of Turks came to Germany as guest workers, Germany needed them during the 60's, and thus they were allowed to bring their families over to Germany. After a while the Germans wanted the Turks to go back to Turkey but they stayed, despite a couple of different attempts to make them go back.

First, the German government offered money to those that decided to go back, many went back, but then returned, often with their families. Secondly Germany stated that no German citizen would be able to have a dual citizenship, and thought this would make many Turks leave Germany. Instead they stayed and didn't find it all too hard to give up their Turkish citizenships.

Why the Turks have chosen Germany as the main land to emigrate to no one knows, just as no one can know why Italy have a lot of Albanian immigrants, Sweden a lot of Somalians and Iraqi citizens...

I think there are historical reasons too - the Ottoman Empire had traditionally good relations with the German Reich, and Germans consequently assisted a lot in building railways and setting up other industries in the Ottoman Empire, followed by the Triple Alliance in WWI... Besides stereotypically, at least, Germans and Turks share a reasonably similar mentality.

Similarly with Italy and Albania - the Italian influence in the Adriatic seems to have taken its toll.

EDIT: I mistyped 'the' twice, now it's corrected to prevent any misunderstanding.

[Car]

Secondly Germany stated that no German citizen would be able to have a dual citizenship, and thought this would make many Turks leave Germany. Instead they stayed and didn't find it all too hard to give up their Turkish citizenships.

No, that has absolutely nothing to do with it. Where did you get that from anyway? And many do find it hard to give up their Turkish citizenship and will be called "traitors" by other Turks if they do.

They didn't come over with their families straight away, usually, the family came later when they already stayed much longer than they originally wanted to.

The demand for workers couldn't be satisfied with those one who were allowed in, so it was extended to other countries. Like loqu mentioned before, for groups from other countries, it just was more attractive to go back because the standard of living back home improved more.

Anyway, not the best subforum/thread to discuss it and I don't have the time for such a discussion right now.

[Eoghan]

Secondly Germany stated that no German citizen would be able to have a dual citizenship, and thought this would make many Turks leave Germany. Instead they stayed and didn't find it all too hard to give up their Turkish citizenships.

No, that has absolutely nothing to do with it. Where did you get that from anyway? And many do find it hard to give up their Turkish citizenship and will be called "traitors" by other Turks if they do.

A friend of mine, a Turk from Dortmund told me this... And because I wrote this without using my brain because I was tired, I simply took on the role of a parrot, simply repeating what he said to me a couple of months ago, without actually thinking if it made any sense at all...

[Vortex]

Why the Turks have chosen Germany as the main land to emigrate to no one knows, just as no one can know why Italy have a lot of Albanian immigrants, Sweden a lot of Somalians and Iraqi citizens...

Well, with respect to to albanians in Italy, Albania was apart of Italy for awhile. And I never new that Sweden has a lot of Somalians and Iraqis. It seems like a rather odd place to go for people from the middle east or africa. Oh and as a side note, it seems like Iraqi/Arab immigrants like colder places since we also have a large population of Iraqis/Arabs just 35 mins away from me in Dearborn, MI.

[Car]

A friend of mine, a Turk from Dortmund told me this... And because I wrote this without using my brain because I was tired, I simply took on the role of a parrot, simply repeating what he said to me a couple of months ago, without actually thinking if it made any sense at all...

There are many Turks who claim it, but IMHO, it usually is a lame excuse to explain why integration doesn't work too well (to put it mightly). Sounds like Turkish clubs who always say "You should integrate us" and shout "discrimination" whenever measurements to improve integration actually are taken. Well, anyway, if you can wait until mid March or April when my exams are over, we could discuss that in the Politics forum. I also have some questions about immmigration/integration in Sweden, so that might be a topic worth discussing.

[Eoghan]

A friend of mine, a Turk from Dortmund told me this... And because I wrote this without using my brain because I was tired, I simply took on the role of a parrot, simply repeating what he said to me a couple of months ago, without actually thinking if it made any sense at all...

There are many Turks who claim it, but IMHO, it usually is a lame excuse to explain why integration doesn't work too well (to put it mightly). Sounds like Turkish clubs who always say "You should integrate us" and shout "discrimination" whenever measurements to improve integration actually are taken. Well, anyway, if you can wait until mid March or April when my exams are over, we could discuss that in the Politics forum. I also have some questions about immmigration/integration in Sweden, so that might be a topic worth discussing.

Sounds fair, we'll postpone any further discussion on the matter until mid-March! Und viel Glück beim pauken!