Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Pet peeve - false fluency.

I work with a lot of spanish speaker. Some can not speak english at all, some can speak rudimentary english, and others are fluent bilingually. I am learning my spanish so I don't mind practicing it with my spanish speaker clients. What irks me more are those who insist of speaking english and pretending to be fluent when in fact they are not. How do I know? Because they are not following the conversation properly. I ask them one question, their answer would be something I did not asked for. It is false fluency and it's rather annoying.

2 comments:

Lani said...

Perhaps they're trying to practice their English with you,too. Most likely they speak Spanish at home so they only get a chance to practice in the community.

Jon said...

Good point ta Lani. But still annoying when you are trying to be accurate with your medical history taking and Physical Therapy Evaluation with time constraint to finish it all.