Lost my English - Fluent - Verified status

[Nadav I]

Agreed.

I definitely did not mean that a good score on a test makes a person a native speaker...

When I wrote, "Now I cannot even choose my own language as Native" I was referring to Hebrew.

Duolingo did classify me as "as-native" English speaker, and I am happy with that term

Honestly, I had always labeled myself as "fluent" until I took that test.

However, since Duolingo verified me as "as-native", naturally I would rather go with that.

I like Stephen’s list. It would be more accurate. Someone like me could just go with “expert” to avoid any confusions.

[Natacha R]

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@Nadav I wrote:

Duolingo did classify me as "as-native" English speaker, and I am happy with that term

Honestly, I had always labeled myself as "fluent" until I took that test.

However, since Duolingo verified me as "as-native", naturally I would rather go with that.

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I think what they meant is English at a native level.

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I like Stephen’s list. It would be more accurate.

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Yes, it might avoid freelancers falsely claiming English as their native language.

[Hanna N]

I am also voting for Stephen's list. I am sure that nayone who works with language knows that "native" does not a master make, and that also fluent is not the same as "native". 

Talking about clients being able to gauge the language level of the freelacer, I agree that this needs to be made more transparent. I would also like to know what the chances are for UpWork verifying one's native language when they verify that they are who they say they are? I am not suggesting this would be made mandatory, but it seems to me that those that would benefit from having a verified native command of a certain language would benefit if this would be made possible.

[Nichola L]

Stephen gets my vote too. Particularly on the last two.

I feel better for having changed from masterful back to fluent (with a disclaimer in my overview), but the word still makes me cringe when I see it on other profiles.

[#5]

I was not sure if I should add anything else to the MASTERFUL topic because so many posts have been edited and deleted and I feel very uncomfortable about that. Fergus' posts and maybe even his profile here have also been erased. That all tells its own tale...

Anyway I have decided to add that at the moment those of us who claim that they have a NATIVE language are labeled with MASTERFUL. The clients, however, have the option to search for freelancers with English NATIVE language knowledge. So how will they find the MASTERFUL ones? Maybe searching for English NATIVE leads to MASTERFUL??? Or is there another level where our language knowledge is fixed? For all other languages no search function is available for the different levels, only a selection by the different language tests offered in Upwork.

Furthermore my profile can only be found by ANY LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE and not by ENTRY, INTERMEDIATE or EXPERT despite the fact I have selected a level in my profile. This may also affect other freelancers as well and should be checked. Is there any reason why profiles are without any level?

[Lena E]

Hey Everyone,

To clarify on the change in language levels from Native to Masterful, we found the “Native” labeling may have discouraged some users with a complete command of English from selecting this option. We wanted to have a label that focused only on the language proficiency itself, rather than causing any potential confusion as users tied it to country of origin. We apologize for not announcing this change earlier. We have been reviewing the reaction from all of you here on the forums and evaluating your suggestions. Our team is going to review these options and we’ll communicate any update to this selection list moving forward.

Thanks for all your feedback!

Lena

[Hanna N]

What continues to baffle me, and probably most of the freelancers here that were outraged by this unannounced, sudden change that we just stumbled into, is that why does UpWork continue to do these changes without asking for feedback from the Community before launching them? I mean... All you had to do is ask. "Hey peeps, we want to change the name of the native-language setting for such and such reason, this is what we are thinking of replacing it with, what do you think?" 

There's a description in Finnish for the way UpWork has been communicating with it's userbase lately, and it's called climbing the tree bum first. 

The freelancers here want UpWork to do well. It is beneficial to us for UpWork to do well. We WANT UpWork to reach the treetop, or rather, reach for the stars!

But you'd do it so much easier, so much faster and with far less pain if you'd turn the right way around.

[Nichola L]

Hanna - if you have written any books, I want to read them!

[Hanna N]

As soon as someone offers me a better deal than $400 for 30k words, you'll be the first to know Nichola. 

[Stephen B]

Hanna has really nailed it, and that image of trees and bums will stick in my mind.

I made the point in my earlier post that I came up with what appear to have been very well-received suggestions in around 20 minutes (this was deleted...) But seriously, I make the point again - there is a whole resource here of language experts who want to see the site (and themselves) prosper. They could have been asked for their suggestions, but instead, you (Upwork) just went ahead and came up with a clumsy solution in a hurry. You could even have posted it as a job on here (seriously, why not?) and procured a language expert to work through it and make sure it said exactly what you wanted it to say, and did exactly what you wanted it to do. You could even have done a Preston, and hired several different experts to come up with ideas, and keep the best ones.

Really, there are a genuine bunch of peole on here, and if they ocasionally get angry it's usually for good reason. They would be more than willing to help in the success of this place, instead of continually being pointed towards trees in the  - mmm   - wrong direction.