I can understand him perfectly too; my comment about him not ever needing an ELP cert still applies…
A lot of non-English people here would get Level 6 immediately. I’ve met so many on our fly-ins…
Out of curiosity, what practical difference does it make?
I just (finally) got my French PPL (another story), and it shows me as English level 4 and French level 6, which I find quite amusing as a native English speaker.
johnh wrote:
it shows me as English level 4 and French level 6, which I find quite amusing as a native English speaker.
What a farce, wait until you try to get ‘IFR ELP6’ from Orly, it’s like talking with the dragons in Westeros 
What is an IFR ELP6?
what practical difference does it make?
AFAIK, in certain situations, an ELP6 signoff is permanent, whereas an ELP4 signoff lasts a year, or some such.
In practice, if your language comprehension (grammar) is good enough, anybody can get ELP4 in their home country even if nobody outside can understand them 
This is because a native of country x understands English heavily accented in country x’s accent, and since the ELP examiner will be from x also, you will get signed off. There is a well known ELP examiner in France who writes a lot about this problem. Highly controversial, but he’s allowed to say it because he is a “local”.
Peter wrote:
What is an IFR ELP6?
France has two tests: ‘VFR ELP’ and ‘IFR ELP’, I think they are called FCL055.B and FCL055.D
DGAC IFR ELP6 is (artificially) very tough, the amount of work and preparation could easily exceed what is required to pass CBIR & UK FRTOL exams combined
I have been told that some (french) people get their ELP6 but not from Orly’s office of DGAC recently. May be you can contact James Emery (Lingaero), he flies all around France for ELP tests and lessons, he may give you some more clue about the possibility to get ELP6.
Well done Udo
I was recently speaking to a Welsh FI who had trouble gaining ELP and UK radio licence due to his accent.
At university, one of the students learning German returned from his study abroad year to fail the oral exam because none of the faculty could understand him; native speakers understood ~20%. (Different dialect? Any ideas?) I remember some reference to ‘a remote goat-herding village’ which sounds like bitterness from the faculty, my point being that an oral exam is limited by the aptitude of the examiner, is subjective, and prone to prejudices.
The Australian accent is standardised; the whole country largely sounds the same. On the other extreme, the UK has the largest variation of accents in the world, none of which are standard or correct. Even the BBC has moved away from Received Pronunciation.
Capitaine wrote:
Even the BBC has moved away from Received Pronunciation.
And is NOT the better for it. It is unfortunately part of the BBC “inclusive” agenda of the last 10-20 years. Laudable you might say, and varying accents are not a problem if the speaker is pronouncing the words spoken fully and correctly – unfortunately this often is not the case, with dropped vowels and syllables causing words to run into another and become incomprehensible to native English speakers from other regions.
Regards, SD..
Capitaine wrote:
At university, one of the students learning German returned from his study abroad year to fail the oral exam because none of the faculty could understand him; native speakers understood ~20%. (Different dialect? Any ideas?) I remember some reference to ‘a remote goat-herding village’ which sounds like bitterness from the faculty, my point being that an oral exam is limited by the aptitude of the examiner, is subjective, and prone to prejudices.
Very well imaginable. German has some dialects which are nearly mutually unintelligible. Although almost all Germans do speak Standard German if they want to.
I was recently speaking to a Welsh FI who had trouble gaining ELP and UK radio licence due to his accent.
That’s funny because almost nobody in Wales speaks Welsh To hear the language you have to go to the smallest pub in the smallest most remote village – I am told.
It’s a controversial topic everywhere because language proficiency is closely tied to exposure to the written word, which correlates heavily with social class, IQ, etc. This makes it possible to find people in the UK who cannot be understood by most people, but IME they are extremely rare.
James is indeed the guy I mentioned earlier. He’s been here in the past… Here you go. As usual, “Threads possibly related to this one” yield interesting reading
Certain accents are extra hard for English speakers to understand, with French at the top of the list, and the many comments I get on the various flying movies I’ve done (with ATC comms on them) support this. But as I said, ELP testing will not pick this up.
