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Becoming fluent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5587 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 9 of 38 17 February 2010 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I will not settle to be called fluent unless I can pick up a paper and read it, or a popular novel and read it with the same speed as I would my own language. I'm approaching it in Spanish, and hopefully in a few years with German.
Overall, I want to be able to converse, watch movies, write letters and papers, read, EVERYTHING. My languages of importance (In order of priority) -Spanish -German -Russian -Italian -(Portuguese) (this is in parentheses because I will study it if I have to. I have a pretty good basis in portuguese so it will come quickly if I need it.) Might take up Japanese later, but that is much further down the road after both Russian and German. I will try and get as close to Native Fluency as possible in both German and Spanish, I love both languages very much. I plan on using Spanish in a medical office, and German for physics and other things. I hope to know all of these by the time I'm 30. (12 years down the road) We all have different opinions, but I can't settle for not knowing everything that I want to say in certain languages. Seeing members here learn my native language (english) to levels that even I am not at, lets me know that ANYTHING is possible. I think Spanish - Continuously German- 10 years Russian- 8 years Italian- 2 years will be more than enough time. I want to be very fluent in German and Italian by the time I'm 25. Then I'll study Russian later. 4 other languages is enough to master in a lifetime right? I'm not overshooting my goals? -Jordan 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5679 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 10 of 38 17 February 2010 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
With the right work ethic (which you seem to have), I'd go as far as to say eight languages could be in the cards for you. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5424 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 38 17 February 2010 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I plan on studying Korean, Italian, Arabic, German, Russian, and maybe a Scandinavian and a Slavic language along with possibly Irish Gaelic, Cherokee, and a click language. All that and I'm currently studying Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| dlb Triglot Groupie Joined 5781 days ago 44 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek, Italian | Message 12 of 38 18 February 2010 at 1:39am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I was at a dinner party in Argentina where a Canadian who was learning Spanish and had learned some French as a child decided to tell in Spanish a rather complicated account about a medical advancement that he wanted to invest in. He spoke with absolute fluency in some strange mixture of English, Spanish and French, not the least bit grammatically correct in any of the three languages. He just said whatever came to mind as it came to mind. It was complete incomprehensible to our Native Spanish speaking hostess. This is of course an extreme example, but sometimes people think they speak "fluently" but are they speaking the target language?
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| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5883 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 38 18 February 2010 at 1:54am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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If you want to be fluent you need to immerse yourself in one. All day, every day. 12 to 16 hrs or more every day in the language. Books, movies, music, TV, friends, writing, courses, podcasts, websites, everything. Reading out loud, extracting and analyzing, writing, studying, and actually using the language with native speakers. You need to wake up watching the news in your target language, listening to the radio in the language on the way to work, and so it goes...
When you have no problem speaking to native strangers you know you're fluent. When natives constantly ask you where you learned the language, you know. When natives don't believe you learned here, and not in the country where the language is spoken, you know. I've studied and used the language like this for 4 years now, and I'm not about to stop. You want to be fluent? You gotta get after it. You gotta start speaking to natives, make friends, never stop asking questions. I've said it before, people study languages for different reasons, that's fine. For some it's kind of fun, it's kind of neat, especially the idea of actually being fluent in 2,3 or 4 languages--how exciting, right?. You put the time into one like I have and you might reconsider that list ;). You see these lists of the first 4, then 4 more after that. That's fine, but fluency isn't going to happen there. You see people come into these forums asking for advice whether they can start studying another language or not. If you have to ask the question, you don't want it. If you want it, the question won't come up, you'll keep after it until you've got it. Fluency is easy to define, either you have it or you don't, and we all know where we stand. If we don't have it yet and it's something that we truly want, we know to stay the course and not get distracted by another language. This kind of intense study isn't for everyone, but then not everyone really wants to make themselves fluent either. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5587 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 14 of 38 18 February 2010 at 2:27am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I know but I want to know them to a very high fluency. To the point where I can switch in and out of them without any hesitation. I'd rather know a few languages to very high fluency than a lot and not be so good :/ P.S. Iversen is great! Definitely a motivator for me. He's very very talented, and I couldn't be more impressed with his English skill. He knows words that even I might have to look up :( hahaha I don't care what ANYONE says, all the members here are very intelligent. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5432 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 15 of 38 18 February 2010 at 3:33am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Although many people in this forum are obsessed with the number of languages they or others speak, my
concern is rather with the quality of fluency in a given language. Despite all the vagueness inherent in the term, there is a very practical matter of language tests and evaluation. Although fluency does not seem to be an important term in the scientific literature, we must be aware that language schools all over the world use placement tests (some combination of written test plus oral assessment) to determine the appropriate class level. Also let us not forget that in many jurisdictions such as Canada where I live certain jobs and professions require specific levels of language skills. And of course there is the whole world of certifications and official tests for the major Western languages. In this regard, I think it's interesting to remind people of the existence of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) for languages that distinguishes six levels of proficiency for Listening, Reading, Spoken Interaction, Spoken Production and Writing. The levels are, from lowest to highest, A1,A2, B1,B2,C1,C2. The Canadian federal civil service uses a similar nomenclature simplified to A,B and C. The CEFR specifies in detail the meaning of these levels. As we grapple here with the definition of fluency, let me just copy the two extreme definitions for Spoken Interaction. A1: I can interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help me formulate what I'm trying to say. I can ask and answer simple questions in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics. C2: I can take part effortlessly in any conversation or discussion and have a good familiarity with idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms. I can express myself fluently and convey finer shades of meaning precisely. If I do have a problem I can backtrack and restructure around the difficulty so smoothly that other people are hardly aware of it. The other levels, of course, are in between. The full set of definitions can be found at: http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/LanguageSelfAssessmentGrid /en This is very serious stuff. When we are jabbering away here about being fluent in many languages, what are we talking about? Let's say it's more than A1, but does it have to be C2? Frankly, I'd be very impressed by any individual who could demonstrate a C2 level in four languages, let alone 10 languages. But I won't say it is impossible. For me the issue is not the number of languages but more how to get to a certain level, let's say a B2, from a lower level in the most efficient manner. That's the real issue in this thread. Edited by s_allard on 18 February 2010 at 4:45am 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7167 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 16 of 38 18 February 2010 at 5:19am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I agree with those posters who say that fluency means very different things to different people. I personally reserve "fluent" for indicating a very, very high facility with the language, simply because there aren't many possible adjectival substitutes in English. (I have also never personally met or interacted with someone I would deem "fluent"--by my standards--who had been learning the language for less than eight years, but that is of course subjective.) Other than that, I favor "proficient," especially if the person can then clarify in which areas he or she is proficient.
That said, I do like the idea of being "comfortable" in a language, as I think it indicates a meaningful psychological relationship to the language without any implications about objective language ability. For instance, I can say without hesitation that I am comfortable with German: I am at ease when speaking it; when I listen/read native materials, I fully expect to understand them; and I don't freak out if I miss a word or phrase (which is the same thing that I do with English). In other words, I have a psychological sense of "ownership" or "belonging" to the language. This does not mean that I am fluent by my standards (yet). It also allows for those people who claim to be "fluent in Spanish after 5 months." Well, maybe you're not fluent by my standards, but you definitely appear to be comfortable, and I very much respect that. Many language learners would do well to obtain this ease of just "being" in the language, of fully believing in their right to use it to interact with native speakers and understand new things about the world (i.e. Wikipedia articles, etc.). Anyhow, the best listing of fluency levels I have seen to date was actually created by a member here, mick33. You can find it here: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=18662&PN=1. (Or just look at his log: "Mick's 2010 TAC Multilingualism is Bliss! 1st page). By his scale, I'm a "high intermediate." In terms of getting from a lower level to say B2, I don't think the most efficient method will surprise anyone: You have to apply consistent pressure by exposing yourself to a LOT of the language (look at Hypersport's post; s/he knows whence s/he speaks.) Hours upon hours every day, whether it be reading or listening. And, trickily enough, to be efficient, you have to take care to select it the way Krashen explains: n + 1. Most of it is understandable, but perhaps there's a good 20% that you need to stretch to grasp. If everything is a blur, you'll get frustrated and give up. If it's all clear, you don't learn anything. There has to be just enough of the unknown to arrest your attention so that you learn it. Of course, finding this sort of precisely calibrated material is half the battle: For Anglophones, not difficult for Spanish or French, but nigh on impossible for Swahili or Urdu. Edited by Sprachjunge on 18 February 2010 at 5:24am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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