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Please, proficiency not fluency | ||
Tags: Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6643 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 57 of 59 18 August 2010 at 9:02pm | IP Logged |
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There are some people on Dave's ESL who have written that they "speak Korean better than 90 percent everyone else on this bulletin board." I don't feel like pulling up any old threads right now, but you'll sometimes here those kinds of things when somebody asks the question of "should I learn Korean?" and people start arguing about the usefulness of the language.
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| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6974 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 58 of 59 19 August 2010 at 7:22am | IP Logged |
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In English we can also describe someone's speech or movement as 'fluid'. So when we talk about a foreign language, we say 'he speaks fluently', and when we talk about our native language (for example, someone giving a speech), we can say 'fluidly'. This usage is listed in merriam-webster.com:
2 : characterized by or employing a smooth easy style <the ballerina's fluid movements> <fluid recitation of his lines> It's because of this, I think, that many native speakers can make the connection between 'speaking fluently' and 'speaking fluidly' (I have even heard native speakers mix up their usages before, because they're so conceptually similar). I also think that this concept of 'speaking fluidly' (i.e. without hesitation) in one's native language (which everyone understands without ambiguity) also informs the way the average native speaker defines the concept of fluency in foreign languages. I'm really interested in this, so I think I'll ask some non-language geek native speakers to see how they respond :) I agree that the term 'fluency' should be restricted to the meaning of 'speaking fluidly' (which seems to correspond to B2 level of spoken proficiency). We can usually assume a certain level of listening/reading/written proficiency that comes with the package, but it's not central to the definition. In my mind, 'proficient' is an even more useless term. My first question would be, 'how proficient?' It's like claiming to be 'educated' or 'experienced' in something. It sounds impressive, but it's too vague to be meaningful. It needs to be qualified with a degree of proficiency (e.g. B2 proficiency, intermediate proficiency) to be useful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5455 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 59 of 59 21 August 2010 at 2:02am | IP Logged |
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I'm not going to prolong the debate much longer; but, although I may give up, I won't give in. As I write this, there is a relatively new thread here called: "Can you read with the same fluency...?". The OP writes: "Read a book in your target language with the same fluency (or close) as your native language?." What the OP means here--or at least so I surmise--is the speed--let's say in words per minute--at which one can read in a given language. All the other posters seem to agree that this is what fluency means. So be it. I won't go to battle over it. But I still believe that using fluency for everything makes it difficult to speak specifically about fluidity of speech. Edited by s_allard on 21 August 2010 at 2:54am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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