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B2 Passive \ B1 Speaking - Basic Fluency? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6701 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 21 07 November 2013 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
We don't all restrict the notion of fluency to speaking and interacting - that's just the normal yardstick, and this is corroborated by a convention most of us adhere to, namely that we base our self assessments on our least impressive skills - which often happens to be speaking. But never mind how the notion normally is used: it is just as useful when judging your other skills. For instance I claim that I can read Low German fluently, but I'm certainly not a fluent speaker or writer in this language or dialect or whatever it is. For me fluency is simply a skill that can be applied fluently, i.e. without a lot of stops detours and and ahem's and dictionary lookups - and thanks mainly to s_allard I have also adopted the distinction between fluency and correctness, even though the distinction often is blurred in discussions outside this forum. Edited by Iversen on 07 November 2013 at 1:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 10 of 21 07 November 2013 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I enter this debate with great trepidation, but since my name was mentioned in passing, I'll just make a brief
comment. And I don't want to start a fight over this. I have said many times that we tend to use fluency when what we really mean is proficiency, The only reason I bring this up is that in the world of linguistics and second language learning, oral fluency or speaking fluency refers specifically to the ability to produce flowing speech with relatively few hesitations. In this technical sense, Fluency does not imply grammatical correctness or good vocabulary. Those are different concepts. Fluency can be measured very precisely in terms of pauses or hesitations per minute or syllables. Speaking proficiency is an overall evaluation that includes phonological accuracy, oral fluency, grammatical accuracy, vocabulary size and interaction skills. This is pretty much how the CEFR sees it and does not confuse proficiency with fluency. I don't want to say that popular usage of fluency as a general term is incorrect. Many dictionaries include the popular definition. It's just that when we want to debate issues of language performance, it's nice to have technical terms with some relatively clear meanings. The concept of basic fluency boggles my mind. Basic proficiency just seems so more better. That said, I shall refrain from arguing the issue for the umpteenth time. Good luck to all Edited by s_allard on 07 November 2013 at 4:46pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 11 of 21 08 November 2013 at 12:11am | IP Logged | |||||
Anyway, the real question is: what is the bottom line for claiming to speak a language here on HTLAL? is it different for speaking and understanding? I personally don't think it's okay to claim This That Shall Not Be Named if your understanding is only at B1. But your speaking can be at B1, especially since this isn't a language-specific forum and it's oriented mostly at independent learners. Many are learning on their own and without immersion (other than the AJATT kind), and it's common to study more than two-three languages. But if I ever started a forum for Russians learning Slavic languages* (for example), the "speaking" requirement would be B2. *it should be pointed out that while many Russians have an interest in a related language (mostly for travel reasons), very few want to learn more than one of them. it's different from the Romance languages where it's common for people from anywhere to have an interest in both French and Spanish. Edited by Serpent on 08 November 2013 at 12:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 12 of 21 08 November 2013 at 12:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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To me, fluency means the ability to speak confidently in native company about a wide range of topics. You
should have a substantial vocabulary (some gaps are allowed). Grammar should be mostly correct, but no need to be anal about it. Accent should be comprehensible, not necessarily pitch perfect. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| LeadZeppelin Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5019 days ago 59 posts - 85 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 21 08 November 2013 at 5:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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Are you guys trying to define the word based on its usage in this forum, or how everyday people use it in the real
world? Because those are two very different things. I'm reminded of the difference in how scientists use the term "theory" and the wild difference in how laypeople use it. I feel like most of you are trying to define the term based on how polyglots would use it. I hope so at least. If not, it's so weird seeing a non-native English speaker insisting that his definition of an English word is more correct than a native English speaker's. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 14 of 21 08 November 2013 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
The concept of being fluent is not unique to the English language, so allow me to have an opinion on this, whether I'm a native speaker or not. Other than that, I'm really not interested in debating the definition of the f word, because I can live with its standard definition very well. I don't see how that makes me a lesser polyglot, but maybe I'm just not fanatic enough about languages to see this point. Of course, you can try to measure all your single abilities, but to me being fluent simply means being able to speak and interact naturally or, in s_allard's words, having overall proficiency in a language. This can be expressed more exactly by using the CEFR levels, but it doesn't have to. Being able to interact efficiently means you have to be able to understand as well as to speak, so scenarios like the guy who finished Pimsleur and can recite memorized phrases but understand nothing can't be counted as being fluent. However, if you're able to hold a conversation, understand what the other person says, and answer without hesitation and major errors, you can doubtlessly be called fluent in a language. In terms of CEFR levels, that would be somewhere between B1 and B2, I think. So, yes, the OP probably has reached the stage of "basic fluency" although at a low level. I don't think things have to be more complicated than that. Edited by Josquin on 08 November 2013 at 1:13pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 15 of 21 08 November 2013 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Allow me to pose the meta-question: why do so many of us obsess over this question of
how to define a word that cannot be defined and is defining a near-meaningless concept in the first place? I confess that I have spent an unhealthy amount of time worrying about this question myself, like many other people here, and I think I have some idea why, finally. 1) A desire to have an objective measure where I can finally say "yes! I have proven that I can learn a foreign language on my own! I'm a successful learner now!" When I first came to HTLAL, I had been studying many languages for years with little to show for it, and the language I supposedly knew, German, was languishing terribly. Being able to confidently stand behind my claim of "Basic Fluency" for German was a huge psychological boost that gave me the confidence to pursue other languages. Leading to my next observation... 2) This seems to matter more to people with broad TL interests, as opposed to a practical need to learn just one specific language. The latter group tend to have built-in answers to point 1), such as getting into the desired University, getting the desired job, or surviving in an immersion environment. But furthermore, if you want to first "learn Spanish," and "then, learn German," how do you know when you're "done?" Of course you're never "done," but these decisions have to be made, and we want to have goals and targets in sight that we can reach in a reasonable amount of time. Hence this desire to impose a rigid and arbitrary set of benchmarks on our language learning. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 16 of 21 08 November 2013 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful |
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