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Level of fluency | ||
Tags: Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5940 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 17 of 34 05 November 2009 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Is this word "defibrillator" a good example, though? English is my native language and I certainly have absolutely no idea what it is, and the "description" of it didn't help either.
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| bryan90 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5459 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 18 of 34 05 November 2009 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
Whoa. For somebody accusing somebody of being insulting, you don't see how your statement might also be construed as insulting? Anyway, guys, cool down, haha, this is just a forum, nobody is trying to attack anybody. My point was that there aren't any people who can't speak their native language, except in extraordinary circumstances (i.e. significant mental OR physical problems). Kubelek made it seem like people who aren't educated may not be able to speak well, when in reality there is absolutely zero correlation between education and speaking well--and I'm only talking about native languages here (and yeah I realize that there is a non-intrinsic correlation based on less educated people having more medical problems, but that's not the point). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6650 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 19 of 34 05 November 2009 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
Let's review :)
Our discussion proves that 'fluent' is a difficult word to define. Native speakers should be fluent by default - they live in the language. Yet many of them are not articulate - i.e. are not able to express their thoughts and wishes in a coherent, organised manner, using appropriate vocabulary. Our generic native speaker may be fluent - may get his point across on many topics but with a lot of circumlocution or gesticulation.
Educated native speakers normally have this skill, so I think there is a correlation. Nevertheless, I agree with you and admit that in my first post here I should have said "let's measure our progress in foreign languages against articulate native speakers" and not 'educated native speakers". Bryan, you understood my 'can't speak coherently' as 'can't speak'. There is a big difference. I think that's why a heated discussion started. Edited by Kubelek on 05 November 2009 at 8:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5707 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 20 of 34 05 November 2009 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Some of the things that might be taken into consideration when considering the fluency level of a non-native are really just to do with exposure, I think.
Ellasevia has brought up a good point - as just one example of many you could choose, would every native speaker know what a defibrillator is? No. Many people will understand it without needing to think it over at all. Others will know it as, like Sprachjunge said, "You know, man, that thing, when, uh, yeah, you pump it, like on the shows, "clear!"" and when you ask them, "defibrillator?" they reply "yeah, that's right". Others will never have come across it, so they won't know what it is. (FYI, it's a machine used to shock a person's heart back into normal rhythm. Some people over here call it a heart starter, but it's actually not a heart starter at all, it's more like a heart stopper - it knocks out abnormal electrical activity in the heart to allow the heart to 'reset' and hopefully start up again normally.) It happens - of course, by any standard they're still native speakers. But if they were non-native, some people would use things like that - look for them, even - as a way to establish inferiority. Non-native speakers have a much higher standard to live up to, imo. There is always going to be some area that you can find where you can say "a-ha! see, you would know that if you were a native speaker". There are many things that native speakers understand better because of their shared cultural background - as one example, I will never understand baseball references, because baseball basically doesn't exist here (nor do I care to read up on the subject - blasphemy, I know), so I rarely know what they're referring to. But not all native speakers will share all parts of that cultural background - my parents still crack jokes about TV shows that were funny decades ago that I have only seen snippets of, I can understand the references because they've been using them since I was little and I get why they're funny and I may have seen those parts, but kids growing up these days who haven't had any exposure to those things will not be able to understand those parts of speech. So to what degree can cultural knowledge play a role, when the level that people have is so immensely variable? Can you be fluent without these things? Many people would say no, and I might be inclined to argue that side, but there's really nowhere you can draw the line. But native speakers can always get away with it. In a perfect world you could distinguish between cultural fluency and linguistic fluency, but they're too closely connected to really separate them in any meaningful way. I guess for me the definition of fluency would involve being able to do everything I can do in my native language, as comfortably as in my native language, with about the same level of general knowledge as an adult with a decent general education. But there will always be gaps, so maybe natives and non-native speakers will always be separate species, who knows... Liz 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6650 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 21 of 34 05 November 2009 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Good post! I think I will adopt a definition of fluency similar to yours - a competence in a foreign language equal to my own in my native language, adapted to my needs and interests, with a similar cultural understanding as my own. Is it achievable in several foreign languges? Debatable.
Our site's description of basic fluency states as follows: can hold regular conversations about any topic. I can't converse on 'any topic'. I can't do that even in Polish. I can converse on topics that are relevant to me and the ones I have interest in, and I don't loose sleep over gaps in specialised vocabulary outside of my field - chances are, just like with the aforementioned defibrillator, that native speakers don't know it either. I'm still surprised that nobody here ever deals with compatriots who have a hard time explaining what they want from you. I don't believe that other countries are populated only by articulate people. Edited by Kubelek on 05 November 2009 at 10:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5707 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 22 of 34 05 November 2009 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Agreed - I wouldn't meet the 'any topic' standard in my native language either. (Intermediate, yay!) Nor do I particularly care too. But I definitely want to be able to discuss my own chosen career field in as much detail in Italian as I can in Norwegian, in fact I'll only really be able to call myself fluent when I'm at that stage of understanding and comfort. It only makes sense to tailor our new languages to the needs we have and the way we function in our native language. (I mean that in terms of picking up specialised vocabulary, not as in using L1 as a template for L2 learning or translating idioms or thinking in L1 while speaking L2. That would be an altogether bad thing.) It's not like we're creating a new persona that knows everything. I care as much about the things that interest me in Italian as I do in Norwegian, and my disinterest in other topics also follows me, whatever language I happen to be expressing myself in. So if I ever end up in a conversation in English or Italian or whatever other language and I find I don't know the specialised vocabulary in any language, that's ok. Nobody can be articulate and well-educated about everything, so we will inevitably have gaps in our native language too. Edited by Lizzern on 05 November 2009 at 11:02pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5365 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 23 of 34 07 November 2009 at 1:51am | IP Logged | |||||
Surely you've seen on TV the doctors with that machine that has the paddles. The doctor rubs the paddles together, yells "CLEAR!" and puts them on the patient's chest, shocking him/her. That's a defibrillator.  Edited by Levi on 07 November 2009 at 2:04am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 24 of 34 07 November 2009 at 3:58am | IP Logged | |||||
Awesome post. I love the definition of fluency stated a couple of posts above as well. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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