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Level of fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5784 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 25 of 34 07 November 2009 at 4:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think there's much point in universally defining the term "fluent", but for me it holds a useful purpose as a goal in my learning. I view "fluency" as that point where I can use the language without thinking about it consciously, and have a good conversation with someone about any topic that doesn't require special education. Also, my accent should be good enough that I don't have to repeat my words in order for native speakers to understand them.
When I try to apply these standards to some of the people I know, I think it fits quite well with my opinion of "who needs to study more" vs. "who is good enough". For instance, I have two coworkers who are clearly not native speakers of English, but I would classify them as "fluent" as defined above. I never have to ask them to repeat their words, and they talk naturally without stopping, so it seems like they do it effortlessly. Sure, they make mistakes, and they don't have a perfect accent, and there are some special topics that cause difficulties, but I can still easily classify their English as "good enough" in my eyes. I have two other coworkers, however, who have trouble getting understood. They can talk about a lot of topics, sure, but people often have to ask them to say some words multiple times because they just can't understand what word it was. Also, their grammar is noticeably weird, so I sometimes have to think about it a bit in order to get their meaning. For these two people, I would not call them "fluent" as I defined it, because I (as a native speaker) have to put in so much extra effort in order to get what they're saying, and because it seems difficult for them to formulate things in the language. Although they still manage to communicate quite well about many things, I would classify their skills as "needs more work", and therefore as not yet fluent. In this sense, I see "fluency" as a worthwhile goal for myself. I want people to be able to understand everything I say without them putting in a lot of extra effort to figure out what I said. I want to effortlessly speak the language, and I want other people to effortlessly understand what I just said. Maybe I won't be perfect in all ways, and maybe I won't understand all sorts of obscure cultural references that they say, but all the stuff that I say will be clear, fluid, and easy to understand. Becoming fluent is still a challenging and useful thing with this definition, but is clearly far below the level of a native speaker (linguistically and culturally). Right now, I understand almost everything I read in German, but my speaking ability would not pass this test, so I wouldn't call myself "fluent" 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gray Parrot Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5394 days ago 41 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Portuguese | Message 26 of 34 09 November 2009 at 2:46am | IP Logged | |||||
Of course some people are more articulate than others. Anybody who meets a wide variety of people will notice this. In writing the differences between people become even clearer. The problem is not so much speaking, but practice in thinking clearly. Edited by Gray Parrot on 09 November 2009 at 2:48am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| FrenchSilkPie Senior Member United States Joined 6415 days ago 125 posts - 130 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 27 of 34 09 November 2009 at 3:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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I would say I am fluent in another language when it is at the same level as my native language or pretty darn close.
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| 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 28 of 34 09 November 2009 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
You're right. It's not the mechanics (like declension, conjugation) of a language that cause problems. I guess it's not the domain of 'speaking' as understood on this forum. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MorticiaMunster Newbie Canada Joined 5335 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Slovak, Hungarian, Welsh | Message 29 of 34 09 November 2009 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think of fluency as being able to express anything I need to express, whether verbally or in written form, to the same degree as the AVERAGE native speaker of that language. Like, if I have a thought and I want to say it, I should be able to just say it, and be understood, in that language.
It's the same way with understanding other speakers and other written material in that language. Unless it's a specialised subject, then I figure I should be able to just read it and understand it, period. If there's something I don't understand or can't say, I figure I'm still fluent if it's something that a native speaker also might have troubles with. So fluency to me is just expressing myself in that language and understanding others in that language to the same degree and ease that an average native speaker of that language would. Edited by MorticiaMunster on 09 November 2009 at 10:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chris G77 Newbie United States Joined 5802 days ago 28 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 30 of 34 10 November 2009 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Fluent to me means I don't need to exert extra energy to express myself and the listener doesn't need to exert extra energy to understand what I'm saying. Native-like accent has nothing to do with fluency as long as you dont have to repeat yourself 10 times to be understood. I know lots of people with fairly thick accents who clearly are thinking and communicating perfectly well in English, despite having learnied it in adulthood. To me they are fluent in English.
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| Millinium Newbie United States Joined 5546 days ago 2 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 31 of 34 14 November 2009 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A lot of the definitions here seem mildly elitist to me. Or maybe it's because I've
never really thought of fluency in terms of how educated you sound. There's a difference in my mind between "educated" and "fluent." now if you want to sound educated AND fluent in your target language go ahead, but i think they should be defined separately. I actually might not consider the original poster fluent even though he writes very well. I may actually consider a native speaker who writes in slang and whose grammar is terrible as more "fluent" than him because of the way I see fluency.
The above quote is close to my idea of fluency which is: 1. Not having to be consciously aware of what you are saying (THIS IS THE BIGGIE) Fluent, fluency.... FLUID (definition): Flowing, with ease, easily changed or adapted 2. Accent is perfect (though this one is not 100% necessary) 3. Being able to understand most dialects/accents of the language pretty effortlessly even though you can't speak it yourself. Like English people with southern accents, Caribbean accents, English and Australian accents, etc. 4. Being able to absorb slang into your speech easily while understanding what it is grammatically that makes them slang instinctively. Like understanding what's wrong with "what's up" rather than just memorizing it as a phrase as people learning a foreign language often do.
I currently volunteer in a health care facility with a lot of mentally challenged people. I also live in a relatively iner city area and come in contact with all types of people. I have NEVER encountered someone who I would not consider fluent (by my definition) in their native language unless they were severly mentally challenged. How are they living if they can't "speak coherently"? How do they function in the world? how do they talk to their children, their lovers, their parents? How do they buy things? I think you are just having trouble understanding dialects. Or maybe you are talking about people who speak with a lot of slang (like black slang for example). That is irrelevant as they can still be understood by people who understand their dialect, and they can understand people who speak in other ways/dialects. Just because YOU don't understand it doesn't mean they are not fluent (according to my definition). I'm sure the people they care about understand them just fine. And not knowing certain words doesn't have anything to do with my definition of fluency so that is irrelevant. That's about education. Edited by Millinium on 14 November 2009 at 7:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6692 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 32 of 34 14 November 2009 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
The meaning of "fluency" has been debated here a number of times before, but I think the above is probably the best common-sense definition I have come across so far. I totally second that one. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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