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What does "basic fluency" really mean? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6889 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 57 of 106 19 September 2006 at 9:45am | IP Logged | |||||
Classic! I know fluency when I hear it, from myself and others, but I’m at a lost to define it. Fluency is a subjective definition. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Platiquemos Hexaglot Language Program Publisher Senior Member Panama platiquemos-letstalk Joined 6959 days ago 126 posts - 141 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish | Message 58 of 106 19 September 2006 at 10:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don´t want to set myself up as an "expert" because a) I´m not, and b) somebody would be certain to point out my lack of expertise.
In my opinion, "fluent" is so misused as to have almost no objective meaning. While we all know what we mean by "fluent", others may have a totally different idea of what it means. During my professional career, I spent a year on the "Board of Examiners for the Foreign Service". Part of my job was to get applicants who had self-identified as having a level of proficiency in language X tested. I don't know if it will surprise any of you that almost all of these folks, when tested, came out at least at a full level of proficiency below their self-identified proficiency. For those who are interested, details of the U.S. Government's proficiency scale (0-5) can be found at http://www.govtilr.org/ILRscale1.htm and of the (A)merican (C)ouncil on the (T)eaching of (F)oreign (L)anguages (ACTFL) proficiency scale (novice to superior) is at http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/languagelearning/OtherResourc es/ACTFLProficiencyGuidelines/contents.htm Anyone who needs a language for work, or just wants "bragging rights" should be tested and offically awarded a proficiency rating. Testing for individuals is available from http://www.languagetesting.com/acad_individual.htm Nowhere in the sites I've cited will you find "fluent"--instead you'll find very detailed descriptions of what is needed at different proficiency levels. By the way, I believe that bilingual dictionaries should have definitions at least for the conjugations of irregular verbs. The way things are with all the Spanish/English dictionaries I'm aware of, if you want the definition of fue you have to know that it's a conjugation of ir or ser--and if you know that you wouldn't be looking in the dictionary. If I say I've been tested at the 4 level in Finnish (which is true) it is a very good description of my level of proficiency--NOT fluency. Unfortunately, most people would have no idea what that meant. Edited by Platiquemos on 19 September 2006 at 10:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Charlie Newbie Korea, South geocities.com/charle Joined 6438 days ago 17 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* | Message 59 of 106 19 September 2006 at 10:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's really a moot term, isn't it? You're right, it has absolutely no meaning, because everyone uses it to mean something different. We are debating over the meaning of a meaningless word, people. The word has been destroyed. It should be abandoned and fall into disuse. I'm serious.
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| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6481 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 60 of 106 19 September 2006 at 10:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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Don - do you ever have a desire to revisit Finland, just to try out the language? On Platiquemos (the website), it states you were also proficiency-tested in Swedish, Dutch, and German. However, living in Panama, do you find opportunities to use the languages, or are they in 'hibernation'?
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6500 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 61 of 106 19 September 2006 at 11:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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Mostly to Charlie and Captain Haddock: If fluency for you only can be taken to mean the highest level of competence of speaking and writing that a non-native person can ever aspire to, then I suppose that the notion of basic fluency must be meaningless to you? To me it is not, and it denotes a level of performance that is lower than near-native or advanced fluency, but still higher than the error-ridden and stuttering speech that is used to characterize the opposite of fluency.
Well, we may not reach a conclusion, we just have to recognize two different schools of thought. By the way, I find the more detailed distinctions in the US government links in Platiquemos' post interesting, but not without minor problems. For instance I find that there is too much emphasis on the ability to read bad handwriting in the section on Writing. But good detailed descriptions of levels are always welcome. Edited by Iversen on 19 September 2006 at 11:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| AML Senior Member United States Joined 6622 days ago 323 posts - 426 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 62 of 106 19 September 2006 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
I suggest that, for the purposes of these boards, we use this scale, whereas: 1= Beginner 2= Intermediate 3= Basic Fluency 4= Advanced Fluency 5= Native Fluency 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Charlie Newbie Korea, South geocities.com/charle Joined 6438 days ago 17 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* | Message 63 of 106 19 September 2006 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
I may not have used "fluency" is a consistent fashion. I define "fluent" as "the highest level that a non-native can realistically reach." I define "fluency" as "speed." "Basic fluency," therefore, would be "able to speak at a basic rate of speed." Someone who is "fluent," though, has gone FAR beyond the level of basic fluency. I have "crappy fluency" in Korean. Just because the word "fluency" is being used to describe my Korean ability does not make me "fluent" in the least. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7002 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 64 of 106 19 September 2006 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
I will confess that I've eyed books on the GED examination as a someday target for testing my capability. Of course, there are the DELE tests as well, which will hit listening and speaking, which are critical skills. I've also thought about looking around town to see if there are any technical classes in my target language that the boss might be coaxed into paying for. I recognize that neither the GED nor a technical class with a bunch of people who may not have gone to university is at all on par with a university class, but it's a start.
I'm in total agreement. Edited by luke on 19 September 2006 at 6:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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