B2 Passive \ B1 Speaking - Basic Fluency?
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Forum Name: General discussion
Forum Discription: Discussion about language learning for people who study languages on their own.
URL: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=37258
Printed Date: 18 August 2021 at 10:05am
Posted By: DaraghM
Subject: B2 Passive \ B1 Speaking - Basic Fluency?
Date Posted: 07 November 2013 at 11:39am
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With regards to this forum’s categories, do you think a passive ability at B2 or even C1, but a speaking ability around B1, is Basic Fluency ? I’m just basing this on some of the self assessments in the Dead Honest Language CV thread. Personally, I think it is, but I’m wondering other peoples opinion. We previously agreed B2 was Basic Fluency, but we never made the active\passive divide.
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Replies:
Please, not another debate on what is "fluency"!
You are fluent in a language when you can speak it fluently. This may or may not coincide with a certain CEFR level or the insane definition of "basic fluency" as proposed by our forum admin.
I really see no point in reactivating this debate every two months.
Josquin on 07 November 2013
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More or less, yes. At least in terms of exams, a B2 involving presentations or debates is overkill when we're speaking of basic fluency.
Josquin, nobody is forcing you to reply, especially if you don't like the forum's categories.
And no, you can't say you're fluent in language X just because you speak it with fluency. And if you say you speak fluently it's better to clarify.
Serpent on 07 November 2013
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If you speak it fluently, I think it's safe to say you're fluent - most people have
speaking as one of their weaker skills, not one of their better ones, unless their
listening and speaking are very skewed towards speaking being much better(it happens but
it's rare). The opposite is much more common.
For what it's worth I think that would be roundabout where fluency starts.
tarvos on 07 November 2013
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Serpent wrote:
Josquin, nobody is forcing you to reply, especially if you don't like the forum's categories.
And no, you can't say you're fluent in language X just because you speak it with fluency. And if you say you speak fluently it's better to clarify. |
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I hope I'm entitled to my own opinion whether it conforms to the forum's categories or not. And if so, I hope I'm also entitled to utter this opinion.
Furthermore, if the term "fluency" is not derived from speaking a language fluently, where does it come from? I'm not a fan of overcomplicating matters, so why not say it clearly if you can? I don't see any need for saying "I'm A2 at speaking, but I can read at B2 level" when talking about fluency. Fluency is per definitionem the ability to speak and interact, so let's keep things simple.
Josquin on 07 November 2013
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Speaking fluently is not the same as speaking well. Someone who completes Pimsleur will speak with fluency and have a good pronunciation, but their vocabulary will be very limited and grammar even more so.
Serpent on 07 November 2013
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Serpent wrote:
Speaking fluently is not the same as speaking well. Someone who
completes Pimsleur will speak with fluency and have a good pronunciation, but their
vocabulary will be very limited and grammar even more so. |
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If someone has vocabulary holes the size of planets that will eventually show.
tarvos on 07 November 2013
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Serpent wrote:
| Speaking fluently is not the same as speaking well. Someone who completes Pimsleur will speak with fluency and have a good pronunciation, but their vocabulary will be very limited and grammar even more so. |
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You're deliberately misinterpreting the term "fluent". How can someone with a limited vocabulary speak fluently? I was not talking about reciting memorized phrases, but being able to hold a natural conversation.
Josquin on 07 November 2013
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Josquin wrote:
| Fluency is per definitionem the ability to speak and interact, so let's keep things simple. |
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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.
Iversen on 07 November 2013
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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
s_allard on 07 November 2013
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Josquin wrote:
Serpent wrote:
| Speaking fluently is not the same as speaking well. Someone who completes Pimsleur will speak with fluency and have a good pronunciation, but their vocabulary will be very limited and grammar even more so. |
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You're deliberately misinterpreting the term "fluent". How can someone with a limited vocabulary speak fluently? I was not talking about reciting memorized phrases, but being able to hold a natural conversation. |
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To me fluency refers either to the overall level or to the fluidity and ease of speech. A beginner can have fluency within the limits of their vocab and grammar.
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.
Serpent on 08 November 2013
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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.
beano on 08 November 2013
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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.
LeadZeppelin on 08 November 2013
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LeadZeppelin wrote:
| 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. |
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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.
Josquin on 08 November 2013
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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.
geoffw on 08 November 2013
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Josquin wrote:
| 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. |
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Hm to me fluency has nothing to do with the quality of your interactions. Also it's very much possible to be a beginner and produce fluent speech within your limits, it's not always about memorized phrases.
Serpent on 08 November 2013
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Josquin wrote:
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. |
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Obviously this concept exists in other languages. But that doesn't mean it has the same nuances and specific words
have exact 1 to 1 mappings. We're talking about the English word here, so to insist that your connotation is correct
over a native English speaker's seems preposterous to me. If you're talking about its usage in little sub-communities
like HTLAL, then your opinion has a ton of weight. If you're talking about what the word "fluency" means in everyday
anglophone communities, I just can't imagine why a non-native would insist that he or she has a better handle on it
than a native.
Then again, maybe the TC really is looking for a HTLAL-specific definition of the word. In that case, re-hash this
pointless debate as much as you want!
LeadZeppelin on 09 November 2013
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Of course it's about HTLAL. It says BASIC fluency, not just fluency. I've never heard of basic fluency outside this forum. Seriously is anyone going to reply on topic? Would you claim to "speak" a language (HERE) with B1 speaking/B2 comprehension? Does it bother you if others do?
As for natives/non-natives, I don't think anyone is claiming they know better how native speakers use it. But fluent non-natives involved in the relevant area (second language acquisition) should be allowed to have their say in terms of prescriptiveness.
Serpent on 09 November 2013
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Serpent is right. I’m talking about the specific usage as it relates to this forum. When somebody labels a language as Basic Fluency it appears under the ‘speaks’ section of their posts. In the past, there was very little consistency how someone would class their own languages. This meant some people were claiming to speak a language at a much lower threshold than others. There were numerous discussions, and threads, about the definition until a consensus was reached that it equated to B2 on the CEFR scale. The CEFR scale is much tighter in its definition, and there is wealth of material available to self test. The nuance I was introducing was based on a more recent thread about people passive and active capabilities.
DaraghM on 12 November 2013
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Serpent wrote:
Of course it's about HTLAL. It says BASIC fluency, not just fluency.
I've never heard of basic fluency outside this forum. Seriously is anyone going to reply
on topic? Would you claim to "speak" a language (HERE) with B1 speaking/B2 comprehension?
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Yes. That is why I listed Romanian as speaks. It is pretty much the bottom threshold
though.
tarvos on 12 November 2013
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I have always thought that you two are a perfect match.
luke on 14 November 2013
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