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What does it really mean to be fluent in a language?


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It feels like being fluent in a language is thrown around too loosely these days.Seems like everyone is now fluent in everything. So what does it really mean to be fluent? I can write and speak some Russian and I hardly even consider myself fluent in English even though I come across it every day. I understand that there are some geniuses around us, but I just cant wrap my head around how can there be so many people that claim to be fluent in 4 and more languages. There is just so much to learn and most of it cant be found in books.




And what do you guys think about those ads about being fluent in month or even less? Pure BS imo.


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I would define it as being able to communicate without the language being the main impeding factor in everyday situations. As to being fluent in multiple languages, it's not a matter of being a genius. Languages are easy to learn when one is a child -- somebody raised bilingual or trilingual will stay that way. Many countries more or less require fluency in a foreign language as part of one's education. Also, if you are well and truly forced to speak a language because nobody around you understands anything else, you will learn it -- it's just that such situations are rare. Finally, many languages are related so the more you know, the easier it is to learn.


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If you speak a language fluently, you can speak without halting or having to look a word up for every other sentence. I can speak French and German to a certain degree, and while I can hold a conversation about a simple topic relatively well, I don't claim to be fluent in either (though this is my goal).

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Pretty sure that Flipster can speak at least English and Polish without looking up a word every other sentence. Translating legal documents is not quite the same as speaking. When I've conversed with her in person, never once did I think anything but this is a fluent speaker of English.

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you're too kind, Bronn ;)



I do forget words all the time, though, in all languages I speak. If it wasn't for the fact that my mum had the same problem since I was little, I'd be a little worried :)



eta: and I mean like forgetting the word for "fridge" in Polish. Simple stuff like that. I suppose "forgetting" is a wrong choice of word. "having to search for" is more accurate.


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I had a colleague at a recent job who was a 2nd generation immigrant from Mexico. While he was quite conversational in Spanish (and fluent in English of course), he would sometimes struggle with nouns in Spanish. He was to accustomed to Spanglish, where he'd use English nouns in otherwise Spanish sentences - especially for modern devices, but sometimes even things like certain vegetables.

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Fluency to me means you can speak, read and write in a particular language.

I'm fluent in English. As a Puerto Rican, I grew up speaking Spanish at home. But I consider myself fluent in Spanish because I can also read it and write it. I know plenty of fellow Puerto Ricans who can speak Spanish, sometimes bad, but can't read and write it. I wouldn't consider them fully fluent.

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I would not say that fluency requires reading and writing. An illiterate person is still fluent in their native language.

Fair enough. My standards are a little higher. But of course, not the definitive word.

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I would also say that fluency is not a permanent state. At one point in my life, I would have considered myself fluent in Spanish. But you go a few years without speaking it, and suddenly it isn't as easy as it used to be. I'd probably place myself near the conversant level now. I recently went to Guatemala and was able to get by speaking Spanish, but there was a definite language barrier.


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If you speak a language fluently, you can speak without halting or having to look a word up for every other sentence.

I disagree. My command of English is very high and I can fluently speak it in any situation, however, whenever I am on a computer, I would always look up words. It's not because I don't know enough words, it's because I want to know more words and always use the best word possible. I sometimes spend several minutes on Thesaurus until I find the most appropriate word to impress a certain context to the reader.

I am of the opinion that this habit of mine has helped me maintain and even improve over time, despite being surrounded by non-English speakers in my daily life.

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Being fluent in a language means for me, that you are able to think in it as if you were thinking in your native language.


This translates into: You are not only able to say everything you want to. You experience a serious shift in your world view and even in your personality because you are so fluent in this language that you cut the ties to your native self. You don´t just translate what you would have said in your own language. You think in ways you would never do in your native language. You have established emotional ties to the new language.


Perhaps you´re still weak on the grammar part or go for some weird wording choices.


But guess what? There are natives having problems in these areas, too.


I often cringe at the wording choices of my partner in his native language.


And he´s obviously fluent in it.


Everyone who made the experience that a language truly shapes your world view, how you think and your character is fluent.


(At least in my opinion.)

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There are degrees of fluency, I'd say. For me fluent means that someone can converse in the language about everyday topics, will not have to "search" for words frequently, will speak grammatically correct most of the time and will not have an accent so strong that natives have a hard time understanding him. (Technically one can probably speak fluently despite a strong accent or with some very odd grammar.) It does not mean just being able to buy a loaf of bread or haltingly read a prepared speech. But neither does it imply the level of proficiency a college-educated native speaker would show.



English is a rather special case because it has a huge vocabulary, is spoken by more people as a second language than native speakers, and even the native speakers have a widely varying command of the language. So there will be many people with all kinds of odd combinations of strengths and faults: Fluent speakers with large vocab and a strong foreign accent, native speakers with faulty grammar and spelling problems, illiterate second language speakers of English as lingua franca in India or parts of Africa etc.



I am fluent in English but have a distinct accent and will never be taken for a native speaker. At my best times (after having lived almost one year in the US) people would maybe not be sure whether the accent was German or Scandinavian. My sister has a master's degree in English and has been occasionally mistaken for a native, I think, but my vocab is probably broader than hers.



In any case there are probably some tests or certificates for profiency levels. The only one I had to take 20 years ago (TOEFL, it has apparently been redesigned since then) was in parts not easy (vocab, synonyms) but mainly tested "passive" understanding. One could be quite good at that test and still speak terrible English.

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Being fluent in a language means for me, that you are able to think in it as if you were thinking in your native language.

This translates into: You are not only able to say everything you want to. You experience a serious shift in your world view and even in your personality because you are so fluent in this language that you cut the ties to your native self. You don´t just translate what you would have said in your own language. You think in ways you would never do in your native language. You have established emotional ties to the new language.

Perhaps you´re still weak on the grammar part or go for some weird wording choices.

But guess what? There are natives having problems in these areas, too.

I often cringe at the wording choices of my partner in his native language.

And he´s obviously fluent in it.

Everyone who made the experience that a language truly shapes your world view, how you think and your character is fluent.

(At least in my opinion.)

I agree that the ability to think in a language without translating to and from another language determines fluency. And I do agree that fluency can cause one to look at things in different ways, but I don't agree that one cuts ones ties to their native language, to me that implies the native language being replaced rather than bi/tri/multilingualism.

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There are degrees of fluency, I'd say. For me fluent means that someone can converse in the language about everyday topics, will not have to "search" for words frequently, will speak grammatically correct most of the time and will not have an accent so strong that natives have a hard time understanding him. (Technically one can probably speak fluently despite a strong accent or with some very odd grammar.)

Hmmm. Now to decide if most Scots are native speakers of English.... :p

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