{"id":4648,"date":"2015-11-20T16:05:22","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T16:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=4648"},"modified":"2015-11-20T16:05:22","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T16:05:22","slug":"how-do-you-know-when-youre-fluent-in-another-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/how-do-you-know-when-youre-fluent-in-another-language\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you know when you’re fluent in another language?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, in a moment of idle curiosity, I took an online Spanish test. And it went rather well; when I finished, I was told that I was 87% fluent.<\/p>\n

This is very funny, because – to my shame – I haven\u2019t spoken Spanish properly for years. And although the test proved that\u00a0everything I learnt at school and university is\u00a0still there in my head, I know the next time I do try and have a conversation, I\u2019ll struggle initially to remember the right words and how to construct sentences correctly. And there’ll definitely\u00a0be a lot of ‘um’ and ‘er’.<\/p>\n

\"What<\/a><\/p>\n

Defining yourself as ‘fluent’ or ‘not’ seems like a simple enough task. Personally, I\u2019d define fluency as the moment you\u2019re able to have a conversation in another language without hesitation, just as you would in your own native language.<\/p>\n

But is that setting too high a standard for myself? Surely what I\u2019ve just described is one step on \u2013 what we would call native level?<\/p>\n

So, I asked a few other EuroTalkers how they define fluency. A couple of\u00a0responses were\u00a0very much like mine:<\/p>\n

“When you’re able to have a conversation (spoken or written) without making mistakes, without having to pause to think about words and grammar and without referring to a dictionary or other \u2018cheat-sheets\u2019. Be able to use the more complex features of a language with ease (e.g. conditionals, obscure tenses).”<\/em><\/p>\n

“Speaking another language without having to think about it.”<\/em><\/p>\n

While a couple were willing to be\u00a0a bit more flexible:<\/p>\n

“When you have enough of the language to get through a visit to the country, you can understand a local and they can understand you back when you speak their language.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“I think minor mistakes are permitted as long as the other one understands you.”<\/em><\/p>\n

And another one came at the question from an angle I\u2019d never considered:<\/p>\n

“You’re able to have any conversation about general knowledge, not specific fields like medicine, for example.”<\/em><\/p>\n

But there was one thing all the answers seemed to have in common: the key to fluency is confidence<\/strong>, whether you know all the words or not.\u00a0And that’s why I can’t think of myself as 87% fluent in Spanish; yes, I understand how the subjunctive works, and perhaps I’d even\u00a0say that I can read the language fluently – but that doesn’t mean I can confidently have a conversation with someone about the weather.<\/p>\n

What do you think ‘fluent’ means? Are you fluent in any other languages?<\/p>\n

Liz<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, in a moment of idle curiosity, I took an online Spanish test. And it went rather well; when I finished, I was told that I was 87% fluent. This is very funny, because – to my shame – I haven\u2019t spoken Spanish properly for years. And although the test proved that\u00a0everything I … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,9],"tags":[525,626,1355,81,2,224,8,896],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}