Fluency In A Language - What Does That Mean Exactly?

To extend the mountain analogy, you could look at the fluency of X number of native speakers and view it as a mountain range with many peaks - as an example, you mentioned that not everyone has the same command of a formal register in their native tongue. Likewise, communicating when you’re tired, anxious or ill is tantamount to navigating the same slope in a blizzard. Gotta love metaphors :-)

I had a parent who was a bit worried that his child could not translate a message for him. It has been my experience that many students learning a new language can’t translate very well from say a native language to an L2. Why is this? Even though they are ‘fluent’ in reading, writing, speaking, and listening, they are unable to translate even the simplest of sentences.

To me being fluent in a language means being able to converse with somebody about anything in that language. I’m fluent in Spanish but didn’t realize it for a while because I thought fluent and bilingual were synonymous. I don’t speak Spanish as well as I speak English so I don’t consider myself bilingual.

For me, to be fluent in a language means to move softly from one word to the next, not to hesitate, not to use pet words or excessive fillers. We can use...mm!...ehh....I mean...etc but according to the situation we are in, or if we are in a formal or informal context. My recommendation is to check the different types of competence to be confident when speaking a language: communicative competence, strategic, sociolinguistic, intercultural, kinesic, pragmatic, discursive competence, etc. etc. Using linguistic pauses correctly, meaningful sense groups and a clear communicative intention will lead us to speak a language well and fluently. I have tried this, and it works !!!

wow, if that’s what fluency means I’m a lot closer to it in french than I thought :o

I’ve had trouble with that question for a couple of years now xD
To me, fluent is when you’re not thinking to find the words, but you’re able to talk and have a normal conversation (about the weather, hobbies, school or tv-shows) without having to stumble and go; ‘ Euh..euh..yeah..the..eh...eh...thunder.’
Or at least, for me tháts fluent. I’m Dutch and while I’m typing this, my brain just switched to English, without effort. So..I consider myself fluent in English.
Yet in German, I still leave a lot of pauses, wanting to check the words in my mind and searching for the right der/die/das to go with the sentence.

I actually had a discussion just a few minutes ago (hence the reason I searched for this) because someone kept loudly yelling that German is só easy for Dutch people that they can learn the entire language in 3 months.
Which is ofcourse, bs, since I’ve had German lessons in 4 years of school, but I’m not nearly as fluent as I’d want to be. Like being able to open a bankaccount or explain you’d want to rent a bike, without any trouble or struggle at all.

Oh hello! Just saw you speak Arabic as well. I am currently studying this language aside English/Polish translation. I am so determined to become fluent. I find it so impressive that you can speak it. Can you give any tips as in what had helped you mastering it? Any interesting TV channels?

Iwona

Not sure this thread is still alive...but I like your ‘applied linguistics’ definition of fluency (assuming it comes from your training in that domain). I am also an applied linguist, altho I prefer ‘field linguist’ having spent over 3 decades working with African language development on site in West and North Africa (bringing languages from being only spoken to being fully developed (written, documented, having a literature & mother tongue authors producing materials for literacy, etc). Applied linguistics these days is getting kind of dicey with more theoretical trending than I like to see when one says ‘applied’! That connects with fluency/proficiency (I’ll equate them unless you lead me into seeing differences...would you make any contrast between fluency and proficiency?)
found it interesting and fun to read through the replies also.
My working definition and daily quest for my own language and culture learning is that I am proficient when I am up communicating effectively and acting appropriately in the context and task at hand whatever they may be...so, as a beginning learner, I may be very proficient in greeting people, but not much more. Which is fine, for the time being. And having attained a ‘near fluent native speaker, superior level’ on a standardized assessment, can I successfully and sustainably live, work and play alongside members of my host community...if not - then toss the ‘grade’ or ‘progress’ statement and go back to the drawing board - it’s being able to do what you want to do that counts for proficiency!!

This is an interesting definition of fluency. I am concerned about this issue because I live in a country where many people speak two or more languages, but none of them “fluently.” In my definition of fluency, a literate person who is fluent should know the language well enough to ENJOY speaking, reading and writing the language. If a literate person struggles to speak or read or write the language then I would not consider them as fluent.

any piece of language learning advice you hear is at least 40% right.

What makes you say that?

I’m sure there’s a lot of advice out there that’s less than 40% right ;)

I agree wholeheartedly its not just about either fluent or not, its a matter of how fluent. Another concept I think should be included in the discourse surrounding fluency is topical fluency. A language learner can get extremely fluent in topics that they often deal with e.g. asking for directions, ordering at a restaurant, or telling people about their likes and dislikes, but when the topic of conversation switches to something they are not used to speaking about such as politics or art their ability to speak fluently screams to a half.

I often find that I am able to impress people with how quickly and smooth sounding I can speak about some topics. However when the conversation topic extends out of my range I start faltering pretty quickly.

Good video!

So true, Scott.

I guess that’s why some people who show off their abilities (YouTubers especially) tend to talk about the same topics all the time.

Fluent to me is when I can have a complete conversation with a native talking about the movie I saw yesterday in that language, being able to hold an office job that only uses the target language in e-mails, start meetings and presentations alike. It’s not sounding as authentic as a native but being able to live your life in that language without help just like a native. I can proudly say that I can do that in my native Arabic, my second language French which I learned all my life and my third language English that I started studying in high school but gained my fluency after living in the United States for more than 10 years. That is what I consider fluent. I know a lot of Spanish and I can understand a lot but I can’t go watch a movie in Spanish and follow all conversations in it. Oh and one important hung for me to say that I am fluent is being able to listen to stand up comedy and get it!!! I am hard on myself like that :-) a lot of people that don’t know half the Spanish that I know say that they can speak it.

I think you might be underestimating what it means to be “fluent” in a language. The most important criterion in my opinion is whether you are able to freely speak in that language without doing any on the fly translating. When you would like to express yourself you should be able to do so without thinking about how you would say it in your native language and then translating it on the fly, which is what most people who are not fluent in a language do.

So even if you can describe a word (for example, tail) in that foreign language, if you are not able to do so without this “on the fly” kind of translation then I would say you are not fluent, despite how many words you can describe like this.

My personal definition of fluency is being able to respond to the target language without expending effort to “decode” the statement in your head, and responding in a similar manner. I’ve been trying to reach that with my Italian, but so far it only works with simple sentences. But I’m hopeful! :)
Anyone know any good Italian news stations in the US?

This is an old thread, so I’m not sure if you are still looking, but here is an Italian news station I watch: http://tg24.sky.it/tg24/diretta.html

I’m proficient in eight languages, four of which I don’t speak AT ALL (Latin, Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew.) I speak Russian well enough to teach other languages in it, read it and touch-type in it, but have difficulty understanding spoken Russian unless it’s spoken directly to me. I’m fluent in Russian and German but would be a lousy spy because I don’t understand well (or at all) what I overhear, but only what is spoken directly to me. And yet Ukrainians sometimes tell me that I speak it better than they do, because I speak the literary Ukrainian rather than street language. (That’s flattery. I don’t speak as well as they do.)

That’s true, but even in your native may have trouble describing something especially when the term is no natural to them(I find this in English, I have to look words up in a dictionary) I perfer to think of as the being able to comunciate comfortably and naturally in the language or at least understanbly in the language part of which involves what you said. I also look at the different spheres where it used social, professional academcic Socially I feel comfortable in Spanish, but academically and professionall I would have to learn the higher order grammar and vocabulary.

fluency for me is when you know a language well enough that you can feel it
like when students ask me (in my, lets say, native language) if a messed up sentence is correct
and i need to repeat the sentence to myself with a different word order until i get it
not run to the grammar book to make sure it is ok

if i can think in that language without struggling, then i know i’m there
it’s not really about making (grammatical) mistakes or sounding like a native speaker
they make mistakes too
but mostly about the native speaker not even paying attention to the language i am using but being lost in the content of the conversation

i don’t think being able to translate is an important factor (at all)
in fact there are a few concepts i only know in some languages because i learnt/found out about them thru that language
sometimes they also simply don’t translate in that they are not used/are irrelevant in some cultures/countries
not knowing about them in another language doesn’t reflect my failure in getting fluency in that language
once you get into specialized language/jargon
how many native speakers would even know these concepts?

perfect grammar isn’t necessary, i don’t think
and though a rich vocabulary would be desirable
i don’t think it should define somebody’s fluency either
what is much more important is knowing what is the appropriate thing to say in a given context (and i don’t just mean expressions/idioms/proverbs)
a language lives within a culture and i can’t imagine how i would not come to understand the culture if i speak the language fluently
this doesn’t mean you need to know every dialect/regionalism
who does?
only those testing you would go out of the way to try to prove to you otherwise with a variation of “i knew it!” or “i thought you said you spoke ____?”
but you need to have an excellent grasp of at least one dialect or even better, the standard one
at least one to allow you to prove the validity of what you just said

you ask about fluency but do not specify if writing is a factor
many a people are illiterate but can still speak a few languages as their own
i tend to specify what i speak/read/write/understand fluently
i studied or used my european languages in a university setting
which means that i can write academic papers in them
i ran out of energy to get any of asian languages to reach that stage
and then there is the language i was born into
and the language of the country where i spent my childhood
i could talk your ears off in them
but i couldn’t write a high school level paper in any of them
which takes me back to square one when defining fluency
but i’m also a perfectionist

Fantastic post!!

As an avid language learner (an ‘fluent’ Japanese speaker), I’m often asked about the meaning of fluency and I agree completely with you.

I don’t claim to be a ‘perfect’ speaker of japanese (far from it in fact), but as you said in your post, can quit happily speak with natives without reveting to English (my native language).

I also very much agree with your ideas on how to get the most out of your learning endeavours. learning words like ‘thing’, ‘action’, ‘tool’, etc can help to facilitate learning through your target language rather than simply learning your target language much faster!

Regards

Thanks Nick! :)