Fluency is a false god
The title was taken from gringojrf's excellent post which made me Think about Life, Learning and Language and whether fluency really exists.
People love stereotypes (there's a stereotype right here!) and one of them is that all native speakers of a given language possess a natural fluency in their mother tongue. Achieving native-like fluency has been adopted as a slogan by many in the language-teaching industry. Everywhere you turn you're led to believe that you can become fluent in a language of your choice for 1, 3, 6 months, or two weeks after you move to a country where it's the official language, or 96 hours with specialized, guaranteed, certified, ultra-mega-hyper-innovative stuff that you put under your pillow at night. You'll be able to speak that language as you speak your native language. Yes, it's certainly true that you don't usually struggle (or even think about) verb conjugations or prepositions when you talk in your own language. But are you absolutely certain that you're fluent in your native language? Think again and while you do, consider a few examples:
can you understand a specialized conversation on any topic in any field in your language? Do you know every jargon word in your language that's out there, would you recognize every twist of meaning, every play on words? Can you handle a manual on a suction excavator, explain the Krebs cycle and follow the comments during a Starcraft II game cast by RotterdaM just because it's in your native language?
can you understand other natives from all four cardinal directions of the world? If we take English as an example that would include the entirety of the US plus Canada, those cute Australians and the I've-got-a-hot-potato-in-my-mouth British, plus the Scottish, Irish and Welsh, a multitude of town-based and class-based "accents" and some fancier stuff like cockney. The list goes on and I won't even get started on Indian English.
can you understand someone talking in your native language when conditions are poor? Can you understand them on the phone, when they've panicked, in robotic voice, when in traffic or in a storm? When they're shouting instructions through a megaphone? When their mouth is covered by something, for example a mask, when they've lost their teeth, when they have a swollen lip?
If you answered "yes" on all these, I'd really like to get to know you and see this beautiful mind of yours at work! Those who answered "no" - welcome to the realm of human beings. I've always been wary of people who claim that they speak five, ten, even fifteen languages, especially when they insist they're fluent. I've been going to sleep and waking up with English for nearly 20 years now and still I hesitate when people ask me if my English is "good". It will never be good enough.
Stop calculating when you'll become truly fluent. Language is a river, the culture that produced it is the earth that makes up the banks, the river bed, the underwater stones, the fallen branches that the water carries away. Let go of your expectations that you will, should or must get to know the river in its entirety. There will always be some hidden stone or whirlpool that you know nothing about. Just keep on swimming.
14 Answers
I liked reading your post. It is interesting to read everyone's opinion on how they feel about fluency. I grew up in a region of the United States where correct grammar was frowned upon. I tried to learn as much as I could in school. Sometimes, when I see a native English speaker correct a Spanish speaker's grammar, I realize that I would have written it the same way as the Spanish speaker. I have learned a lot about English on this site, and it is supposed to be my native tongue.
Also, I am hard of hearing. I can't learn very well as an audio learner. I have to see the word written down. I learned how to talk this way when I was a child because I was deaf the first part of my life. So. basically, I learned how to read and talk when I was seven. When I was in Kindergarten, I was taught some sign language. I have forgotten most of it. I have learned to read people's lips as they talk. I am not a lip reader, but if someone turns their head, I will not hear what they say. I can understand many different accents, because I have learned to concentrate very hard when someone is speaking.
I think you are taking it to the extreme. Of course, 99,99% of native pepole is fluent, fluent doesn't mean to know all about the lenguage that you are talking, it doesn't mean to understand all people in the worst situations. Of course you can have a few difficulties to understand some accents, but because you are fluent when you are habituated to the different sounds you can understand quickly what you are hearing.
If you take in consideration the Common European Framework of Reference to be fluent is equivalent to an Advanced level, B2, there are still level C1 and C2, C2 is considered mastery an even a master has problems with those points.
I think that my sons, both of them, are fluents in Spanish, and they are 9 and 12 years old, of course they don't know many expressions and words, but they speak with fluency when they talk, so they are fluents.
Great post. I´ve thought something similar. I think fluent means a lot of different things to different people. When I was young, it conjured visions of perfection, and being ¨just like a native¨. Now, I´ve demoted ¨fluent¨ a great deal, to just mean ¨very capable¨ and doesn´t much pause, stop, stammer, or search for words in a normal conversation. The more literal way of thinking of fluent, i.e. flowing. Now I suppose the word Master has replaced that little spot in my brain where Fluent used to reside.
One exception to your post.
when people ask me if my English is "good". It will never be good enough.
Your only reason for ever saying no would be to reply -- no, it´s excellent
I wish my Spanish were half as good. Keep swimming my friend.
Thanks for giving me credit for your title.
To me fluency means being able to communicate without thinking about what words to use, how to conjugate the verb, how to structure the sentence. It just flows naturally from your mouth. The same goes for understanding when someone talks to you. You simply understand, no thought necessary. No digging through your mental dictionary for that particular meaning of "echar" or whatever word. You understand from the context.
I cannot speak to an astro physicist and understand anything that he says because of the specialized vocabulary, so no I am not fluent in that field of English. But in 99.999% of the English conversations that I find myself I am fluent.
I will never reach that level in Spanish. There is just too much to learn. Every day I encounter new ideas, new usages, etc that I do not understand. I will never truly master "se" in all of its usages. Nor the subjunctive. I have a fairly large Spanish vocabulary and can converse with anyone but they always can tell that Spanish is not my native language. For that alone I am not fluent. I am very (highly? I don't know) conversational and receive constant complements on my Spanish. So I do not feel sad that I will never be fluent. I have the ability to live in Spanish and yes I have to ask for explanations and clarifications daily. So what?
When I wrote the title to this thread in another post I truly meant it. Fluency is a false god and an unneeded one at that.
Manity,
This is going to be a long response to your awesome post.
First of all, thank you for sharing your thoughts. It's exhilarating to be able to think and also put those thoughts into words that vividly expound not only the concepts, but also the emotions and intensity of one's inner mind. It's inspirational and spurs responses of others, though they may not always agree.
I find myself in that category today, that is, I tend to disagree with you. But, first, allow me to point out where I agree. Yes, we humans have this undying love to stereotype everything and anything; it's some kind of security for us to put things and people into a little box with a label. Yes, fluency is also seen an object of worship - "Oh! If only I could be -- , then I would be so --." It consumes time, energy, and effort to the greatest degree.
My disagreement stems from a difference of definitions. Words like "native-like" and "fluency" are incredibly broad, even though they are very specific in origin. Though it's true that the teaching industry has exploited these words to invite the many to learn new languages, the exploitation comes from the promise that can not always be delivered as perceived by the student.
It's taken me a good chunk of my young life to master English grammar, and even then, I still don't care much about predicates and clauses. I'm interested more in how I can bend the language to communicate with people. When I do that, usually, I'm breaking a lot of grammatical rules. However, my English teacher (one of them, anyways) informed us in class one day (many years ago) that we are only allowed to break the rules once we have mastered the language. Does that equate fluency? Hardly.
Fluency is usually associated with the spoken language, not the written (another stereotype?). I speak the American dialect of the English language quite fluently; however, if I stop in south Georgia, it's more than likely that I'm not going to understand a lot of people because their dialect is totally different, even though we speak the same English language. I'm inclined to think that I'll understand a Brit or a Scot 10 times better. Actually, it took me a couple of months to actively listen to how most of the southerners talked before I could even begin to understand what they were saying. Then I began to put together the unspoken rules of that dialect. Then...I began to apply what I learned. Within a few months, I had achieved fluency. Not only could I understand them and speak like them, but also act as a translator at times. Can you imagine? Two different dialects of English?
I also disagree with: "But are you absolutely certain that you're fluent in your native language? Think again and while you do, consider a few examples:" ... and the few examples that follow.
1st example: can you understand a specialized conversation on any topic in any field in your language? Do you know every jargon word in your language that's out there, would you recognize every twist of meaning, every play on words? Can you handle a manual on a suction excavator, explain the Krebs cycle and follow the comments during a Starcraft II game cast by RotterdaM just because it's in your native language?
The first example demonstrates perfection of language, complete knowledge of language, or a drive to learn more of that field. The language of feelings falls well into this category. Try reading Feelings Buried Alive Never Die by Karol K. Truman and see if you can digest that in one sitting. I couldn't. It took me about 2 weeks to get through that book and I reread it about every 2 years. It doesn't use big words or unusual phrases, it just hits the part of humanity that no one really wants to deal with in life. This is one of the hardest languages to learn and yet we all communicate with each other and use it on a daily basis.
2nd example: can you understand other natives from all four cardinal directions of the world? If we take English as an example that would include the entirety of the US plus Canada, those cute Australians and the I've-got-a-hot-potato-in-my-mouth British, plus the Scottish, Irish and Welsh, a multitude of town-based and class-based "accents" and some fancier stuff like cockney. The list goes on and I won't even get started on Indian English.
Your second example reminds me of the Chinese language, written the same abroad, but spoken in different dialects. Maybe this is a commonality between the two languages. English is a language that houses many dialects. Fluency based on a language may seem out of proportion in your second example. On the other hand, fluency based on a dialect of the language is easier to reach for. I still make an effort to work on fluency of the southern Georgian English dialect because I interact with a lot of those folks and I want to be able to communicate clearly to them.
Your third example is absolutely amazing to me.
3rd example: can you understand someone talking in your native language when conditions are poor? Can you understand them on the phone, when they've panicked, in robotic voice, when in traffic or in a storm? When they're shouting instructions through a megaphone? When their mouth is covered by something, for example a mask, when they've lost their teeth, when they have a swollen lip?
Fluency encompasses more than just clarity or pronunciation; it is the ability to communicate to another in their own language/dialect regardless of being able to deliver it correctly the first time. Fluency may also be the ability to patiently deliver the same message over a dozen times to the same receiver with just as many different ways.
I also disagree that your English will never be good enough. Manity, your English is pretty decent, good even. Language is obtained and maintained. Language is about learning and interacting not an achievement or a medal that sits behind glass. Language is active and changes; it is like the water you talked about.
And this is where we come back into agreement, where your words vividly portray the true nature of language, from which we strive to learn the fluency of its many dialects:
Language is a river, the culture that produced it is the earth that makes up the banks, the river bed, the underwater stones, the fallen branches that the water carries away. Let go of your expectations that you will, should or must get to know the river in its entirety. There will always be some hidden stone or whirlpool that you know nothing about. Just keep on swimming.
By the way, are you a swimmer?
I hope the kiwis are also included in the 'cute' group 
. And if there's any confusion I'm referring to the people not the fruit.
Very interesting post. To me fluency is being able to communicate whatever you want or need to, even if it means putting things a little differently than you would in your native language, ie. using the words, constructions etc that you do know in your target language, to get the same point across.
But I especially like the last paragraph, nicely put .
There is a difference between fluency and perfection.
Also - languages are not dead, static things. They are constantly changing, with changes in meaning, new words being invented, words falling into disuse, changes in pronunciation and so on. Even in my own lifetime I've seen big differences in the way in which English is used.
I do agree that 'fluency' shouldn't be seen as a static goalpost, which is the only aim of learning a language. Even by learning a few words you can really change the amount that you can communicate and as you have pointed out, it is a never ending journey of delight. To me, life is all about enjoying the journey and I really am not to keen to reach the end in a rush!
So one is not fluent unless one can understand every "specialized conversation on any topic in any field," conversations in poor sound conditions, people with speech impairments, or every regional dialect that has ever existed in the language?
While we are at it, how about if we say that a person is not strong unless they can bench press everything that weighs something? By this meteric I cannot call some tubby high school kid that sits around and plays video games all day long "strong," but I also cannot call someone like Mike Rashid "strong" either.
As abstract as words like "strong" or "fluent" can be, they are still linguistic maps that we use to help us point to something in the world. Inflating these concepts into mythic proportions does not help anyone understand them in greater detail (at worst it needlessly obfuscates things).
I would invite you to help clarify what a word like "fluency" means for us mere mortals. I think Caiser's post is heading in the right direction.
I totally agree with you: the word "fluent" is used in a carefree manner constantly. I think one must tell "to be fluent in a language" from "to master a language".
I personally think that there are people who declare being "fluent" when they are just "advanced" because they are not aware of the magnitude of the language.
I know one thing: that I know nothing. (Socrates)
I would give everything I know for half of what I ignore. (René Descartes)
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. That was a wonderful post.
Come on people, let's use our heads.
First, what Merriam-Webster states about "fluent"
- flu·ent
- adjective \?flü-?nt\
-
able to speak a language easily and very well
-
done in a smooth and easy way
RAE says:
fluido, da.
(Del lat. flu?dus).
- adj. Dicho del lenguaje o del estilo: Corriente y fácil. (that flows and easy)
Question. A person who does not know how to read and write, can he or she speak fluently in his/her native language?
Another question. Can that person learn another language?
Wow, that looks like homework....
:-D
Edit: I don't think fluency has to do with knowing more or less. It has to do with the easiness that comes to your mind and in turn comes out of your mouth or hand (writing). The way it flows.
That's why I recommend to transcribe a novel in the target language and translate it to your native and possibly a second language you might possess, by looking for the words in a bilingual dictionary. Look for a way to write a phonetic representation of what you are reading in the target language in order to read that phonetic representation out loud while you record yourself, with the intention of listening for errors you might pick up in your pronunciation, and watch a movie, without subtitles of any kind.
All this will effectively help you hone all of the necessary skills for you to become fluent in any language, really.
After all, if you only completed 9th grade of schooling, you or anybody would not expect that upon learning a second language, for you to be a doctor or lawyer, right?
Esta ha sido una reflexión sorprendentemente sabia. Más que opinar o responder, debo decir que me ha gustado el nivel de las respuestas, entre otras cosas porque nos permiten conocer cómo piensan nuestros amigos del foro.
On a lighter note -
I don't know much about wine but I can drink it with those that do.
Cheers - Salud - skål etc
I know I will never be fluent in Spanish. I also know that it's not important for me to be fluent. Here's what's noteworthy: I can do more with what I know than many others who know more and are much more fluent. This is similar to another situation where people say: "Size does not matter. It's what you do with it that matters."
Thank you all for the good post!
