5 ms·

Can I ask respectfully what you mean by fluent? Only because...the textbook definition and the colloquial definition differ. I think generally when people say

Can I ask respectfully what you mean by fluent? Only because...the textbook definition and the colloquial definition differ. I think generally when people say 'fluent' they mean 'native speaker level at reading, writing and speaking language X', whereas fluent actually means you can speak without hesitation on a range of topics. Just a clarification, not an attack! Edit: Plus, I wouldn't knock wordlists. I started trying to make wordlists only out of words I had some connection to, but you end up spending an inordinate amount of time making cards, and also then it's tempting to keep interrupting your reading to make new flashcards. I am 'fluent' in mandarin, and use HSK6 wordlists as a base. I learn a bunch of random words and then suddenly, when I'm reading an article, there's the word I learned a month ago. I don't need to interrupt my reading flow, and the connection has been made. Sometimes at advanced levels, you won't see a word that often, so it's wasteful to see it once, make a flashcard, and then never have another chance to see the word in a real world context for another 6 months.

laichzeit0 10y ago
I also have a problem with the word "fluent". Ok you say you're fluent, here's a simple self-check: Explain to someone in the language you claim to be fluent in how you'd go about making a fire without any matches. (hint: you need to use words like tinder, kindling, flint, etc.). If you can't do this, or grapple with the fact that you don't have a repertoire of these words in your vocabulary, you might want to reconsider your definition of "fluent".
- austinjp 10y ago
  There are different fluencies, all context dependent. A woodsman who knows all about kindling and flint would be bemused in an office environment where KPIs and stakeholder deliverables are core terms. In a programming environment they'd be utterly lost regarding the detail, even if they grasp basics like who's in charge. Or a chemistry lab, a surgical theatre, etc. This is why there are courses in "business" versions of languages, for example. So someone can be functionally fluent in the contexts they typically encounter, while being non-fluent outside them. I doubt any native speaker can be fully fluent in all possible contexts.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  To be fair, there's a lot of native English speakers who can't explain how to make a fire with any matches, and wouldn't know what tinder and kindling are. That is a reasonably specific domain of knowledge.
- paganel 10y ago
  Problem is that I'm not sure I'd be able to convey that message to someone even in my native language (it's a Romance one). I'd probably use two archaisms for "smaller pieces of wood" (probably the "tinder" and "flint" words you mention) and then I'd use "small rock" and "rub the thing between your hands until you get tired of it and then use a lighter". There's lots of words in my native language of which I know the meaning of, technically, but practically speaking they might as well be Greek to me. There are all of these types of flowers, trees, countryside-related mechanical terms (my peasant brother knows the names of all the pieces of which his wooden-made carriage is made of, I have no such knowledge) which might as well be from a foreign language to me. They sound right but I don't know exactly what they represent. I'd say that you can call yourself fluent in a language once you can express feelings like anger, love, nostalgia etc. and can understand and make jokes in said language.
- rmsaksida 10y ago
  > Explain to someone in the language you claim to be fluent in how you'd go about making a fire without any matches. (hint: you need to use words like tinder, kindling, flint, etc.) I wouldn't be able to do this in my own native language (aside from "stone" and "stick", I'm clueless about the tools involved), let alone in a foreign one. I think this is way too specific to be a good test for fluency.
  - adrianratnapala 10y ago
    The problem is not (quite) with the concept of "fluency", it's that we we confuse it with being good at a language. Given your situation, I would just launch into a German explanation complete with the bit where I say I don't know the real German words. Then I will muck about with hand gestures and phrases like "smaller bits of would" etc until they get it. I would do all of this while screwing up my declensions and conjugations. And I would do most of the screwing up fluently. Less fluently if I notice the error.
- davelnewton 10y ago
  You don't need to use direct translations of those words to express their purpose in the process. After all, if you're explaining what tinder, kindling, and flint are you wouldn't use those words in their definitions.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  The thing with fluency isn't that you know all of the language or can explain everything. A person can be considered fluent and not be able to explain that sentence - mostly because that is pretty far outside a situation most folks find themselves in. Heck, in English I'd not use words like tinder and kindling. You might not know obscure words for some things, and you get to words you don't know. Fluency means that most of the time you understand the conversations around you, about a wide range of topics. You can understand not only the local dialect, but others as well, and communicate effectively. You understand slang. When you don't understand, it is usually just a subject that is new to you or the usage is wrong. Think about what age people understand children to be fluent in a language. Most folks by 14 or 15 (in English) have enough vocabulary to get by without learning more the rest of their life, but won't know specialty terms such as the one in your firestarting example. I've not personally reached fluency in my second language, I just can see the goal. My spouse is fluent in English, though, and has a wider English vocabulary than I do. Lots of work on his behalf and years more practice and an interest in archaic terms. He still gets stumped, forgets a word here or there, has an accent, and all that, however, and likely reached complete fluency some time back.
- babuskov 10y ago
  > hint: you need to use words like tinder, kindling, flint, etc.) My language doesn't have a word for "kindling". If you want to translate it, you would use something like "material used to start the fire". So, by you reasoning, for someone from my country to be fluent in English, they also have to know that concept of "kindling" exists and has a name? Thinking about it, I can't say I disagree. You have to know about the way people reason about stuff, not just words to name them.
- rsmsky1 10y ago
  Is tinder a real word? I thought it was just a made up word for an app? I can't be expected to explain such words in another language when I can't explain them in my native language. But I think if you said spark instead that would be more reasonable such you need to rub two pieces of wood together and create a spark and then a fire starts.
  - Mikeb85 10y ago
    Yes tinder is a real word. It's material used to kindle a fire. Silicon valley has ruined all these words. Then again, most people don't have to start fires.
    - adrianratnapala 10y ago
      Well the way I learned it, you kindle fires by igniting the kindling. The kindling then ignites tinder (an intermediate stage), which then ignites the real fuel. But I also often hear the two-step usage where tinder is includes kindling.
      - Mikeb85 10y ago
        Kindling is actually a verb, as in, the act of 'kindling' a fire, even though it's also used to describe the material used to kindle a fire. Tinder is just the material.
        CDRdude 10y ago
        There are two definitions, the verb and the noun.
        Mikeb85 10y ago
        Now there are. -ing words typically started as verbs. Eating, sleeping, etc... This is why English is a clusterfuck, and makes no sense compared to most languages. Imagine if we called food 'eatings', that'd be weird, eh?
- gommm 10y ago
  While I know the word kindling in English (which is a second language for me), I don't even know it in my native language... So, I don't think that's a good test. I'd say that someone is fluent when he starts thinking in the language and is able to have everyday conversations with other people at normal speed without the native interlocutors feeling that they need to simplify their speech.
- greggman 10y ago
  I mostly agree with you. I might not know every English word but I won't consider myself fluent until I can understand and use my second language at the same level as my first. In other words I should be able to easily explain anything I can explain in my 1st language whether it's how to drive, how to change a tire, what the parts of a bicycle are (wheels, spokes, chain, gears, handlebars, tire, kick stand, peddles, brakes, )etc. Any native 8 yr old can name all those things. Similarly describing a car. The stick shift, clutch, odometer, glove compartment, engine, seat belts, arm rest, windshield, wheel well, windshield wipers, reat view mirror, antenna, etc. Any native speaker will know all those words. I'm still at the "explain with smaller words" phase like "antenna" would be "metal stick that receives radio waves". I'm not fluent.
- westiseast 10y ago
  Well, yeah that's why I have trouble with it. At least in Mandarin Chinese, which I have experience with, I've seen people describing themselves as 'fluent' when in reality they are either (a) lying or (b) meaning that they can speak conversationally. My real world rule of thumb is that if I wrote "Fluent in Mandarin" on my CV, but then in the interview I couldn't read or write decent responses to emails or something like that, then most people wouldn't consider that as fluent (despite the dictionary definition).
- webmaven 10y ago
  That's... a terrible test. I am native speaker/reader/writer fluent in my 2nd language, and I don't know the word for kindling. I am reasonably certain there is one, but would have to look it up, and so would any other native speaker that wasn't a linguist. In fact, if I did happen to know the word and used it, no native speaker would understand me without an explanation. The way I (and practically any other native speaker) would describe that portion of the task would be to say something like "use a small amount of paper, twigs, sawdust, dry leaves, or any other easily ignited material as a starter". I used to get very frustrated at all the English words that didn't have direct equivalents, such that I found the 2nd language rather limiting in it's expressiveness. In fact, I am pretty sure that the way most native speakers would approach the 'explain how to make fire' task would to say "here, let me show you how to do it." Example: there exist equivalents to the words shiny, glittery, sparkly and most other common variations on the concept (some translate to the same word), but if you want to express 'pearlescent', the best you could do is 'lustrous like a pearl'. Worse yet, often if I did find an obscure equivalent word and used it no one else would recognize it, and even if they figure it out from context they would still think I was weird or trying to score points with my vocabulary. Further, in the 20 years since I actually lived there, using English loan words has become rampant, so much so that by not using them my speech comes across as rather affected, stuffy, and snobbish (eg. the word for upgrade (noun or verb) is for all intents and purposes 'upgrade', even though a perfectly understandable equivalent does actually exist).
j7ake 10y ago
One test of fluency would be to have the person watch a modern film in the language of interest and ask them to transcribe the dialogue into text and also describe in own words (in language of interest) what is going on in the movie. You can then put that person on a scale from 0 to 100 by comparing the score by a random sample of "known" native speakers. This test is nice because it probes many aspects of language: listening, speaking, and writing (but not reading), which can vary greatly between people. If you're interested in probing reading, then I suggest asking the person to explain meanings of songs or poems.
- dorfuss 10y ago
  Movies are, in my humble opinion, not the best "standard" yard stick to measure fluency. First thing is that films most often use quite limited vocabulary, and it's wildly different vocabulary than, say, found in newspapers, technical writing or in business language. Moreover films present a wide variety of communication styles. It's much easier to understand James Bond than South Park, because humour is actually quite high and demanding register of speech.
- greggman 10y ago
  It really depends on the film though. There are family dramas I can understand 100% but I watch a movie with lawyers or science or high level government or military meetings and I'm lost.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
    Interesting. When watching movies in English as a native Spanish speaker it's the other way around, at least for me. It's much easier to understand a movie with plenty of scientists, intellectuals or government officials than one with average people, as those tend to use slang, colloquial expressions and Americanisms that they don't teach you in courses. In fact teenage flicks are probably the hardest genre to understand...
    - greggman 10y ago
      There's that too. And that's more evidence I'm not fluent. In English if someone uses new slang on me I understand it almost immediately from context. In my 2nd language I'm lost
ievahanordah 10y ago
A lot of people can't speak without hesitation on a range of topics in their first language.

laichzeit0 10y ago

I also have a problem with the word "fluent". Ok you say you're fluent, here's a simple self-check: Explain to someone in the language you claim to be fluent in how you'd go about making a fire without any matches. (hint: you need to use words like tinder, kindling, flint, etc.). If you can't do this, or grapple with the fact that you don't have a repertoire of these words in your vocabulary, you might want to reconsider your definition of "fluent".

austinjp 10y ago
There are different fluencies, all context dependent. A woodsman who knows all about kindling and flint would be bemused in an office environment where KPIs and stakeholder deliverables are core terms. In a programming environment they'd be utterly lost regarding the detail, even if they grasp basics like who's in charge. Or a chemistry lab, a surgical theatre, etc. This is why there are courses in "business" versions of languages, for example. So someone can be functionally fluent in the contexts they typically encounter, while being non-fluent outside them. I doubt any native speaker can be fully fluent in all possible contexts.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
To be fair, there's a lot of native English speakers who can't explain how to make a fire with any matches, and wouldn't know what tinder and kindling are. That is a reasonably specific domain of knowledge.
paganel 10y ago
Problem is that I'm not sure I'd be able to convey that message to someone even in my native language (it's a Romance one). I'd probably use two archaisms for "smaller pieces of wood" (probably the "tinder" and "flint" words you mention) and then I'd use "small rock" and "rub the thing between your hands until you get tired of it and then use a lighter". There's lots of words in my native language of which I know the meaning of, technically, but practically speaking they might as well be Greek to me. There are all of these types of flowers, trees, countryside-related mechanical terms (my peasant brother knows the names of all the pieces of which his wooden-made carriage is made of, I have no such knowledge) which might as well be from a foreign language to me. They sound right but I don't know exactly what they represent. I'd say that you can call yourself fluent in a language once you can express feelings like anger, love, nostalgia etc. and can understand and make jokes in said language.
rmsaksida 10y ago
> Explain to someone in the language you claim to be fluent in how you'd go about making a fire without any matches. (hint: you need to use words like tinder, kindling, flint, etc.) I wouldn't be able to do this in my own native language (aside from "stone" and "stick", I'm clueless about the tools involved), let alone in a foreign one. I think this is way too specific to be a good test for fluency.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  The problem is not (quite) with the concept of "fluency", it's that we we confuse it with being good at a language. Given your situation, I would just launch into a German explanation complete with the bit where I say I don't know the real German words. Then I will muck about with hand gestures and phrases like "smaller bits of would" etc until they get it. I would do all of this while screwing up my declensions and conjugations. And I would do most of the screwing up fluently. Less fluently if I notice the error.
davelnewton 10y ago
You don't need to use direct translations of those words to express their purpose in the process. After all, if you're explaining what tinder, kindling, and flint are you wouldn't use those words in their definitions.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
The thing with fluency isn't that you know all of the language or can explain everything. A person can be considered fluent and not be able to explain that sentence - mostly because that is pretty far outside a situation most folks find themselves in. Heck, in English I'd not use words like tinder and kindling. You might not know obscure words for some things, and you get to words you don't know. Fluency means that most of the time you understand the conversations around you, about a wide range of topics. You can understand not only the local dialect, but others as well, and communicate effectively. You understand slang. When you don't understand, it is usually just a subject that is new to you or the usage is wrong. Think about what age people understand children to be fluent in a language. Most folks by 14 or 15 (in English) have enough vocabulary to get by without learning more the rest of their life, but won't know specialty terms such as the one in your firestarting example. I've not personally reached fluency in my second language, I just can see the goal. My spouse is fluent in English, though, and has a wider English vocabulary than I do. Lots of work on his behalf and years more practice and an interest in archaic terms. He still gets stumped, forgets a word here or there, has an accent, and all that, however, and likely reached complete fluency some time back.
babuskov 10y ago
> hint: you need to use words like tinder, kindling, flint, etc.) My language doesn't have a word for "kindling". If you want to translate it, you would use something like "material used to start the fire". So, by you reasoning, for someone from my country to be fluent in English, they also have to know that concept of "kindling" exists and has a name? Thinking about it, I can't say I disagree. You have to know about the way people reason about stuff, not just words to name them.
rsmsky1 10y ago
Is tinder a real word? I thought it was just a made up word for an app? I can't be expected to explain such words in another language when I can't explain them in my native language. But I think if you said spark instead that would be more reasonable such you need to rub two pieces of wood together and create a spark and then a fire starts.
- Mikeb85 10y ago
  Yes tinder is a real word. It's material used to kindle a fire. Silicon valley has ruined all these words. Then again, most people don't have to start fires.
  - adrianratnapala 10y ago
    Well the way I learned it, you kindle fires by igniting the kindling. The kindling then ignites tinder (an intermediate stage), which then ignites the real fuel. But I also often hear the two-step usage where tinder is includes kindling.
    - Mikeb85 10y ago
      Kindling is actually a verb, as in, the act of 'kindling' a fire, even though it's also used to describe the material used to kindle a fire. Tinder is just the material.
      - CDRdude 10y ago
        There are two definitions, the verb and the noun.
        Mikeb85 10y ago
        Now there are. -ing words typically started as verbs. Eating, sleeping, etc... This is why English is a clusterfuck, and makes no sense compared to most languages. Imagine if we called food 'eatings', that'd be weird, eh?
gommm 10y ago
While I know the word kindling in English (which is a second language for me), I don't even know it in my native language... So, I don't think that's a good test. I'd say that someone is fluent when he starts thinking in the language and is able to have everyday conversations with other people at normal speed without the native interlocutors feeling that they need to simplify their speech.
greggman 10y ago
I mostly agree with you. I might not know every English word but I won't consider myself fluent until I can understand and use my second language at the same level as my first. In other words I should be able to easily explain anything I can explain in my 1st language whether it's how to drive, how to change a tire, what the parts of a bicycle are (wheels, spokes, chain, gears, handlebars, tire, kick stand, peddles, brakes, )etc. Any native 8 yr old can name all those things. Similarly describing a car. The stick shift, clutch, odometer, glove compartment, engine, seat belts, arm rest, windshield, wheel well, windshield wipers, reat view mirror, antenna, etc. Any native speaker will know all those words. I'm still at the "explain with smaller words" phase like "antenna" would be "metal stick that receives radio waves". I'm not fluent.
westiseast 10y ago
Well, yeah that's why I have trouble with it. At least in Mandarin Chinese, which I have experience with, I've seen people describing themselves as 'fluent' when in reality they are either (a) lying or (b) meaning that they can speak conversationally. My real world rule of thumb is that if I wrote "Fluent in Mandarin" on my CV, but then in the interview I couldn't read or write decent responses to emails or something like that, then most people wouldn't consider that as fluent (despite the dictionary definition).
webmaven 10y ago
That's... a terrible test. I am native speaker/reader/writer fluent in my 2nd language, and I don't know the word for kindling. I am reasonably certain there is one, but would have to look it up, and so would any other native speaker that wasn't a linguist. In fact, if I did happen to know the word and used it, no native speaker would understand me without an explanation. The way I (and practically any other native speaker) would describe that portion of the task would be to say something like "use a small amount of paper, twigs, sawdust, dry leaves, or any other easily ignited material as a starter". I used to get very frustrated at all the English words that didn't have direct equivalents, such that I found the 2nd language rather limiting in it's expressiveness. In fact, I am pretty sure that the way most native speakers would approach the 'explain how to make fire' task would to say "here, let me show you how to do it." Example: there exist equivalents to the words shiny, glittery, sparkly and most other common variations on the concept (some translate to the same word), but if you want to express 'pearlescent', the best you could do is 'lustrous like a pearl'. Worse yet, often if I did find an obscure equivalent word and used it no one else would recognize it, and even if they figure it out from context they would still think I was weird or trying to score points with my vocabulary. Further, in the 20 years since I actually lived there, using English loan words has become rampant, so much so that by not using them my speech comes across as rather affected, stuffy, and snobbish (eg. the word for upgrade (noun or verb) is for all intents and purposes 'upgrade', even though a perfectly understandable equivalent does actually exist).

j7ake 10y ago

One test of fluency would be to have the person watch a modern film in the language of interest and ask them to transcribe the dialogue into text and also describe in own words (in language of interest) what is going on in the movie. You can then put that person on a scale from 0 to 100 by comparing the score by a random sample of "known" native speakers. This test is nice because it probes many aspects of language: listening, speaking, and writing (but not reading), which can vary greatly between people. If you're interested in probing reading, then I suggest asking the person to explain meanings of songs or poems.

dorfuss 10y ago
Movies are, in my humble opinion, not the best "standard" yard stick to measure fluency. First thing is that films most often use quite limited vocabulary, and it's wildly different vocabulary than, say, found in newspapers, technical writing or in business language. Moreover films present a wide variety of communication styles. It's much easier to understand James Bond than South Park, because humour is actually quite high and demanding register of speech.
greggman 10y ago
It really depends on the film though. There are family dramas I can understand 100% but I watch a movie with lawyers or science or high level government or military meetings and I'm lost.
- Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
  Interesting. When watching movies in English as a native Spanish speaker it's the other way around, at least for me. It's much easier to understand a movie with plenty of scientists, intellectuals or government officials than one with average people, as those tend to use slang, colloquial expressions and Americanisms that they don't teach you in courses. In fact teenage flicks are probably the hardest genre to understand...
  - greggman 10y ago
    There's that too. And that's more evidence I'm not fluent. In English if someone uses new slang on me I understand it almost immediately from context. In my 2nd language I'm lost

ievahanordah 10y ago

A lot of people can't speak without hesitation on a range of topics in their first language.