5 ms·

Thank you in kind, and I understand where you're coming from, but I still think the standard you're applying is pretty far removed from normal. Separate from an

Thank you in kind, and I understand where you're coming from, but I still think the standard you're applying is pretty far removed from normal. Separate from any subjective rankings, the person describes having been educated solely in English for 6+ years, and from context appears to have been actively speaking it for at least 15-20 years overall. If one ranks that as intermediate, one winds up calling someone with 10 years experience a beginner, and such absurdities. As for subjective rankings, I'm more familiar with CEFR, under which I see no obvious reason not to rank this person C1 or C2, which is what one would expect for someone with more than 800-1000 hours of study. CEFR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...

Baeocystin 9y ago
> If one ranks that as intermediate, one winds up calling someone with 10 years experience a beginner, and such absurdities. I'm sure you are aware of people that have spent decades+ in an English-speaking environment, yet still speak in a stilted manner. Time alone isn't enough- you need active correction. A few folks are able to self-correct via listening, but almost everyone does best with regular instruction by qualified teachers. Thank you for the CEFR link. Part of the problem with English in particular (I am sure you are aware of this, I am just stating it for other readers) is that the number of ESL speakers exceeds the native population. This rather unusual case means that many learners are receiving instruction from English speakers who themselves are not fluent, compounding the error. From a strictly academic standpoint, it is fascinating tracing the growth of all the different flavors of English (some mutually unintelligible) but it does present certain practical difficulties in communication!
- fenomas 9y ago
  > people that have spent decades+ in an English-speaking environment, yet still speak in a stilted manner Again, the standard you're applying is unreasonable. English doesn't have any One True dialect - it's spoken natively in various ways, some of which sound stilted to you. I went to college with a guy from Malaysia whose speech you'd likely find highly stilted (or I did, anyway), yet English was his first language - the only language he used with his parents, the only language he ever used in school, etc. That is what it is - a person can be fluent or native and still sound stilted to you. You may well sound stilted to them! This is why the rankings you linked don't use such language - they talk about whether someone can use complex grammatical structures clearly and without effort, and so forth, and when judging someone's fluency that's the sort of standard to apply. Saying they sound stilted just says that their English doesn't sound the way you expect correct English to sound, which is neither here nor there.

Baeocystin 9y ago

> If one ranks that as intermediate, one winds up calling someone with 10 years experience a beginner, and such absurdities. I'm sure you are aware of people that have spent decades+ in an English-speaking environment, yet still speak in a stilted manner. Time alone isn't enough- you need active correction. A few folks are able to self-correct via listening, but almost everyone does best with regular instruction by qualified teachers. Thank you for the CEFR link. Part of the problem with English in particular (I am sure you are aware of this, I am just stating it for other readers) is that the number of ESL speakers exceeds the native population. This rather unusual case means that many learners are receiving instruction from English speakers who themselves are not fluent, compounding the error. From a strictly academic standpoint, it is fascinating tracing the growth of all the different flavors of English (some mutually unintelligible) but it does present certain practical difficulties in communication!

fenomas 9y ago
> people that have spent decades+ in an English-speaking environment, yet still speak in a stilted manner Again, the standard you're applying is unreasonable. English doesn't have any One True dialect - it's spoken natively in various ways, some of which sound stilted to you. I went to college with a guy from Malaysia whose speech you'd likely find highly stilted (or I did, anyway), yet English was his first language - the only language he used with his parents, the only language he ever used in school, etc. That is what it is - a person can be fluent or native and still sound stilted to you. You may well sound stilted to them! This is why the rankings you linked don't use such language - they talk about whether someone can use complex grammatical structures clearly and without effort, and so forth, and when judging someone's fluency that's the sort of standard to apply. Saying they sound stilted just says that their English doesn't sound the way you expect correct English to sound, which is neither here nor there.