What do distinction do you make between "dialects" and other languages? I understand "dialect" to mean something like "one of several (usually regional) variant

What do distinction do you make between "dialects" and other languages? I understand "dialect" to mean something like "one of several (usually regional) variants of a language", but that is only really meaningful when the language is referenced. Do you mean he spoke 4 local dialects of the same (unspecified) language, or of French or English? Both of these seem to be the wrong interpretation, since you count them as six languages in total.