When are you really fluent?
When you begin studying a foreign language, you set an ultimate goal to become fluent in the language. You know that being fluent in a language means they speak and understand it just as you do English. But when are you really fluent?
Are there a certain amount of words you need to know?
Is there a certain speed in speaking that you have to reach?
Is there a line you have to cross?
Will you just know?
The word fluent means fluid and smooth. As far as languages go, this would mean that you can speak the language fluidly and smoothly.
There is no line to cross to get to fluency. Whether or not you are fluent in a language is up to you. If you feel like you can speak the language easily and understand it well, then you are probably fluent.
The best way to know if you are fluent is if you think in the language. If you are learning Spanish you might try to think in Spanish to practice, but if you find yourself thinking in Spanish without realizing it, you can consider yourself fluent.
Another confusion when learning a language is whether you can say you speak a language. Should you tell your friends you speak German if you can only carry on a simple conversation?
I’ve heard many people say they tell others that they speak 5 languages, even if they aren’t fluent in all of them. If you want to impress your friends, I would go with this idea. If you are studying French and Italian and know them minimally, but are fluent in Spanish and English, why not tell them you are fluent in four languages?
On the other hand, if you are telling someone who is truly fluent in all four of these languages, you might want to say you are fluent in 2 languages and are studying French and Italian.
Overall, fluency is something you will always be working on. At one point, you might feel like you’re fluent in Spanish and then decide to focus all your time on learning Russian and not use Spanish anymore. There is a good chance that you will lose a good amount of your Spanish as time goes on.
Think about your high school Spanish. If you took a few years of Spanish 20 years ago and haven’t looked at the language since, do you think you know anywhere near as much Spanish as you did 20 years ago? Probably not.
If fluency is your goal, that’s great. You get to decide if you are fluent or not. A better goal would be to be able to speak the language to the point of satisfaction. Don’t get upset if you don’t know how to say the Russian equivalent of car parts. Learning a language never stops. Just as you learn new English words all the time, never give up learning any of your target languages.