Do you consider yourself fluent in English or are you waiting to reach this “perfect” level when you will no longer make any mistakes and speaking English will feel as natural as speaking your native language? What does it mean to be fluent in another language anyway?
When I started college in the US, I didn’t have many friends. I had just transferred from the ESL school I had attended for a couple of years and regular college intimidated me. Needless to say, I found writing papers and passing exams in English a bit scary in the beginning. And because foreign students often flock together (I don’t know why, but it kind of happens naturally), I started hanging out with a girl from Iran that I met in my math class. She then introduced me to her other friends who were from Jordan, Somalia, and some other countries that share a common language – Arabic.
When I was alone with one of my new friends, we would speak English. But during breaks between classes, when we all got together, the rest of the girls would switch to Arabic. Of course I didn’t understand anything. But I liked hanging out with them so much that, at some point, I just started nodding as though I was a part of the conversation. Sometimes I would even throw in a word that I’d heard them use when they were surprised about something. I would listen to them and say “wallah” here and there. They were amused because, apparently, I had learned to say it at the right moment and with the right intonation.
Sometime after that, a classmate of mine, another Arabic speaker, was very surprised to hear that I was from Bulgaria because he “didn’t know they speak Arabic there.” I told him that we don’t speak Arabic. He was even more confused. “So, where did you learn it?” he asked. I told him over and over again that I didn’t speak the language, but he said that he’d seen me speaking to my friends in Arabic. What he had actually seen was me hanging out with my friends, smiling, and nodding when they spoke. What he hadn’t noticed, however, was that I never said anything. Oh, maybe with exception to throwing “wallah” now and then. ?
This person was so convinced that I was fluent in Arabic that it took me a while to prove him otherwise. This made me think: What does being fluent actually mean? Why are some people perceived to be more fluent than others, even if they are not?
What is fluency?
If you Google “fluency,” you will see it defined as “the ability to speak or write a foreign language easily and accurately.” While “accurately” feels less ambiguous because we can judge if a word or a phrase is used correctly, “easily” is more challenging to measure. We all have a different pain tolerance and words like easy, hard, frustrating, awkward, etc., are vague.
I personally think of fluency as a combination of vocabulary knowledge, correct grammar, pronunciation, and body language. Fluency is a spectrum and reaching it is a gradual process. When you start to express your ideas in English easily, you could call yourself fluent. Even if you still make some grammar mistakes or occasionally can’t find the most suitable word, if you are able to communicate your thoughts, you are fluent. Speaking English may never feel as natural to you as speaking your native language, and that’s ok. Don’t let limiting beliefs hinder your progress. Be proud that you speak another language.
Benny Lewis is a native English speaker, writer, blogger, who attempted to learn 20 other languages in short periods of time. Here is a quote from his book “Fluent in 3 Months”:
don’t know about you, but my English isn’t perfect. I hesitate when I’m nervous, I forget precisely the right word every now and again, and there are plenty of topics I am uncomfortable talking about. Applying higher standards to your target language than you would to your native language is overkill.
What helps and what hinders fluency
Below are some notes on what to do and what not to do on your road to fluency.
1. Listen to natural English speech
Listening to natural speech is the first step to fluency. Getting acquainted with the sound system of the language you are learning is crucial for your intelligibility and comprehension. If you don’t live in an English speaking country, you can listen to podcasts or watch YouTube videos in English. Try to imitate everything you hear: the sounds, the intonation, even the body language. You’d be surprised how much more fluent you’ll appear to be by using the right gestures.
Remember, the reason my classmate thought that I spoke Arabic was because I blended in with my Arabic-speaking friends by nodding, smiling, and pretending to be a part of the conversation. This is not to say that you should fake it and only appear to be fluent, but the way others perceive you as a speaker is tightly connected to the way you behave. Fluency is not just a bunch of words put together in grammatically correct sentences. Fluency is your entire way of being while speaking in that other language.
2. Read and write in English
Other things that help with fluency are reading and writing. I personally don’t have much experience with journaling, although I’ve heard that it’s very helpful. But I had to read and write many papers for college, especially for my Bachelor’s degree when I was majoring in Journalism. But if you are not taking classes at an English speaking school or you don’t have to use the language for work, you can read anything that is interesting to you and write about things that come to your mind.
I have to admit that before I went to school, I used to buy gossip magazines where you can read about famous people. While such magazines may not be the best for intellectual development ?, they are packed with idioms, phrasal words and colloquial expressions.
3. Limit drilling grammar and memorizing words out of context
Unfortunately, many traditional language classes still focus on drilling grammar and memorizing individual words out of context. They give you tests and punish you for making mistakes by giving you lower scores. On the other hand, such classes give you a false sense of fluency by praising you for extensive knowledge of grammatical rules and the ability to translate single words back and forth between your language and the one you are learning.
While you can’t change the entire school system, you can still take matters into your own hands. Expose yourself to the language as much as possible outside of school.
4. Do not compare yourself to others
Another practice that may prevent you from becoming fluent faster is comparing yourself to others. Remember that we are all different, so focus on YOU. Do the work and the rest will follow.
5. Know that thinking in English is overrated
Many people are eager to start thinking in English a little too soon. You can’t think in English if you don’t know enough vocabulary. And thinking is such an abstract process that you can’t really measure the number of words thought in a particular language. Also, there is a difference between a thought and an internal monologue. The latter is an inner speech, where you can “hear” words, phrases, and conversation in your mind. It doesn’t always happen and some people experience it more than others. In order to be able to “go over” your own internal speech, you need to have learned enough words and grammar so you can put them together in coherent phrases and sentences. This comes with time. So don’t beat yourself up for not being able to do this if you don’t use English on a regular basis.
When I think, I can “hear” a concoction of Bulgarian, Polish, and English words coming together to form phrases and sentences in my mind. But when I want to verbalize a thought, I am able to pick the language of my choice. This comes with time and practice, so don’t sweat it too much.
6. Do not be afraid of code switching
Code switching is the practice of alternating between languages during a conversation. Sometimes you can say one sentence in your native language and the next one in English. But code switching can also happen within a sentence where you start it in one language and throw in words in another language.
Some people mistakenly think that this practice hinders fluency and they only need to use one language at a time. But code switching is actually a sign of a certain level of fluency and linguistic competence. According to a study, being able to codeswitch back and forth between two languages is a sign of creativity and flexibility of bilingual language use and an alternative way to convey information. So don’t feel bad if you switch between your native language and English when you talk to someone who understands both. My husband and I do this all the time – usually with two but sometimes even three languages! ?
7. Be brave
Lastly, in order to become fluent, you need to have a certain level of boldness. Confident speakers appear more fluent even if their speech is not flawless. That doesn’t mean that you have to be fearless, but to speak up despite fear. The truth is that native speakers are not even bothered by a grammar mistake here and there if you are able to communicate your idea in a clear and confident way.
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Share in the comments if you agree and if you feel fluent in English. If you don’t, what do you have to work on to feel fluent?
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It is amazing the way you have with words. I read a lot of information here but it was easy to understand and at the same time it seemed very academic. Fluency is a combination as you said . Understanding the culture might help to understand a joke or an idiom. I agree 100% on everything you wrote. I consider myself fluent but at the same time I know that being perseverant with your study of another language helps. Learning takes time and practice so I think of myself as a lifelong student. Thanks for sharing such interesting private experiences . Undoubtedly this made the writing enjoyable.