How to Say You Know a Little Bit of a Language

How do nosotros mensurate linguistic communication fluency?

There are many ways of categorising someone's linguistic skills, but the concept of fluency is hard to define.

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Mayor Pete Buttigieg's youth, armed forces record, and marital status may distinguish him from the other 2020 United states Presidential Election candidates, but it'due south his rumoured proficiency in seven languages that really has people talking.

This seemingly magical feat is particularly impressive in predominantly monolingual countries similar the Usa and the United Kingdom (where, respectively, roughly 80% and 62% of the population speaks just English). But where such enviable talent creates an aura of mystique, it likewise inevitably arouses curiosity. When onetime Usa Senator Claire McCaskill asked Buttigieg to comment on his linguistic communication-speaking ability in a xiv Feb instalment of MSNBC's Morning Joe, he replied: "it depends what you lot hateful by speak!" and added that he can "still kind of read a newspaper in Norwegian… but simply slowly" and that he has gotten "rusty" in his Arabic and Dari. That shows humility, but not so much that Buttigieg and his camp definitively dismiss the polyglot rumours.

This is not to deride Mayor Buttigieg. His perceived fluency interests me because I'm a former language teacher – having taught English for 11 years in Japan and Italy – and I am also a Cambridge English exam speaking examiner; a role which requires me to dissect variables in candidates' second linguistic communication production such as pronunciation, discourse management, and grammatical range. Buttigieg is conspicuously fascinated past languages, willing to larn, and is brave plenty to practice with native speakers on television – qualities that would have made him the star of my classroom. But – like so many of my ex-students who expected to go from "beginner" to "native" proficiency in two months – Buttigieg may accept underestimated what it means to "speak" a linguistic communication.

I tin relate all too well to overestimating one's own abilities. A "heritage speaker" of Italian, I'd been living in Italy for 2 years when I overheard a receptionist refer me to me equally "that foreigner who doesn't speak Italian". I was confused, then gutted. That one coincidental sentence launched a journey that resulted in my being forced to admit that while I had grown up speaking Italian at home and was fluent, I was not by whatever means proficient.

Pete Buttigieg can reportedly speak Norwegian, Castilian, Italian, Maltese, Arabic, Dari, and French (Credit: Getty Images)

What does the word "fluent" really mean? In lay circles, this term has come to equal "native-level adept", with no grey area between the bumbling beginner and the mellifluous master. An outsider overhearing a conversation in a foreign linguistic communication only hears a fog of sounds, thus perceiving anyone who can cobble together a sentence as "fluent".

But Daniel Morgan, head of learning development at the Shenker Institutes of English – a pop chain of English schools in Italy – says that fluency actually refers to how "smoothly" and "efficiently" a second language (L2) speaker tin can speak on "a range of topics in real time". While fluency may denote a degree of proficiency, it does non automatically imply accurateness – the ability to produce grammatically correct sentences – nor does it imply grammatical range.

How of import are accurateness and grammatical range? That depends on the speaker'southward needs. If they simply wish to antipodal in social settings, their focus may be solely on achieving fluency, but if the L2 is required for business or academia, accuracy and range are crucial as communications full of errors may exist seen equally unprofessional.

When talking a foreign language, yous may be well understood past locals, even if you make lots of grammatical errors (Credit: Alamy)

These errors tin can include literal word-for-word translation from their native language ("I go in Spain"), and language switch ("I desire eat ringo"). Bungled verb tenses, prepositions, plurals, and articles are a natural, even essential, function of the learning process.

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Many learners, still, fall into the trap of assuming that because they are understood, their oral communication is "perfect". And information technology isn't only the speaker who glosses over mistakes; in the Handbook of Second Language Assessment, Nivja de Jong – senior lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics – argues that grammatical errors ordinarily won't prevent comprehension on the part of the listener, who is automatically able to "edit out" mistakes. In English, a sentence like "I have 17 years" is wrong, all the same ane all the same understands that the speaker wants to say that he is 17 years one-time. Furthermore, friends and teachers tend to encourage L2 learners rather than discourage them, which may likewise contribute to inflated cocky-assessment.

I think of the pop memes comparing how nosotros envision a story or scene in our head, to the fashion nosotros tell it or paint it. Those first crucial years of learning a linguistic communication, you may be thinking in glorious castor strokes but speaking in scribbles.

Measures of linguistic proficiency typically consider both the accuracy and the range of the language that you can use (Credit: Alamy)

So when can someone say they "speak" a language? That'southward the 1000000-dollar question. Tin can someone consider themselves a Spanish speaker if they're conversational but often can't empathize native speakers considering they "talk too fast"? If they utilise only two verb tenses and every sentence contains mistakes?

The answer may be less "yes/no" and more "how well?"

Luckily, scales for measuring spoken fluency and overall proficiency exist. "Fluency is an abstract concept, so we assign observable variables," explains Daniel Morgan. Two of the most reliable factors are "speech rate" and "utterance length". Voice communication charge per unit can exist defined as how much (effective) language you lot're producing over fourth dimension, for example how many syllables per minute. Utterance length is, equally an boilerplate, how much you tin can produce between disfluencies (eastward.chiliad. a pause or hesitation). You could look at accuracy as being subsumed into fluency, in terms of grammatical accurateness, lexical pick, pronunciation, and precision."

De Jong describes the unconscious procedure any speaker goes through before speaking: conceptualising what to say, formulating how to say it, and, finally, articulating the advisable sounds. All of this takes place in roughly 6 syllables per second. A speaker of a 2nd language who needs to catechumen their thoughts into an unfamiliar linguistic communication faces an even greater claiming in coming together these strict time constraints. They must also oft overcome inhibition and pronunciation challenges. Accuracy may nevertheless be defective at this stage, but make no mistake – achieving L2 fluency is a colossal feat.

The Council of Europe's Common European Framework of References (CEFR) for Languages groups language learners into concrete proficiency levels, where fluency and accuracy are simply ii of many examined criteria. The CEFR – bachelor in 40 languages – divides proficiency into half dozen "can do" levels – A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2. A corresponds to "Bones" levels, B to "Independent", and C to "Proficient." Appreciable skills include:

A1: Capabilities range include basic introductions and answering questions about personal details provided the listener speaks slowly and is willing to cooperate.

A2: Can describe in elementary terms aspects of his/her past, environment and matters related to his/her immediate needs and perform routine tasks requiring basic exchanges of data.

B1: Can deal with most daily life situations in the country where the language is spoken. Can draw experiences, dreams and ambitions and give cursory reasons for opinions and goals.

B2: Tin can understand the themes of complex texts on both concrete and abstract topics and will have accomplished a degree of fluency and spontaneity, which makes interaction with native speakers possible without significant strain for either party.

C1: Can understand a broad range of longer texts and recognise subtleties and implicit meaning; producing clear, well-structured and detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.

C2: Tin can understand virtually everything heard or read, expressing themselves spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, while differentiating finer shades of meaning even in highly complex situations.

Geraint Thomas, a Cambridge English language speaking exam team leader, explains: "We look at things similar cohesion, response rate, soapbox management, and pronunciation, but each variable has sub-variables. You can break pronunciation down into stress and individual sounds." He emphasises that the progression is gradual. "Yous can expect a good B2 candidate to have certain things under control; the nowadays tense, perchance. Yet, they might not have their 2nd conditional, and you lot're enlightened that this is a progressive thing."

What is the bridge of your conversational abilities? Are you equally happy talking near economics and politics? (Credit: Alamy)

Thomas adds that private second language speakers can brandish different strengths: "Y'all tin become students who are very accurate but so afraid of making mistakes that their fluency suffers and others who throw themselves into something, who are quite fluent, but their language is full of mistakes."

According to research from the University of Cambridge English Assessment, it takes 200 guided hours for a motivated learner to accelerate from i level to the adjacent. Key give-and-take, motivated: language acquisition varies dramatically between individuals. Is the learner open to new structures? Will they build upon what they've already learned instead of clinging to basic "adept plenty" grammar? Will they commit to consistent report and do? Lesser line: in that location are many steps between "The pen is on the table" and penning a perfect thesis on a piece of literature.

Proficiency scales provide an excellent estimate for assessing L2 ability, but I believe that the quickest, dirtiest fluency and accuracy "tests" are real-life situations with native speakers. How smooth and lengthy are your interactions in your L2? Do you avert or "bare" at certain topics and situations because you don't have the words? Do you detect yourself grasping for "central words" and content yourself with understanding "the sense" rather than the entirety of the chat? How well can yous empathize a pic without subtitles or read a volume without a dictionary? If you write an email and inquire a native speaker to proofread information technology, how many errors will they find?

As for me, while my Italian grammatical range has improved dramatically in my 9 years in Italy, equally a writer I yearn for flawless, native-like accuracy and syntax. I'm not there yet, and in that location are many days where I despair that I never will be.

Then I remind myself that learning a 2d language is like entering into a wedlock. You lot think you know your partner when you put the ring on their finger, just it'southward only the beginning, and the commitment is for life.

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Eva Sandoval is an Italian-American writer who has been based in Italian republic since 2010. Her travel, nutrient, and culture writing has appeared in The Telegraph, CNN Travel, Fodor's Travel Guides , and HuffPo Travel likewise as diverse luxury hotel and airline magazines.

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Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190903-linguistic-fluency-proficiency-second-language-learning

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