how can you tell if your fluent in a language or not?

Question

hi, i speak 6 languages: English, Hndi, Gujrati, Punjabi, Spanish, and Bengali. my friends from Indiia say my Hndi is fluent, but im not sure. when i watch bollywood films, i can understand 95% of whats being said, and i turn off the subtitles so they dont distract me. i sent an email to my one friend all in Hndi, and he understood the whole thing. only problem, i cant seem to speak it that well when im on the phone. i dunno why. i speak it well, in person, and i can fully understand when people talk to me in Hndi. but on the phone when i speak, i blank out, even my English aint good. im mixed with Indian, so i figure id learn the languages of my ancestors. i can fluently read and write Hndi n Gujrati too. how would i rate my own fluency? how much is basic? intermediate? fluent?
agar apko desi hai, mere hndi kaiise hai? aur agar ap maalum nahi, bolo...mujhko contact ka email ya messenger apka karna chahiye...

Answer 1

Fluency in a language implies that you are able to understand and converse easily in that language.

It does not mean that you are able understand absolutely everything in that language.

Consider that there are around one million words in the English language, but the average vocabulary of a native English speaker is just somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 words.

I am bi-lingual myself in Greek and English and consider myself to be fluent in both, but you would never learn every word in every language.

Answer 2

Fluent means that you speak fluently and without too much hesitation. The thing about difficulty on the phone is something we all suffer from: there are two reasons for this - firstly, much of the high frequency information is lost over the telephone line and this can lead to mis-hearing of consonants; in your native language, your brain subconsciously works out the most likely consonant and you understand. Secondly, it's surprising how much we rely on a degree of lip-reading, which is impossible over the phone.

Also, the degree of fluency depends on the subject being discussed. I can talk for hours (boring) with someone in French or Spanish about the business area I'm involved in, but change the subject to, say, oriental cookery, and I'm stumbling.

Something I find particularly difficult is watching a dubbed English film in French or Spanish, where the lip movements don't match the words I'm hearing - giving support to the lip-reading thesis above.

Keep at it. I used to be terrified of making business calls in French or Spanish - now I just pick up the phone and do it without worrying about whether I'll understand or not. The more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Answer 3

Fluency comes from the spoken word; and, speak is influenced by hear.

If u can hear and understand subconsciously then this would mean if you work on right pronunciations, fluency would not be a problem.

This is what i mean: If you can hear and understand a series on TV without having to concentrate or can overhear sentences muttered by people along the street as you pass by without necessarily eavesdropping to their conversation, then that is a very good indicator that u may have mastered the language but not necessarily the speech.

The 'litmus' for fluency though is when you address a child learning to speak in the child's mother tongue (say English) and the child understands what you're saying without you having to repeat what you said. Try it...it will shock you.

Answer 4

I had the same problem as you, can't speak that well on the phone too. but don't worry, this is normal because most human beings can talk more fluently when they have an eye contact with the person they are talking to- something that we can't do when talking on the phone.

Remember, to absorb things at its best that other people said requires all your 5 senses to be used.

Proper talking face-to-face - use sense of sight, hearing and touch.

Watching TV with or w/o text - use sense of sight and hearing.

Talking on the phone - uses only sense of hearing. Limited to 1 out 5, there's no way we can grasp them as good as talking face-to-face.

Hey buddy, we are normal alright! Have confidence in yourself. It's good enough that you know 6 languages,whereas I only know 5...=(..haha

Answer 5

Wow. Susan's answer is so true to me. I say I'm only fluent in Mandarin. Actually very fluent. As far as being a Chinese, I'm pretty good with that language skill.

I feel who you do speak the 2nd language with is very important. If you constantly practice with some people who use more polished grammar rules along with a bigger vocabulary pool, you acquire better.

Answer 6

When you don't dream in your native language, it's quite a trip. It's easier to understand people when you see them in person, you can read their body language to determine if they liked your answer or if it was approprite. Don't worry too much about the phone thing. I mix my languages also. When I've been speaking french all day, it's hard for me to understand english....I don't even know what language they are speaking! Or after I've spent they day studying japanese and watching anime in japanese, it takes a while to register that my family doesn't understand japanese because i dont know that I'm speaking it. It's just your brain takes a while to transition.

Answer 7

if you are already good enough but its hard for you to speak on the phone. there's a saying: practice makes everybody's perfect, better practice your communication skills in hndi form at home and whoever hndi people can understand on the phone. maybe youre just getting conscious if you are speaking the language correctly that is why everytime you're talking to one you get blank out. for you not to feel the same thing speak the language everyday of your daily life.

Answer 8

You 're fluent if you can speak and listen to the language understanding everything without having to think. It just comes out of your mouth....fluently

Answer 9

I believe you are fluent but part of the way you communicate, in my opinion happens to be through seeing whom you are speaking to, watching body language or in the written word which you can really take your time composing.

Answer 10

I would say you need a good understanding of pronouns to be fluent. "if your fluent" is incorrect; it should be "if you're fluent," "you're" being a contraction for "you are." "Your" is a pronoun indicating that something belongs to "you."
Actually I don't know how to rate fluency, or even if there is a widely accepted rating procedure.