Comments on: What Does It Mean To Be Fluent In Japanese?

By: Aaron Sannicolas

Aaron Sannicolas — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 19:19:00 +0000

this is kind of a weird way to think but……try to clear ur mind of all english thoughts.and just learn like a baby and a kid does. babies and kids dont translate from language to language they just imitate even if they dont know wat they are sayin. even in english i jus now understand som of the phrases ive been sayin my whole life,just because i never really thougt about it much i jus say it and use it how ive seen other people use it.

By: Aaron Sannicolas

Aaron Sannicolas — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 19:10:00 +0000

i think being fluent in a language is being able to express what is in your mind. being able to add your own style to it and being able to make up new sentences without having to think very much. cuz in ur native tongue you dont memorize phrases to say to people you sort of just IMPROVISE. So i would say one of the most important things to test ur fluency is if u can IMPROVISE wit the language ur speaking.

By: Silver Sabrewulf

Silver Sabrewulf — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 21:18:00 +0000

What it means to be fluent is a somewhat personal question. Obviously one of the criteria is to be highly proficient, but that is a nebulous term in and of itself. To me, personally, fluency in a language means having a proficiency in the target language similar to my native language.

- Read newspapers, novels, forums on the internet, blogs
- Have every day conversations about a wide variety of topics
- Be able to understand any mainstream movie and TV show
- Be able to understand, write and speak about my hobbies and interests in great detail, including philosophy, lucid dreaming, playing guitar, video games and so on.

I would not expect to be able to understand even an introductory text about mathematics or chemistry, but I’d be just as lost reading about that in English as I would be in any other language. Basically, all I’m able to do in English, as far as reading, writing, listening and speaking go, I want to be able to do in whatever target language as well. When I’m roughly near that point, that’s when I’ll start calling myself fluent. This does exclude some cultural things that are too language-specific, of course (but that goes both ways).

And one last thing, a goal I always set for myself: I want to rid myself of my foreign accent as much as possible. But that’s not necessarily a prerequisite for fluency, as long as you’re understood. That’s merely a personal obsession of mine.

By: Lava Yuki

Lava Yuki — Sun, 19 May 2013 23:12:00 +0000

For me, fluency is being able to talk about all kinds of topics, read various books, understand the news abd tv shows and video games, able to write compositons, and be able to express feelings, opinion, as well as hold intellectual discussions. Thats what im aiming for, especially being able to play video games all in japanese nd understand at leadt 95%.

By: bobballs

bobballs — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:30:00 +0000

to be honest I think this definition of fluency doesn’t take too long… Surprisingly I’ve found speaking foreign languages much easier than understanding them, and I think my definition of fluency therefore has become much more centred around the understanding than the talking.

For me when you can just talk and listen almost effortlessly is fluent.

By: Dokosan

Dokosan — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 02:15:00 +0000

Another great post by Koichi’s adept and son, Hashi.