[timr]

> I still do that classic thing non-fluent speakers do: I'll get halfway through a sentence, realize I don't know a specific word, and have to rephrase my thought more simply. To be clear, I'm far from a beginner, just not yet fluent.

Isn't that a thing everyone does? I don't have as many languages as you, but when I finally got to the point where I could reliably do what you're describing in Japanese, I felt like I had actually achieved a baseline level of fluency for the first time. The flywheel became self-perpetuating vs. my French, where every sentence is a struggle.

Not asking to be argumentative, btw -- just wondering what's on the other side.

[afiodorov]

There's another level after fluency (C1), which is near-native fluency (C2). At the level of such mastery you don't feel the need to simplify just to be understood, your utterances now define the language itself as you've achieved the level of the crowd whom the language belongs to in the first place.

P.S. I've typed this out in English after having achieved such unlock.

[senkora]

I would describe it as: natural human languages with native speakers eventually develop a grammatical way to complete the vast majority of incomplete thoughts that speakers tend to have.

So, if you know the entire language, then you can complete your thought. But if you only know the common parts of the language then you may need to start over with a different sentence structure in order to express your thought.

Maybe that maps to C1 vs C2? At C1 you can express your thoughts with occasional backtracking, but at C2 you almost never need to backtrack?

[xvilka]

With a certain level of language skill, you start to experiment more with it, create new words, change grammar intentionally to accent your point, and simply stop caring about the correctness of what you say or write.

[timr]

Yeah. That's a level beyond -- You're "fluent" enough that you can break the rules -- but that's partially not about language, but about being perceived to be native. Changing the cultural presumption, so to speak, so that people give you the benefit of the doubt when you're saying something non-standard. I think anyone who attempts humor in a foreign language runs into this wall, hard.

The C1/C2 divide does seem to mix up that concept and the idea of "looking for the right word". I sort of understand what it's getting at, but it's unclear.

I still think (as a native English speaker), it's fairly routine to stop and re-think what you are saying because you're grasping for the right word.

[thaumasiotes]

> I still think (as a native English speaker), it's fairly routine to stop and re-think what you are saying because you're grasping for the right word.

When speaking in a foreign language, it is commonly the case that you will have a word in mind, but it will be a word from your native language. This can cause problems when, for example, you set up the sentence to use a noun, but the language you're speaking doesn't have a noun that fits into your context correctly. Now you have two problems:

1. You need to retroactively rephrase your whole sentence to present the same information in a different style, because that's the way this language does it. This works best if you can change the past.

2. You probably don't know the correct thing to say, or you wouldn't have made that mistake to begin with.

[timr]

> When speaking in a foreign language, it is commonly the case that you will have a word in mind, but it will be a word from your native language. This can cause problems when, for example, you set up the sentence to use a noun, but the language you're speaking doesn't have a noun that fits into your context correctly.

Yeah, I get that. Then later, you get to a point where you're largely not translating from your native language at all (i.e. "thinking in X"), and you just can't remember the word in the adopted language, so you need to re-route. Worst case, that ends up kicking you back up to your native language, and you're back to translation, which is like shifting into 1st gear on the highway.

I think my point is (to the extent that I have one) that being able to route around the issue in the second language is itself a fundamental form of fluency. That, plus being able to reliably receive definitions of words spoken in the new language are like the lambda calculus of speech. You can forget words all day long (and, believe me, many older people do!) but still be "fluent" if you never have to fall back to your old language as a crutch.

Anyway, I'm not trying to disagree with the broad notion -- there's clearly a point at which you're grasping around less like a foreign-language person, and more like a native person.

[djtango]

I do that a lot in English because English is so deep and there's a perfect word for everything. Recently I was ruminating on just how many ways there are to say "walk slowly" in English: saunter, meander, stroll, amble, shuffle and I think there were others.

Meanwhile in Chinese earlier I forgot how to say "shallow" so settled for "not deep"

[afiodorov]

When you spend some time transcribing live, impromptu speech, you'll notice that it often doesn't follow the rules of written grammar; speakers frequently abandon sentences midway through.

For example, in the linked clip[^1], the speaker says:

  "uh the European Union uh that's not a US creation that's a you guys creation so don't ex..[abandoned word] the strength of the west [abandoned sentence] and the west is a really I don't know what"

For a moment, she struggles to express herself. Yet, there's a qualitative difference between not knowing what to say because a thought is not fully formed, and knowing what you want to say but realizing you've forgotten the specific word you need. For instance, you might be about to say "cherry," only to find you've forgotten the word and instead say something more general, like "forest fruit (fruta de bosque)," which is still correct but less precise.

[^1]: https://youtu.be/_hBd8w-Hlm4?si=7-kvpUoeYo5ODPiI&t=787

[bmacho]

That's sub A1 level (per European language classification).

Tho levels are often described and measured by what you are capable of, and not by what you do, or what you like to do. This includes: being able to understand others, and being able to create correct and appropriate text.

[fhars]

They were describing the level where you can create perfectly cromulent words in your second language out of thin air, that is well past A1.

[bmacho]

No, they were explicit about the opposite of it.

> With a certain level of language skill, you start to experiment more with it, create new words, change grammar intentionally to accent your point, and simply stop caring about the correctness of what you say or write.

There are several concepts/situations here weaved together, but the two main are:

  - artistic intent, playfulness
  - inability to speak correctly

The second one is low level, and artistic intent is orthogonal to your level, and transfers from your native language.

(edit: BTW these two are closely related, since both are mostly just using patterns in places where they are not commonly used, and breaking them would be preferred)

[shawabawa3]

I think your have the classification backwards

A1 level is "can barely speak the language, can maybe order a baguette"

C2 is ~native level

[guerrilla]

What's the best way to measure how close I am to that?

[nextaccountic]

Can a non-native speaker go beyond C2?

[StopDisinfo910]

It’s just a framework for evaluating how people learning languages stand.

Most native speakers would be hard pressed to be certified as C2 in their own language. I think a lot would fail C1 because they don’t know/use some of their language quirks which would be evaluated. I know for a fact that I can’t properly use some modes and tenses in my native language without a rule book.

[azangru]

Is the 'beyond C2' defined? C2 is the highest possible grade in the Common European Framework of Reference for languages. How would one ascertain that someone is beyond C2, given the lack of generally accepted criteria?

[velp]

Maybe if you can create professional-level works in that language? Ie poems, lyrics, prose, etc.

[rf15]

It's just a certification level that is almost meaningless compared to the natural Version of the language. And with some native speakers you honestly wonder why C2 requirements are so sophisticated.

[microflash]

Sure they can. It is just a matter of immersion.

[throaway955]

Close....You've typed this out in English after having achieved such AN unlockING.

[woooooo]

Online English can definitely use "unlock" as a noun like that, it comes from gaming culture.

An unlocking would be less idiomatic IMO.

[throaway955]

yeesh, "online English." L337 h4xors with uber skillz?

"achieving unlock" is grammatically incorrect (im a native English speaker), if its idiomatic then of course that's different, but I wouldn't put that down as being "fluent," id put it down to be exposed to those specific idioms. It's not just about using the verb as a noun; where is the indefinite article?

If the gp was making a "I can has cheeseburgers?" style joke, then it went over my head, but it clearly is not grammatically correct English just because its used online.

[woooooo]

Did you just lead off a linguistic purity rant with "yeesh"?

[throaway955]

no, and "yeesh," is in the dictionary in any case.

[timr]

Good illustration of the comment about true fluency being able to play with the language.

English takes this to pro level, of course.

[throaway955]

It's incorrect English. If its idiomatic then its idiomatic. But its not a marker of fluency; its a marker of being exposed to a culture which uses those idioms.

[ajuc]

> Isn't that a thing everyone does?

It's much more common when you're multilingual, because you think in combination of all the languages you know and you only realize you're missing the specific word when you get to them trying to express the thoughts on the fly.

Sometimes it's not because you're not fluent - it's simply because the concept isn't expressible in the target language with that particular sentence structure you started with.

Typical example is English "I like him" vs Russian "on mne nravitsya" (+- he for me is desirable). If you start saying "I" you're already wrong.

It even happens within one language in highly inflected languages - because you wanted to say one thing, then changed the word to a better - but the sentence structure doesn't work with that new word, so you have to go back mid-sentence or make a grammatical mistake).

[StopDisinfo910]

Often, looking for word mid-sentence generally is a manifestation of people not thinking in the language they are speaking which for me is the threshold at which you can be considered fluent.

Fluency is a very high level to reach. Most people are merely conversational in the foreign languages they speak and that’s more than enough for most interactions.