WMS: I found that newspapers were ideal for studying--you can surely find something that fits your interests, and you can get spend anywhere from 5 minutes to as much time as you have each day.

After I quit taking French courses, I used to read the Le Monde, which started off as a laborious task--3 pages of words to define or check my translation on in an article at first. I kept that up a few times a week for a year, and later my wife said that my french was hilarious because I combined the vocabulary of a well-educated professional with the pronunciation and grammar of a five year old.

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Occupy Babel!

English, Spanish, Russian, French, Japanese. As an American citizen I think it's sad that so few Americans know foreign languages. But that's likely to change before too long. The Hispanic population in the USA is growing so fast that in a decade or two the USA is likely to be bilingual with English and Spanish the way Canada is with English and French. Also, as the Chinese economy grows there will be more and more pressure to learn Chinese.

The only foreign language (for me) that I speak fluently is German, but I can carry on a conversation in French or Russian if there's enough alcohol involved.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I can speak Portuguese and English very well, can manage pretty well in Spanish, and can ruin enough French to get by, so I voted 4. I'm not sure if I should have counted French, since I'm really out of practice.

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

I only know English fluently, so I put down 1. However, I have studied both Spanish and Japanese to some extent. Being Canadian, I was also forced to study French, but I resented being forced to do that and so I hated it and dropped it as soon as I could. There's no need to be able to speak French in Ontario anyway - Mandarin would probably be more useful.

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We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

One.

I've taken three years of Latin, one year of Spanish, one year of German, one semester of Greek, one semester of Italian, and I consider myself to be barely competent in English.

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

One for me. And not motivated enough to actually see my dream come true of learning at least one new language (at least currently, I'm working on it ).

Not for lack of trying, though. Took one quarter of German, 1 quarter of French, 1 quarter of Spanish, lived in Thailand and took a year of Thai class (teacher was terrible ), and took 2 semesters of Japanese in college.

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KGS: schultz [?].

Same thread for SL: http://senseis.xmp.net/?topic=1693

French (native), German (the one I speak every day ever since I moved to Hamburg) and English (I read much more English books than German or French ones).
It's not rare for me to get confused because of my brain trying to think of something in three different languages.

I did not count Spanish (after learning it six years in school, I can survive to a trip in Spain... barely) or Swedish (I prefer to avoid thinking of my poor attempts at learning it).

I'm surprised at how many languages people speak fluently on this forum. Most people I know somehow manage English, often with pain.

I'm actually surprised that there aren't more trilingual or quadrilingual folk, between the Europeans and Asian-Americans.

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Occupy Babel!

I suspect that, even with the definition given (eg. able to read "most" of a newspaper), people define fluency in different ways.

I would say that I have some degree of ability in English, Japanese, and Korean... But there are words that I don't know in all of these languages.

I would guess that I am fluent in English since I grew up speaking it, but the line for fluency seems pretty arbitrary to me.

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be immersed

Why should Europeans be trilingual? Alright, we learn two languages at school, for 6 to 10 years. But it doesn't mean we can speak them ^^°


I've been living in Germany for five years, talking German every day, reading it, using it at work and at home... and I learn a new word at least once a week. There are always words you don't know. As long as you manage to understand enough from the context to have a conversation, I think that's enough.

I think that I can see your point, but I am basically saying that I feel like the study of language is more like a continuum than an on/off fluency switch. For example, there can even be particular people speaking a foreign language that you can understand more easily than others.

For some jobs that require Japanese speaking ability, for example, they will indicate a particular level of ability: JLPT Level 1, for example. I think that this makes sense in the fact that somebody that's passed the JLPT Level 1 test may have some degree of fluency, but the level of ability can provide some sort of quantitative measure of that ability. To just ask for a "fluent speaker" is more ambiguous to me, because I don't see fluency as something that is as easily measurable.

If you consider any other discipline - go for example - there is the same kind of continuous learning that is in place. If I ask for a teacher that is a "good go player", this doesn't really make much sense by itself, unless you quantify it in some way. If I want to hire a teacher that is "7d or higher", it is something that is more quantifiable. But if I simply say that I'm willing to hire a "good go player", I might have a wide spectrum of applicants knocking on my door (eg. a 15k player is a "good player", compared to somebody that's just learned the rules). In the same way, "fluency" is not easily quantifiable.

In this thread, there is at least a guideline for measurement. One of the items mentioned, for example, is that you can read most of a newspaper. It would be easier to accurately quantify fluency in this fashion if we were to have a more specific measure: "You are fluent if you can understand the meaning of 80% of the sentences in this particular newspaper". Even this leaves room for discrepancy, though, because it's possible that there are certain nuances in the language that you weren't aware of, which give a particular feeling when you are reading the sentence. For example, in English, I might say, "Mind your own business!". Or, I might instead say, "Butt out!". To some people, one of these phrases may promote a different feeling than the other. However, it is possible to understand the meaning of the phrase, without also getting getting this feeling from the words.

In addition, different phrases can have different feelings, depending on *who* is talking to you. If you come to expect a particular style of speech from a particular person, the phrases that they say can give a slightly different meaning than what they would coming from somebody else. For example, if I have a friend that regularly uses swear words, I might start to feel his true intentions through his communication, even though his language may be crude. If I take the same crude phrase and hear it from somebody that typically speaks without using swear words, suddenly, I might be very surprised that this person is speaking to me in this way....

---

So anyway, there are several factors involved in communication and understanding people. I think that the study of a language is a continuous and lifelong process. The idea of fluency, which, to me, sounds like a binary idea (eg. you are fluent or you are not fluent) seems to be said from the context of a fixed mind set.

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be immersed

You're right of course. It's very hard to measure the ability in a language, especially since it actually consist of several abilities. I can absolutely imagine someone having mastered enough Japanese for small talk, but being absolutely unable to read a newspaper, since kanji are so hard to master.

If by "know" you mean "speak, write and read fluently", then it's two for me: My native language is German, but I've worked for and with American companies for quite a few years now, and have a British partner (she doesn't speak German), so my English is probably quite decent and qualifies as a second language.

I've learned some Greek and Italian at various times in my life so far, and I intend to improve at least my Italian in the future, but lack of time and, more importantly, motivation slow that goal down. I can communicate in very basic and very simple ways in those two languages, but wouldn't say I know them. I just picked "two" in the poll.

I did in fact post a definition in my OP.

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Offending ad removed

I can speak gibberish fluently, especially when I've had a few. I only wish John Fairbairn would answer this thread, to make you all feel small.

Best wishes.

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No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
http://www.gogod.co.uk

Well, someone anonymously claimed fluency in 9 languages. Perhaps it was John.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

John has his own sign-on and doesn't post anonymously. Just as a taster, he did his degree in Russian and currently translates old and modern Chinese, old and modern Japanese and Korean. How many others I don't know.

Best wishes.

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No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
http://www.gogod.co.uk

I don't think I'll ever learn 9 languages. I'll be happy if I can perfect the three I am working on - and that seems like a bit much to me... :-p

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be immersed