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A. It sounds too good to be true. B. However, nobody is "perfectly fluent" in any language. C. Quick fluency is good if you have some sort of deadline. D. But have you ever considered what fluency really means? E. But does fluency have the same meaning to other person as it does to you? F. Unlike perfect fluency, native-like fluency is a reasonable and attainable goal. G. To assist you in determining what fluency is, I'll describe a few different types of fluency. |
You might dream of fluency in this or that language, and maybe you have already achieved fluency in a foreign language.
Fluency, like all abstract terms, has no universal meaning. Each individual must determine what the term means.
Perfect fluency means knowing each word you encounter, speaking quickly, clearly and easily and having no accent. You aren't familiar with every word of your native language, and sometimes you have to search for the right word, even in your mother tongue.
Quick fluency is the type of fluency you see in advertisements, because "Master a Language in 2 Months!" sounds very catchier than "Fluency in 20 Years!" It is possible to achieve quick fluency, but the fluency achieved after such a short time frame will be a very thin, superficial fluency.
Native-like fluency means that you generally know all the same words that a native knows and can speak at the same pace with the same amount of ease as a native speaker. You will likely have an accent, but as long as your conversation partner can understand you, it doesn't matter.
Literary fluency is like graduating from native-like to educated-native-like fluency. It focuses on the more intellectual side of a language: including in literature, attending university, composing song lyrics, etc.
There are a ton of other things that fluency could potentially be, but that's up to you to figure out.
