Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Fluent? Bilingual? Neither?
When I was a small child my aunt started teaching me words that she learned in her high school Spanish class. Basic counting, the alphabet, body parts, words I had only learned in English a year or two before. In elementary school, local college students would come once/week for an after school program where they would try to teach us a few words. It wasn't until high school that I had the opportunity to take a real Spanish class. I completed 3 years of high school Spanish, spent a year as an exchange student in Costa Rica, returned the States and Minored in Spanish in college. Still, every opportunity I had to speak Spanish was a struggle. The person speaking to me was required to slow their speech pace to a crawl, and I had to rack my brain to put together a sentence. Ok, it wasn't quite that bad, but pretty close.
Through the joy of a store mis-marking their product, and Will being in the right place at the right time, I got (as a Christmas present from Will) all 5 levels of the Rosetta Stone program. When I made the decision to move back to Costa Rica, I was determined my Spanish would be better this time. For about a month I spent 4-6 hours/day doing the Rosetta Stone program (I don't recommend this by the way!) I actually was able to move through it pretty quickly, because I wasn't really learning much new vocabulary. I was however, speaking in full, grammatically correct sentences.
With no one to really practice with, I wasn't sure if my skills had actually improved or not. I jumped on my plane, flew down to CR and hoped for the best. It only took me (and my Tica family) a couple weeks to realize the difference in my abilities. Suddenly I was following conversations without feeling exhausted afterward. Eventually, I was actually contributing to conversations, and not just when I was asked a direct question. My work had paid off.
Now, don't get me wrong. Rosetta Stone is not necessarily the key to mastering a language (though I do believe its method is great and it is the reason I can speak more fluently now). And in fact, I haven't even come close to mastering Spanish. While I consider myself fully communicative (I almost never find myself in a position where I don't know what's going on and/or can't get my point across) I don't consider my fluent.
This has become a topic of conversation among myself and other ex-pats. What defines fluent? Is there a difference between fluent and bilingual? If I'm "fully communicative" should I be calling myself fluent, rather than "Conversationally Fluent" which is the term I generally prefer to use. Can I ever truly be bilingual if I didn't grow up speaking the language?
At my previous job, one of my responsibilities was to give English diagnostic exams. We rated speaking using interview style question with increasing difficulty (more challenging questions required the use of past and future tenses) and then rated the speaker on a 0-4 scale (including half points). A zero was a non-speaker (like if I tried to speak Mandarin) and four was a native speaker. No one ever got a four. I was also responsible for conducting interview with prospective teachers. While Spanish was not a requirement, it was always good to know what skills they had. I always found it weird when someone listed fluent on the resume, but then when we switched to interview questions in Spanish, they didn't even speak as well as me.
The definition of "fluent" according to http://www.merriam-webster.com/ is:
1 a. Capable of flowing
b. Capable of moving with ease and grace
2 a. Capable of using a language easily and accurately
b. Effortlessly smooth and flowing
c. Having or showing mastery of a skill or subject
Focusing on number 2, generally I'm capable of using Spanish easily, though not always accurately (from a grammatical stand point). I'd say most of the time I'm can achieve smooth and flowing, though not effortlessly. I certainly don't display mastery.
The relevant definition of "bilingual" is "using or being able to use two languages especially with equal fluency." I can use two languages, but not with equal fluency, but it says "especially with..." so, not always. However, http://www.learnersdictionary.com (an ESL dictionary by Merriam-Webster) says it's simply, "able to speak and understand two languages." Well I can definitely do that!!!
So, am I bilingual, but not fluent? I've always thought someone who is bilingual is someone who speaks 2 languages as if they were both their native language. As if mastering Spanish isn't enough, now I don't even know how to define my Spanish capabilities!
The definition of "fluent" according to http://www.merriam-webster.com/ is:
1 a. Capable of flowing
b. Capable of moving with ease and grace
2 a. Capable of using a language easily and accurately
b. Effortlessly smooth and flowing
c. Having or showing mastery of a skill or subject
Focusing on number 2, generally I'm capable of using Spanish easily, though not always accurately (from a grammatical stand point). I'd say most of the time I'm can achieve smooth and flowing, though not effortlessly. I certainly don't display mastery.
The relevant definition of "bilingual" is "using or being able to use two languages especially with equal fluency." I can use two languages, but not with equal fluency, but it says "especially with..." so, not always. However, http://www.learnersdictionary.com (an ESL dictionary by Merriam-Webster) says it's simply, "able to speak and understand two languages." Well I can definitely do that!!!
So, am I bilingual, but not fluent? I've always thought someone who is bilingual is someone who speaks 2 languages as if they were both their native language. As if mastering Spanish isn't enough, now I don't even know how to define my Spanish capabilities!
1 Comments:
I know what you mean about being exhausted trying to follow conversations. Back when I was a grad student, I would try to talk to my PhD advisor in German. After 5-10 minutes, I would be so mentally wrung-out that I would say, "Zurück zu Englisch, bitte," which is bad German for "Back to English, please!" My advisor would chuckle and effortlessly go back to English.
I admire the fact that you have become "fully communicative" in another language. I never was able to do that.
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