Fluency

*This post was inspired by Kayley's latest blog post here. If you don't follow her already, get on it! She's got a great insight on expat life, and has a lot of great advice.

Before I left for Spain, one of the first questions people would ask me is, "Oh, so you're fluent in Spanish then?". I would usually shrug modestly and say, "Yeah, pretty much." The other day, I ran into some American students studying at the university here in Bilbao. When they found out I had lived here since September, the first thing out of their mouths was, "Wow! So you must be fluent then!". I hesitated a lot more this time, and this interaction has made me think a lot about the concept of being fluent in a language. 

This is a picture of the Basque Coast. It has nothing to do with fluency.

Do I speak Spanish? Yes. I can communicate with people quite well, actually. I can open a bank account, ask about tickets for buses and trains, and talk on the phone comfortably. I can hold a conversation pretty well, and I know when people are talking about me in Spanish. 

But am I fluent?

I'm still hesitant to say that I'm fluent. I still mess up verb tenses, and struggle with the subjunctive. I don't always have the right words to express exactly how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking. I'm not very witty in Spanish. I get offended when people would rather struggle in their crappy English than in what I assume is not-too-bad Spanish.

A lot of the time, I don't see very much progress in my Spanish. I've read that when you're getting good at a language, there's not as many victory moments, so it's harder to see exactly how you're improving. I take some comfort in that, I suppose, but I'm still reaching for that higher level of fluency. 

So, my polyglot friends, I ask you. How do you define fluency?

Originally published 3.21.11