Subtitles section Play video
-
hey what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com
-
in this video we are gonna talk about how to know when you're fluent in
-
English and actually you can use this little quiz I guess that I made to test
-
if you're fluent in other languages as well but basically we're gonna talk
-
about things that happen to you and to your English when you are fluent so you
-
can know hey are you fluent or are you not fluent what are you good at what do
-
you still have to work on okay because if you've studied English for any length
-
of time that's longer than you know a couple months you know that listening to
-
English every single day does not make you fluent studying English for years
-
and different English Institutes does not make you fluent having private
-
teachers does not make you fluent using English at work does not make you fluent
-
even having a degree or a certificate or something you know from formal higher
-
education a university or something like that doesn't make you fluent I could go
-
on and on none of this stuff makes you fluent right because you and I both know
-
people that have done this kind of stuff and they still aren't fluent maybe you
-
are even someone who's done stuff like this and you're not fluent okay so it's
-
a journey it's a process I'm here to help you with this but I want to explain
-
some of the things that happen to you when you are fluent in a foreign
-
language and I'm speaking from experience go ahead and click the link
-
up here to watch a video where I'm speaking Spanish you can hear how I used
-
to speak at seven years ago versus how I speak it today okay it's completely
-
different anyways a lot happened during my journey of learning Spanish to
-
finally becoming fluent and the thing about fluency that makes it really hard
-
to detect is that it does not happen overnight right it's not like one day
-
you're not fluent and the next day oh my gosh you're fluent it happens slowly
-
over time and you usually don't even realize your improvements as you're
-
improving you realize them when you look back at where you started and you see
-
how far you've come okay so let's talk about how to know when you're fluent
-
there are different things that we're going to talk about speaking
-
understanding how other people understand you etcetera let's get into
-
it so you know you're fluent when you understand at least one dialect of
-
English perfectly you understand everything now granted there's going to
-
be some things you don't understand I mean there's words in English that I
-
don't understand if you try to talk to me about mechanics or something like
-
that it's not that I'm not fluent in English I'm just not familiar with that
-
kind of technical jargon because I don't ever use it right so when you're fluent
-
in a language you understand everything except for the things that you're not
-
really familiar with or maybe once in a while I hear a new idiom and I'm like
-
how I've never heard that before or I hear a new slang term that the
-
younger generations are using okay I feel so old saying that but seriously
-
I'm starting to realize how old I am because I'm hearing slang and I'm just
-
like oh my gosh kids are saying that these days anyways so you know you're
-
fluent when you understand English pretty much perfectly one dialect of
-
English because there are so many different dialects you guys I went to
-
Ireland and I could barely understand people there so don't feel like you need
-
to understand every single native speaker that's just not realistic okay
-
next you know you're fluent when you can speak automatically without translating
-
in your head you don't even have to think about what you're gonna say or how
-
you're gonna say it you just speak you don't worry when you're in conversations
-
like oh my gosh how should i form this sentence what verb tense should I use
-
you're not even having those thoughts those thoughts are not occurring to you
-
because you just open your mouth and you speak and you know exactly what to say
-
and you know you're fluent when you make very few errors and you're able to catch
-
your own mistakes okay so you pretty much sound like a native speaker you
-
speak the way that they speak you make minimal errors and when you do make
-
errors you're able to catch them and if you're not sure if you can catch your
-
errors just write a page in English or make a video that's two to three minutes
-
in English and then read what you wrote and watch your video and try to catch
-
your own mistakes if you can do it cool you're pretty close to fluency okay next
-
you know you're fluent when you can use a wide range of vocabulary and
-
expressions and you don't feel like you're repeating yourself I remember
-
when I was still learning Spanish I would say the same things over and over
-
again because I didn't know
-
another way of expressing it for example I would say ah que interesante
-
mm que interesante mm que interesante which means how interesting right but I
-
would say that for everything you would tell me something cool and I'd say oh
-
how interesting you would tell me something interesting and I would say oh
-
how interesting you would tell me something normal and I would say oh how
-
interesting I literally did not know other ways to express my feelings and my
-
emotions and as you get more and more fluent that becomes easier expressing
-
your ideas expressing your emotions you do it effortlessly right and you're not
-
searching for words like how can I say this and you don't have that annoying
-
feeling on the inside where you're just like man I keep saying the same thing
-
over and over again I'm so tired of feeling repetitive okay when you're
-
fluent you don't have that okay next you know you're fluent when you can explain
-
and talk about a variety of subjects that are conversational and technical I
-
know a lot of English learners who can explain everything about their job
-
perfectly in English but then when you want to talk you know about something
-
totally conversational like hey what'd you do yesterday or what do you eat for
-
dinner or what are you gonna do later today they just freeze and they're like
-
you know because that normal everyday vocabulary they just don't have it or
-
they keep forgetting it or something like that but when you're fluent you can
-
talk just as easily about casual conversation type stuff as you would
-
about your work and the technical jargon that you use there now if you can't talk
-
about what you do at work and you lack that technical jargon then that's one
-
thing you know you have to improve if you do know the technical jargon of your
-
work and you can communicate that easily in English but you struggle with regular
-
conversations then you know that your focus should be on talking with people
-
everyday in English improving that area okay next you know you're fluent when
-
you use grammar tenses naturally and easily and there's really no such thing
-
as a difficult tense right when tenses are difficult for you that's because
-
you're either a beginner or you're at an intermediate stage of learning where you
-
have not become familiarized with all the tenses and
-
have not been exposed to them enough to know when and how to use them because
-
grammar is actually something we internalize when you're first learning
-
it when your teacher is first teaching you they break it down into every little
-
structure and they explain every scenario in situation and time and tense
-
how it's used etc etc but eventually you internalize that and you get to a point
-
where stuff just sounds right you're like I don't even remember what this
-
grammar tenses called I just know how to say it and that's that okay
-
so that happens when you are fluent things just sound right you know it's
-
right because it sounds right you might not even remember the grammar tense and
-
you start making the same mistakes that native speakers make this happens to me
-
in Spanish I got so fluent that I started misspelling words the same way
-
native Spanish speakers misspelled words I would confuse the B and the V for
-
example which if you're a Spanish speaker you know that that's a very
-
common mistake it's crazy because I used to have a flawless spelling in Spanish
-
but that's when I was at a more intermediate level and I still had all
-
the rules totally ingrained in my mind and I
-
remembered everything you could ask me anything about grammar and I knew the
-
answer but I couldn't speak the language so now that I've internalized the
-
language I literally go through the same things that native speakers go through
-
and this is gonna happen to you too this is another thing when you get so fluent
-
in English there will be certain things that you will struggle to express in
-
your native language because you just realize there's no translation you
-
learned it in English you understand it in English and then when someone from
-
your family says hey explain this thing to me you're like oh I want to tell you
-
how it is or what it is but it just doesn't make sense unless I say it in
-
English you have internalized the language then you realize that languages
-
are just different codes of expressing ideas and some things literally can't be
-
translated or they're very difficult to translate this actually happened to me
-
the other day when one of my friends asked me about mate mate is a typical
-
tea in Argentina it's a specific drink okay that people have there and they
-
wanted to know all the details like how do you prepare this tea how do you drink
-
it how do you share it because you know you pass it around and you share it
-
with multiple people that might sound disgusting if you're a germaphobe but people do
-
this all the time and it's very normal anyways I was trying to explain it and
-
my brain would not think in English I could not explain this whole ritual in
-
English it was so hard it was actually exhausting and I was just like oh my
-
gosh I wish I could explain this in Spanish because it's just so hard to say
-
in English okay so that is gonna happen to you when you get super fluent in
-
English you're gonna struggle to express things in your native language because
-
certain things just don't translate well now another thing that happens when
-
you're fluent in English is that English words and grammar and sentence
-
structures start to affect your native language okay you may even mess up in
-
your native language this happens to me sometimes frequently I've even said
-
things like yeah I shut it off the water instead of saying I shut the water off
-
that is a sentence structure that comes from Spanish and that's how I would say
-
in Spanish so sometimes those grammatical structures slip into my
-
English and I just mess up it's a really crazy phenomenon but it happens it's
-
quite common okay next you know you're fluent in English when native and
-
non-native English speakers are impressed with your English they go wow
-
you speak really well they're shocked by your pronunciation they're shocked by
-
how natural you sound and they congratulate you on it because they're
-
really impressed so that happens when you're fluent in English and if it has
-
happened to you already congratulations that's awesome
-
next you know you're fluent in English when you understand jokes understanding
-
humor in a foreign language is one of the most difficult things because you
-
don't just have to understand the language and the grammar you have to
-
understand the culture you have to understand yeah the culture that's it
-
basically you have to understand why it's funny you have to read between the
-
lines let's just say that so anyhow you know you're fluent in English when you
-
can watch comedians and understand what they say now some jokes might still go
-
over your head okay but for the most part you're surprised like wow I totally
-
understood that I got that and you can laugh at it and understand the humor the
-
same way a native speaker would next you know you're fluent in English when
-
don't get stuck when you're speaking and if you do get stuck you're quickly able
-
to get around whatever is making you stuck and think of a new way to say
-
whatever you're going to say I get stuck when I speak English sometimes I'm like
-
oh man am I even making sense right now am I saying this way I want to say it
-
and I realize that maybe I'm not making the most sense so I look for a new way
-
to say whatever I'm gonna say and when you're fluent in English you do the same
-
thing you don't get stuck first of all on basic stuff
-
but then if you do get stuck with a bigger idea that you're trying to
-
express you just look for a new way to say it and you do the best that you can
-
next you know you're fluent when you can speak coherently for any length of time
-
whether that is 30 seconds 2 minutes or whether you're giving an entire speech
-
in front of an auditorium of a bunch of people what I have found
-
after doing hours and hours and hours of lessons with English learners and
-
talking with a non-native English speakers is that when you're at an
-
intermediate level a lot of times you tend to talk in circles you end up it's
-
like the more you talk the less sense you make so my tip for you here I don't
-
just want to leave you with this problem is make shorter sentences and pause more
-
between your sentences and don't try to talk for too long if you're not sure if
-
you're making sense and if you start saying the same thing over and over
-
again to try to make it make sense but you're just rambling kind of like what
-
I'm doing right now then just stop okay take a break let the other person speak
-
in the conversation and let there be a natural flow of ideas from one person to
-
the other next you know you're fluent when you are not afraid of speaking with
-
native speakers now I know that some people are shy by Nature
-
or they're naturally introverts even native English speakers sometimes don't
-
want to talk with other native English speakers they get shy when they have to
-
do a presentation or something like that so that's not exactly what I'm talking
-
about because that exists and that can exist even in your native language but I
-
just mean you don't have those thoughts in your head like oh my gosh are they
-
gonna understand me what are they gonna think are they gonna make fun of me you
-
don't have those negative thoughts because you know you're fluent in
-
English and so if you don't feel comfortable speaking with a native
-
speaker it's probably more related to your personality and you
-
we don't like doing presentations and stuff like that even in your native
-
language and it's not about your lack of fluency in English next you know you're
-
fluent in English when you can comfortably maintain a conversation and
-
maintaining a conversation means it's shared fifty-fifty between two people or
-
if there's more people everyone is participating equally in the
-
conversation and you're able to exchange ideas transition to new topics
-
pause appropriately share anecdotes tell jokes and you just feel comfortable
-
you're able to maintain a conversation and there's no like awkward silences
-
like okay what should we say now should we talk about now sometimes that can
-
happen even in your native language maybe if you're not very good at making
-
conversation but for the most part when you're fluent in a language you should
-
have the same conversation skills that you have in your native language okay
-
you should at least be at the same level there okay I know this video is long but
-
we still have a few more so hang in here with me and we'll get through this list
-
you know you're fluent in English when you feel like yourself okay when you
-
don't feel like you're being fake when you don't feel like you're a different
-
person I remember when I first went to Argentina and I had to speak Spanish for
-
literally like the first two to three years I was so frustrated because I was
-
like I just don't feel like myself I'm not Stefanie when I being Stefanie
-
okay what does that mean that means that I can talk with anybody I have no
-
problem talking with strangers I have no problem presenting I like telling jokes
-
these are things that make up Who I am it's part of my personality but then
-
when I would be in Argentina living there and being around native speakers
-
it was like I was a completely different person and it was so frustrating because
-
I didn't have the confidence to tell jokes I lacked fluency for the first
-
couple of years and I was constantly stuck inside my own head thinking like
-
oh nobody's gonna understand me I couldn't relax I couldn't enjoy the
-
practicing process of improving the language I just didn't feel like myself
-
I wasn't able to maintain conversations easily I didn't feel comfortable talking
-
with strangers finally all of that went away okay and I was able to overcome all
-
of those issues and again I talk about it in the video that I linked
-
earlier where I'm speaking Spanish so if you want to learn more about that go watch
-
that video next you know you're fluent in English when you understand
-
subtle differences between very similar sentences and you're able to pick up on