<p>What offer? </p>
<p>Sorry, I don’t buy it - three months is nothing, certainly not long enough to have internalised the language. Have you passed the Goethe-Zertifikat C2? If not, you’re not fluent.</p>
<p>nordicblue takes such a hard line regarding fluency. There isn’t a precise definition and there are not precise time lines you can draw. My wife is better than me at learning languages and speaks 5, is fluent in 2 (besides ENglish) and she does it in less than a year, when we move to a new country. That means she can have conversations, talk with tax authorities, read novels or instructions for electronic devices, etc. </p>
<p>I also disagree that you can’t do it by going to a country without having studied and learn a language in a year. I did, twice, and native speakers believed I was fluent. Perhaps nordicblue should define her standards, particularly if she is an academic.</p>
<p>I agree with @nordicblue</p>
<p>American “Fluent” is being able to order dinner at a restaurant or ask for the local bus station.
To truly become fluent in a language (if you have never been exposed to it before) would take 2-3 yrs minimum for easy languages like Spanish or Italian, more for more difficult languages. </p>
<p>I don’t know why people are arguing about this. Americans and Europeans use the word ‘fluent’ differently. The way Europeans use the word, it means something more like what Americans would call ‘proficient’: maybe has an accent, but language is never an issue, and is able to function normally in all relevant contexts and situations, including, say, an argument in a bar (and when they can’t, it’s not language that is the issue). Clearly, nobody is going to get this in 6 months or a year.</p>
<p>Americans use ‘fluent’ to mean something like ‘can function normally without language being a huge issue in most normal daily situations; doesn’t need to translate in her head’. </p>
<p>"Americans use ‘fluent’ to mean something like ‘can function normally without language being a huge issue in most normal daily situations; doesn’t need to translate in her head’. "</p>
<p>Even sticking to that definition of fluent, one can not reach that stage in 3 months.</p>
<p>Granted. But it’s not quite such an insane claim.</p>
<p>Hi Nordicblue - it wasn’t three months - it was 6 mont</p>
<p>Hi guys, noramlly I wouldn’t defend myself with regard to fluency - and that being said, I won’t! :)</p>
<p>What is important to note, however, is that that it’s not about me. It’s about whatever young people are going abroad to learn languages. </p>
<p>Now, I will point out an embarrising little mistake I made:</p>
<p>“80 hours a month, 320 hours of langauge classes per 6 month period” - I put in the amount of hours you would complete doing a standard intensive course" for 4 months (I was thinking about the equivalent, more or less, of a 3.5 month-long semester course in the States, and that thought flowed to the keyboard).</p>
<p>The correct figure for a six-month course is 480 hours:</p>
<pre><code> Four Hundred and Eighty Hourse of class time!
</code></pre>
<p>Add to that: homework, living with Germans, reading German papers and books, watching German television, and listening to German radio programs…add that all up! </p>
<p>If, while living in Germany, I were exposed to only an equivalent 4 hours of German per day - then the exposure to the German language doubles: 960 hours. Well, I was exposed to a lot more than 8 hours of German per day…</p>
<p>Think also this way:
480 hours of class time is about Two and a Half Times more class hours than you would
have at a US university over a 4 semester (2-year) time period.</p>
<p>In terms of fluency, Nordicblue is right about a few things. Though he/she didn’t mention it, there are different levels of fluency (which is now somewhat defined in a European Framework). However, all Germans I meet with compliment me on my level of German, and they always ask me where/how I learned. Again, the important thing to note is that if someone goes abroad and takes an intensive language course for 4 - 6 months, they have an excellent opportunity to achieve a truly funcitonal level in a foreign language (even if not the higher levels, which indicate fluency). </p>
<p>This brings up another point: most US students do not fare well in the language area when the study abroad. Most haven’t learned all that much (relatively speaking), they spend their time with other US students while abroad, therefore foregoing the opportunity to advance speaking skills rapidly, they don’t spend enough time abroad to really absorb a foreign language and achieve a demonstrable level of fluency, and, quite often, language acquisition is not their main focus. (Why US students are so obsessed with credits is beyond me - they lose out on a great opportunity.)</p>
<p>So, if Nordicblue’s opinions are based on what he/she has seen in the majority of the time, I certainly understand the skepticism.</p>
<p>Sorry for any typos (and for the very short post) - I always find myself on CC in the wee hours.</p>
<p>Nordicblue sounds like a language snob to me, enjoying condescension towards AMericans. You meet plenty of them in EUrope, always banging away at pedantic hairsplitting with shifting criteria. </p>
<p>Alcibiade sounds like a self-righteous American to me to me, unable to take criticism or disagreement. You meet plenty of them in EUrope, always banging away when people don’t think they’re the best at everything.</p>
<p>Not sure what a ‘language snob’ is - if you mean i expect people who claim they’re fluent to be able to speak about any subject without thinking, then i guess I’m a snob - but that is what fluency is. I take my hat off to anyone who goes to Germany to learn the language, but however much work they put in, 6 months just isn’t enough to become fluent.</p>
<p>Nordi, I just think you are setting too high a bar and being too strident in your claims, like you can judge others, particularly Americans. I do not have a gift for languages (in contrast to my wife), but I have lived in France for nearly 15 years, have done graduate work (sci-po Paris), had 2 relationships in French, and worked in a French company. Yet there are still situations where there is vocabulary to learn, particularly if I read novels or talk, say, finance or taxes. It also depends on one’s age. My kids speak 3 languages like natives, but they learned in elementary school. </p>
<p>Keepit, you really aren’t someone I want to engage with. There is a bitter, nasty edge to you that I learned long ago to avoid. Again, I ask you to leave me alone. Your dialogue is not constructive in my case. </p>
<p>alcibiade, I encourage you to put bothersome users on “ignore.” Click on the gear icon at the top upper right of the screen. Click on “Preferences.” On the left side of the screen, one of the options is “Ignore List,” which you can click on to add people that you don’t want to deal with. I use it myself at times!</p>
<p>alcibiade that’s fine, but I’m not going to sit here and watch you abuse other users just because you happen to disagree with them. Feel free to use the ‘ignore’ option.</p>
<p>Maine, nice suggestion. Thanks. </p>
<p>Nordi, this is just my personal opinion here, but it sounds odd that you would study for 25 hrs/wk for three years just to learn one language, and then still struggle when you started speaking it. That’s three thousand hours, assuming you went ~40 weeks a year. Is it possible you didn’t learn the fastest way possible or maybe are a little slower with languages? You can simulate immersion in a language with media and Skype conversations these days, which is a significant help that wasn’t available a few years ago. </p>
<p>I hope you can remind open-minded about language learning and the pace it takes for different people :)</p>
<p>What ‘media’ wasn’t available a few years ago?</p>
<p>Skype is fairly recent, that’s what I was talking about</p>
<p>Skype was released in 2003, 11 years ago. It doesn’t seem to have triggered an explosion in language fluency.</p>