jimenato

That happens a lot. At one place I go one girl immediately fetches someone else as soon as she realises you're not Spanish. Everyone else there understands perfectly.

avocados

I think part of the problem is the definition of fluency.

TBH in my world only natives speak their language fluently. The rest can speak it well but it'll never be fluent. I cringe when I hear foreigners speak spanish, they sound like idiots, particularly with their complete inability to roll their "R"s. How can anyone claim to be fluent when they can't do something as simple as that. Weren't some of you "fluent" people on here also pronouncing the word "hijo" as "heho". I nearly fell off my chair.

It's so true what Rosemary said, with regards the Spanish not wanting to understand. My OH (Funcionario) is the language expert in his office. Regularly, he has British Expats passed on to him, although they speak Spanish sufficiently well. Some of his colleagues can't be bothered to make an effort to understand non native spanish or just don't want to deal with the guiris!!!

My own language skills, I'm much better at Spanish than I say, even to the point of correcting the mistakes my OH makes, both verbal and written. He does the same with my English. It's an intersting scenario! That doesn't mean that I have any interest in speaking Spanish!! But my vocabulary is extensive.

Finally, I usually switch off when the Spanish start speaking to me, whether it be a sales person trying to flog something or an acquaintance invading my private life, so I use the eternal...No hablo mucho Español..........hoping that they'll GO AWAY. Time and time again and this is happening too often, they switch over to ENGLISH, leaving me grinding my teeth and the OH sniggering in the background.

You see, they can communicate if they really want to !!!

agoreira

I agree with the first part, however none of us were born speaking Spanish with a perfect accent, it hopefully comes with practice. I doubt very much that your accent is perfect, I know mine certainly isn't (although gutted when a Spanish friend told me I was getting an andalú accent), so you're probably in no position to belittle the efforts of people trying their best to speak the lingo, they should be encouraged. The fact you write "español" with a capital letter would indicate your Spanish is far from perfect.

Rosemary

I must admit to using this with people taking polls etc at supermarkets. It is very useful if you do not want to talk to a sales rep. Luckily for me it is rare to find that they speak English so I tend to get away with it.

Rosemary

HADENOUGHPIZZA

Why confuse fluent with absolutely word perfect ? I've spoken Italian as a second language for many years and I'm not perfect but I consider myself fluent. I think you never stop learning a language , even you own .

Lynn R

Maybe she, like me, just has a cloth ear!

I used to think, when I heard shop assistants or bus drivers professing (quite abruptly and rudely) that they couldn't understand what some poor African or Asian person was asking for in English (although I could understand what they were saying) were being racist, but when I still find it difficult to understand what is being said to me in Spanish, I'm not so sure.

One to one conversations in a quiet setting are OK, but I just can't filter out extraneous noise if someone's talking to me in a crowded room or in the street with traffic going by and other people talking around us.

steviedeluxe

Exactly. People here are confusing being fluent with being bilingual. If you are bi-lingual you can pass for a native in your other language, have a totally comprehensive vocabulary etc. Fluent merely means being able to make yourself understood, and to understand what is being said to you, without hesitating or needing to ask for clarification. Of course there are different levels of fluency, and different situations. Your pronunciation may be fine, and your comprehension good in normal life, but you may well not know the word for spanner, monkey-wrench or allen keys (for example) if you went to the hardware store. In fact I'm sure there are tools I don't know the name of in English!
And yes, I consider that I haven't stopped learning English. Why would it be different with a foreign language? I'm currently reading a Spanish book Riña de Gatos (about an English art valuer sent on assignment to Madrid just as the Civil War is about to erupt) and there are plenty of words that I need to reference, as they don't generally arise in day-to-day conversation. I'm sure that if I read something by Freud or Russell, there'd be English words I'd need to check on. All part of the rich experience of life!

jackytoo

Fluency has different meanings to different people. I think being fluent is being able to carry out a normal conversation without being abnormally slow or stopping to think of a word. Having a proper telephone conversation. I think people can be fluent and still make some grammatical mistakes. A higher fluency is not having to think of words in your first language when using the second. When someone has a few dreams in Spanish, they have arrived.

Accent is important. I have a spanish friend who has an excellent vocabularly of English but he is almost impossible to understand when he speaks English.

I think fluency is possible in 2 years if communicating with Spanish people daily (I don't mean using a few words with the barman!) and having proper lessons in grammar. Depends how dedicated you are.

Stevie, I agree with you on that.

Rosemary

I am the same, we are having a new roof put on and the builder came to me to make the final arrangements after a procession had just passed by. Unfortunately the band were only a few yards down the road so I missed a lot of what he was saying. Also his diction is very bad. I have a couple of friends who speak very clearly so I find them reasonably easy to understand and they can happily gabble away to me, usually any words that I do not know are not necessarily that important to the meaning of what they are saying. On the other hand the young lady who uses me to practice her English is very hard to understand and she makes no attempt to speak clearer or slower for me even though I have to speak quite slowly in English to her. I would have thought that she would think before she speaks but she does not.

Rosemary

jimenato

No, as others have said fluent isn't the same as native or bilingual.

wiki includes this:

Lorna at Vicenza

How can I put this to cut a long story short?

I'm bilingual or fluent and know what I'm saying.
I know what's being said and what I'm replying.
I know that in English they now say Bruschetta ... with a soft "sch"
and I know in Italian it's pronounced Bruschetta .... like a "K"


I know know how to laugh, joke and be merry
I know when to be serious and when to speak calmly.
I hate the red tape and I do take the piss.
It does not mean that I live less and less.

I chose my life and though I complain, sometimes
most of the time I'm perfectly sane.
Live and let live and leave your grudges
In this life and others there are plenty of judges.

HADENOUGHPIZZA

Great but a) can you write poetry in Italian b) How many years did it take you to be able to do that ?

sujee

So in your world I am not evenfluent in my native language as i can't even pronounce an "R" let alone roll one. It is actually a physical problem.

That said although I can read spanish to some degree I have yet to start using it to speak.

Lynn R

Happy day! Have just had a conversation with a perfect stranger whilst gazing at the adverts in an estate agents' window, about how much prices have dropped, what a good opportunity it is to buy for anyone who has the money, la crisis in general, and I understood every word, he spoke so clearly. Must be an incomer, he can't be from round here!

Rosemary

See, I told you it was due to their diction not your lack of listening skills.

Rosemary