Language Fluency
"And the final level? Believe it or not, being able to follow a conversation between a large group of native speakers is the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place. Or at least it was for me. Once that happens, and you’re able to interject, come in and out of the conversation at will, you’re pretty set. After that, there’s not really anywhere else to go without living in the country for at least a year or two and reaching complete fluency."

What does the author really mean by the last sentence?
Does it mean, "The last phase is that you need to live in the target country for one or two years and then you will become completely fluent in the target language"?

Thanks a lot for your kind help.

Question

Language Fluency
"And the final level? Believe it or not, being able to follow a conversation between a large group of native speakers is the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place. Or at least it was for me. Once that happens, and you’re able to interject, come in and out of the conversation at will, you’re pretty set. After that, there’s not really anywhere else to go without living in the country for at least a year or two and reaching complete fluency."

What does the author really mean by the last sentence?
Does it mean, "The last phase is that you need to live in the target country for one or two years and then you will become completely fluent in the target language"?

Thanks a lot for your kind help.

Answer

So they're saying that the last step in becoming fluent in the language that you're studying is to live in a country that speaks that language. If everyone around you speaks the language you're practicing, it'll help you become fluent because you'd experience first hand how native speakers talk and pronounce their words and so on.

Answer

By living in the country that speaks the language you study, you develop the accent of that country, you learn the slang, idioms and colloquialisms of the area. These are all things that cannot be learned by studying, but by actually conversing in the language with native speakers.

Answer

Thanks a lot for your detailed explanation.

Answer

The author is stating that once you live in a country that primarily speaks the language you are learning instead of your native language, then the language you are learning can become and feel as natural as the one you grew up speaking. Sometimes when people live in a country for three or four years they begin to reach the peak of their fluency in the new language and begin to make very minor mistakes in their born language.

Edit: TL;DR
without moving to the country there is only so far you can go with fluency
-speak it every day
-speak it naturally
-dont translate things from your native language to the language you are learning to understand it and vice versa

Answers · 6

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