Signs of language fluency

Learning a language is hard work and can take a long time, depending on the language and if it’s your first foreign language or sixth.

Even harder is it to master it and become fluent. I still struggle sometimes with English which I started learning when I was 10 which is over 15 years ago.

Anyhow, here are some points that show you how fluent you are in a language. I tried to put them in an order, so when you’re at the last point you can claim having mastered a language.

I’m going ahead and skip that having a full conversation or reading a novel without having to check each word as, when you’re at this point, there’s still a long way to go.

1) understanding comedy

Comedy is a complex thing as there are several kinds of comedy.

One of my favorites are the ‘dad-jokes’ which is a formal kind of pun where you need to know the double meaning of the word creating the joke.

I’m a big fan of comedy movies because, well, they make me laugh. I’ve spent hours watching stand up shows or similar without understanding why people are laughing. And still I do not get every joke. But I’m upbeat that one day I will get that reference.

2) making jokes

The next step, logically, is to make jokes and make other people laugh.

The problem here is when you make a joke, especially a pun, and you’re not fluent people think you want made a mistake and correct you.

Then you start explaining yourself and the joke and you find yourself in an awkward situation.

I feel very honored when other people laugh about my jokes or stories as let’s be honest we Germans have a weird humor that does not work in other languages.

The one time in Bolivia I was telling a story and made a killer punchline, the whole room laughed. Even I didn’t see that ending coming. So it totally came out of the blue.

Not going into too much detail it ended with your dead girlfriend’s mother.

Here you have to distinguish not native speakers and native speakers. As not native speakers think at an earlier point that you’re fluent just because you don’t make that many pauses or mistakes and respond quickly.

3) being mistaken as a native



With native speakers it’s harder as they hear an accent with some sounds you can’t pronounce properly or words they wouldn’t use or sayings that don’t exist in their language.


4) becoming a grammar nazi

Let’s be honest nobody likes grammar nazis unless those who are learning a language.
For those who don’t know, grammar nazis are people correcting the people around them for making small grammatical, pronunciation or spelling (in writing) errors in languages.
If you are one of them, like me, be careful as you’ll be hated quickly and sometimes it’s subject of accent which brings us to our next point.

5) determine an accent or dialect just by listening

Determine an accent can range in this ranking as some accents are easier to determine as others. For example it’s quite easy to tell if somebody is from the US or UK.
Some foreigners have a heavy accent when speaking English of course.
It get’s harder the more precise you want to be. A Leeds accent may sound the same as a London accent to somebody outside of the UK but definitely not for Englishmen. Learning English in the beginning every English sounds the same.

Kim, from England, and Sonya, from Australia, gave me shit when I told them that how they pronounce the word “horse” is different.

6) imitating accents

Even here it depends on the accent. You can easily say “g’day mate” an imitate an Australian but that’s pretty much it. Throw some “heaps” and “ois” in there and you’re nearly done. Only that you’re not.
In school I was told the different writings between American and British English: harbor/harbour, center/centre, realize/realize, etc.
It’s harder to sound like that. People told me several times I sound Australian, which is from all the Aussies I’ve been hanging out with lately. I concentrated on having an American accent as for me it was easier to pronounce than the British which I still struggle to imitate. Some words are easy like Harry Potter, bottle of water or aluminium (get it y’all Americans there’s a fucking second I).

If you want to sound more British though just close your nose with your fingers and off you go.

7) Understanding song lyrics

You’ve made it all the way. Made jokes, wrote a book maybe, taught some English, who knows, nobody cares.
But this, in my opinion, is when you can tell you’re truely fluent.

It’s more than comedy or a poem. It’s music and understanding the lyrics can be fucking hardcore.
I’m not talking about James Blunt telling you that you’re ugly.
Sure depending on the song and the genre of music but try to understand Busta Rhymes without looking up the lyrics.


Good luck!

So this is it guys my list of showing you how fluent you are in a language. If you’re currently learning a language please check out my buddy Jake’s blog "Globalect" (doesn't exist anymore) about learning languages and traveling. He has some really cool stories that taught me a lot of stuff.

When you’re learning a language, maybe even English, let me know in the comments below at which fluency point you are and what moment made you feel becoming better.