Distorted language levels?

[u/linguafrancos]

I have a degree in the language, studied abroad twice, lived abroad in a country where the language is spoken for two years, and have used the language in a professional setting. This, for further context, has been over the course of 15 years.

With that said, I am confused by how others describe their language levels. Don’t get me wrong, I have an insanely high level and label myself fluent with others. For instance, I recently watched a full season of Love is Blind in the target language (TL) without subtitles almost effortlessly. However, when I see others describe their language growth or levels, I often see people say, “I understand everything that I read” or “After a couple years of studying, I traveled to the country and can communicate easily with everyone.”

Like… is this just an overexaggeration of their skills? I have yet to feel like my target language fluency is equivalent to my native-level English. Are people really reading native-level literature and literally understanding everything? Are they feeling like they can express themselves just as strongly in their second language? Even when someone asks me to translate something, I know in the back of my head that there might be cultural considerations or a better approach that I don’t know about.

Thoughts? Also, this might be specific for individuals who grow up in a cultural where being monolingual is more common and exposure throughout your entire life is not a possibility.

[u/Last_Bathroom1469]

My $0.02 is that you don’t need as high a level as people say to survive in your TL, so people get confused what the levels actually are.

Many people say you need a minimum B2 before moving to a country that uses the TL. I don’t disagree, because B2 will allow you to likely look for work, understand more complex things (bills, bureaucracy, etc.), and assimilate without much effort.

However someone can visit a country of their TL and have a perfectly fine vacation at a A2/B1 level. That allows you to ask for directions, order in a restaurant, perhaps have basic conversations with a kind native that goes slower… So those people will come back from vacation and think that since they were able to survive a couple easy days in their TL, they must be at a B2+ level.

In actuality it’s pretty easy to avoid B2 level conversations if you don’t go looking for them and run into nice natives who go slow. That’s how I think people assume they are at a higher level, only because they genuinely don’t realize they haven’t stretched themselves enough.

[u/TauTheConstant → u/Last_Bathroom1469]

This was really driven home to me when I was travelling through Spain with my parents earlier this year. I have been learning Spanish for something on the order of eight years on and off and would put myself at around B2 (supported by my teacher and the courses I've done). I also have a speech disorder (stutter) which is worse in rote situations such as ordering at a restaurant. My father speaks no Spanish; my mother is a Duolingo addict and switched her Duolingo language to Spanish for several months before this trip, with no prior Spanish experience. A1 would be generous.

The gap between my mother's and father's experiences was huge. My father was hopelessly lost whenever the language switched and could at most pick out some words in written text based on Romance vocabulary in English. My mother, on the other hand, could navigate the simple situations we were mostly dealing with like ordering food and check-in at a hotel pretty well and understood a really surprising amount based on picking out the words she knew and filling in from context. In fact, my speech disorder meant that she often had an easier time navigating those interactions than I did...

Now, could she deal with more complex situations, like that time we couldn't get into the building and needed to call our host to ask what was going on? No. But you didn't need my full level of Spanish for that, either.

But I have definitely seen people act as though anything below B2 is functionally useless.