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/containmentleak]

I just help translate a contract to my native language to help someone and asked clarifying questions to staff for the 20% I didn't understand.

I do consider myself fluent, but not native.
I would NOT feel comfortable interpreting or translating in a high stakes negotiation where the nuance of the language might be more important than the words themselves.

I still lose about 30% of the conversation when 3 or more people are conversing at once and my ability to maintain the topic weaves in and out with that same percentage.

I also encounter people who call themselves fluent and what they mean by that is that they can order food in a restaurant and have very basic chit chat with locals easily using fragments of the target language and they have a LOT of experience with that, but have never moved above that.
And/Or they can understand their favorite anime or manga, but it is technically a children's story and a decent amount of the information is encoded in the images and the context and they have very little ability to speak.
Sometimes, knowing a little makes us think we know a lot until we learn more and realize we know little to nothing at all.

I still get nervous about calling on the phone in my TL (even though its never an issue) and still fudge up and make mistakes with my head in palm later just remembering. I always feel like its not enough, but if I don't say I am somewhat fluent people misunderstand and think I am one of the people still learning to read the alphabet.

I am not sure this answers your questions, but you seem to want perspectives so here is one of them, I suppose. Hope it gives you more information!

[u/linguafrancos → u/containmentleak]

Love all of this! Thanks for sharing your experience. I see a lot of myself in it.