The difference between beginner and advanced becomes much less clear once a language is used in the real world.
Language Fluency Myths That People Still Believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU0zagnWeh8&feature=player_embedded
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Totally interesting, Kim - it is a continuum, fluency. I like the concept of micro-fluency that Aran et al. have discussed: you can be fluent in a small domain of discourse, like ordering food in a restaurant, asking for directions, or discussing particle physics ( maybe not that one 
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Rather than being fluent in a language, I find being comfortable using a language a more useful concept myself, and that covers the contextual, cultural and physical referred to in the article. It also covers being incomprehensible in any language the next morning after a heavy night partying, for instance
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I’m with that, Louis; infact that would be my benchmark (I aim high). The European Frame of Reference e.g of fluency I don’t know many people I know who’d get further than B1 - In English I mean…I’ve given myself an A2 in Welsh which I’m happy with. 
Oh yes to that one!! I did ‘scientific Russian’ as a subsidiary subject at uni. I can translate… sorry, I could translate all sorts of scientific papers, but never, ever could I have had a conversation with a ‘normal’ Russian!! The more specialised the subject, the easier it to get fluent!! from Jackie
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Same here: ‘Italian for musicians’. I can translate opera texts about the wind in the trees and the passion in the soul, but I can’t ask the way to the post office…
Why would you want to go to the post office when there is wind in the trees and passion in your soul? 
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I think Louis just won the internet.
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When you’re having a holiday that good you need to send a postcard home to gloat to all your friends!
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Perhaps the measure should be whether one is an effluent speaker?
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Speaking effluent will get you into all sorts of trouble: http://www.dalenllyfrau.com/cawl-erfyn-efflwfia.html
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Wir i ti, dw i’n wastad siarad lot o gachu😀
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