FLUENCY TEST - how fluent are you, really?

[Music] hello everyone and welcome back to english with lucy today i have got a fluency test for you you all seem to really enjoy the grammar tests that i posted for you last week so today i've got a fluency test but it's a little bit different basically if these things i'm going to talk about happen to you it means that you are fluent so i think it will be really interesting for you guys to see how many of these situations have happened to you and also to give you something to look forward to i know that a lot of you are learning english right now with the intention of one day becoming fluent so it'll be really nice to keep a record of these things and work towards achieving the next one before we get started i would just like to thank the sponsor of today's video it is skillshare and if you haven't heard of them before they're an online learning community with thousands of classes of all different topics you can learn about marketing languages cooking craft skills honestly there are lessons for absolutely everyone there are loads of free classes but you can also sign up to premium membership which gives you unlimited access to high quality classes from experts working in their field if you follow me on instagram you'll know that i love cooking i'm always posting what i cook on my stories and i'm also learning italian and i found a course on there for making gelato and it's been so interesting gelato is not plain ice cream guys but to find out more you'll have to sign up to skillshare and it's actually really affordable it's more affordable than most other learning platforms an annual subscription is under 10 per month and since skillshare are sponsoring this video they have given the first 500 people who click the link to sign up in the description box their first two months free so click on the link sign up and there are loads of english courses and things that you might be interested in and most importantly let me know how it goes right let's get started with the lesson so how do you know when you are fluent in another language well i'm going to talk to you about 12 situations and if these situations have happened to you it means that you are on your way to becoming fluent if all of these situations have happened to you congratulations you're fluent so i would love you to comment down below with how many of these situations have happened to you and which ones and also if you can think of any other indicators of fluency number one you know how to swear appropriately so when i learn a language pretty much the first thing i want to learn are the swear words but when i was just starting to learn spanish and i was with my ex novio i imitated him a lot and he used to swear a lot not in a bad way um but then i would try and do it but in the wrong situations and i would get told off so you know that you are fluent not only when you know how to swear but when you know when to swear number two you are aware of the mistakes that you make that's something that i love hearing when i'm teaching students when they say something and then they say ah no i made a mistake there and then they correct themselves because that means that they know what they did wrong and they are on their path to fluency if you realize that you're making mistakes you're one step away from just not making them at all number three you sometimes don't even realize that you are reading or hearing the language you're just understanding it without focusing i would consider myself to be fluent in spanish and sometimes i find myself doing this on the london underground when i travel in to record the podcast on tuesdays sometimes i just sit there and i overhear conversations on the tube because i'm a little bit of a creep well if we're going to be honest it's because british people don't talk on the tube but when a spanish family comes along they talk a lot which is no problem i think it's weird that we don't talk i'll listen to them and then about a minute later i'll realize oh my god i'm listening in another language and i didn't even realize it and it feels really really good so the next time that happens to you you should feel really really good about yourself also i might see like a meme in spanish on instagram and i'll be like desperate to show it to will next to me and then i can't because i realize it's in spanish and it doesn't translate into english that well which leads me on to my next one number four you can understand and participate in humor so this was a big pain point for me when i was learning spanish i once went with a big group of friends to watch ernesto sevilla in seville and he's a spanish comedian with a very thick accent and he speaks really really quickly and i sat there thinking i was fluent ready to have a laugh with everyone and fit in and i didn't understand a bloody word and i realized i'm not fluent yet now this one's a difficult one because some comedians speak really really quickly so i'd take this one as you know you're really really fluent when you can sit through a comedy show and laugh at all the jokes but i would say you'd need to live in a country for like 10 years and get married and have children there to even have a chance at understanding a comedian in another language i sometimes don't understand jokes in my own language the next one number five you know you are fluent when people don't adapt to your level they just go with the flow and use their normal native vocabulary including slang expressions figures of speech the whole hog the whole hog that's a figure of speech it means all of it so this is more about sounding like you're fluent if people think that you are completely fluent they'll start speaking in a really relaxed way and expect you to understand but you can start to feel really really good about yourself if you actually do understand everything they're saying the next one number six you know you are fluent when you have a dream in the language that you're learning this has happened to me and it's been really really weird i've had dreams about my own family and close friends speaking in spanish to me when in reality they don't speak spanish it's very very weird i actually have a lot of very confusing dreams but we won't get into that but if you dream in that language or dream about your close friends and family speaking to you in that language you know you're well on your way to fluency number seven is a pretty general one but you know that you're fluent in the language when you can do all of the things in that language that a native person would be able to do without even thinking about it like going to the doctors going to the bank ordering stuff in a bar or cafe giving directions and that one is something that i still struggle with because i just really find it difficult to tell the difference between left and right it's something in my brain i don't know why sometimes if i'm driving and i'm at a roundabout it takes me like a couple of seconds too long to work out which car should be allowed to go first left and right it's an issue does anyone else have that problem number eight now take this one with a pinch of salt but you know you're fluent when you stop having to reach for words so you stop having to say how would you say it what's the word for and like waiting and reaching for words now obviously we are all human every now and again we are going to have to reach for a word even in our native language but you'll notice that once you reach fluency the rate at which you do it will decelerate and sometimes you will even surprise yourself by knowing words that you didn't know you know i sometimes do this in spanish i'll come up with a word and then i'll be like go loose i didn't know i knew that word it's a really weird sensation number nine something we all aspire to do when we start learning another language it is to watch a film without subtitles oh it feels so good and it means that you are fluent and you also have a whole new world of art opened up in front of you and it's fantastic and then you can learn so much more about the culture number ten this is a big one and i think it happens to a lot of people without them realizing it it definitely happened to me with spanish you stop looking for opportunities to practice i remember being desperate to practice my spanish at any opportunity i was desperate to meet spanish people i just wanted to talk in spanish and now i'm really happy if i meet someone in spanish so i can have a chat and kind of brush up on my rusty skills but i'm not actively looking for opportunities in which i can practice so it might be something that stops gradually and one day you'll realize hey i'm not as desperate as i was to practice i remember when it was the be-all and end-all for me and now i know it which of course strictly isn't true we can always learn more but your priorities change number 11 this one is such a good one and it is you know when google translate is wrong maybe i shouldn't say google translate all electronic translation services they don't get everything right they are not perfect and when you know the language fluently you can correct them and you can see the amount of errors that they make and you will probably feel embarrassed about all your homework that you did in the past using google translate and how your teacher really knew that you were using google translate when i was teaching i used to love it when students would hand me essays that they'd written obviously using google translate but without wanting to tell me but they would misspell a word in their own language and so that wouldn't translate and there would just be like this random gobbledy goop in the middle of a sentence and the whole sentence wouldn't make any sense and i just kind of would put like a little red cross and be like see me after class and um i'd have to talk to him about translation services but don't worry we all do it and the last one number 12 you know that you are fluent in another language when people can't tell where you're from if somebody has to ask you where where are you from i just can't tell from your accent or if they ask you that you're from the country of the language that you are speaking you know you're fluent you do my spanish accent is not perfect but people do have a hard time guessing that i'm english because i've worked hard to lose the majority of the pronunciation errors that speakers of english usually make in spanish right guys that's it for today's lesson don't forget to comment down below with which of these situations have happened to you and if you can add any more to the list that would be fantastic also don't forget to check out skillshare remember that the first 500 people that click on the link in the description box will get their first two months free and you can connect with me on all of my social media i've got my facebook i've got my instagram and i've got my twitter and i will see you soon for another lesson which gives you unlimited access to [Music] and since skillshare i feel like i've got a lisp and i didn't understand [Music] people don't adapt to your level they just what do they do way at a roundabout [Music] number nine hair on my number nine something we all aspire to do when we start learning [Music] [Music] you

Channel: English with Lucy

Views: 1,251,752

Keywords: how fluent are you, english fluency test, test your fluency, fluency test, english with lusy, english with lucy

Id: u_O3DOl_nFQ

Length: 12min 13sec (733 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 10 2018