If I talked to my dad about any of those things or on the same level that I would talk to another person with the same interests as mine, do you think he’d have a clue what I’m talking about? I like programming, I use an open source operating system, I do things like vector and web design, and so on. He’s the kind of guy who needs help finding the power button on a computer. You can be very fluent in a language and still not be able to discuss loads of advanced topics. I think the word advanced is almost as poorly defined and confusing for people as the word fluency. So firstly let’s clear up one misconception: Fluent DOES NOT mean you can talk about advanced topics This is where we reach higher level plateaus. This doesn’t mean you know it perfectly by any means but you know enough language to handle most situations. It’s more obvious when you’re at a low level what needs to be learned and what doesn’t.īut when you’re at a higher level you know most of this stuff already. If I can’t talk about what I’m doing tomorrow then I need to learn the future tense. Put simply, when I can’t talk about what I did yesterday, I know that I need to learn the past tense. There’s a pretty straightforward enough explanation for why this happens too: we become proficient enough in the language and able to use it enough to achieve what we want or need that all the gaps in our proficiency level start to become less clear and definable (this is where fossilization becomes a risk). When you’ve finished a book or a course and hit a learning plateau it can leave you wondering, “Well, what do I do now?” Learning stops feeling like a rapid ascent and no matter how much study we do it seems like we’re getting nowhere. These are times where we feel like we’re not learning much anymore. Most of us eventually hit learning plateaus. This is why I love learning languages and travel – making new and interesting friends all around the world.
I gave her a t-shirt (courtesy of italki) and she gave me some fresh dates from her farm near Assuit in Upper Egypt. I finally got a chance this week to meet and hang out with one of the fantastic Arabic teachers from italki here in Cairo.
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