I attempted to read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and it was way too hard. I don't know why everyone says Murakami is so simple(and the English version that I read after was full of words I don't know, as well as a lot of sci-fi tech talk).
I'd try again, but I decided I don't even like Murakami very much.

JLPT 3 and reading Murakami? I'm not seeing it. Maybe Norwegian Wood, but you can't read Kafka on the Shore or Wind Up Bird Chronicle at that level. At least not with any sort of ease/fun(well it can be fun...)

Squintox Wrote:No more than 10,000 hours.

If studying is done in an on/off fashion lots of time can be wasted and it could possibly take more.

To answer the thread's questions:

5 years.

But this is only possible under these conditions:

1. You live in the Japanese countryside.

2. There's no English in your life.

3. You spend half the time crying due to the emotional breakdowns from lack of English.

I change my answer. Based on condition 3 listed above: 2.5 years

The Last Samurai tells us about one year is good enough, but come on, it's a movie.

The secret to Norwegian Wood is that John Lennon sets fire to the girl's apartment at the end.

~J

I'm surprised that people haven't talked about the proficiency descriptions in the link in the original post. It seems like what many people are thinking of as fluent is Intermediate High -- Someone who is "able to converse with ease and confidence when dealing with most routine tasks and social situations" and "can generally be understood by native speakers unaccustomed to dealing with non-natives" but who has some mistakes and problems and who can't always maintain a high-level of speaking. (These particular descriptions only deal with speaking ability, not reading or writing.)

Maybe you could get to intermediate high in a few years by working hard and being in the country, etc. But getting to the higher levels of fluency -- being consistent, being able to deal with unfamiliar topics and situations, eliminating bad habits and pronunciation quirks, and doing all the other things described for the higher levels -- could take a lot longer.

Here is a link to the document again:
http://www.languagetesting.com/scale.htm

Edit: The group that did the proficiency descriptions also does tests of speaking ability, and apparently they will pay you $25 to be a guinea pig for someone who's learning how to give the tests. http://llr.actfltraining.org/index.cfm Hopefully, they also tell you how you did -- it doesn't say.

woodwojr Wrote:The secret to Norwegian Wood is that John Lennon sets fire to the girl's apartment at the end.

~J

no he does not.
you don't find out who sets the apartment on fire. and it doesnt happen in the end.

KristinHolly Wrote:I'm surprised that people haven't talked about the proficiency descriptions in the link in the original post. It seems like what many people are thinking of as fluent is Intermediate High -- Someone who is "able to converse with ease and confidence when dealing with most routine tasks and social situations" and "can generally be understood by native speakers unaccustomed to dealing with non-natives" but who has some mistakes and problems and who can't always maintain a high-level of speaking. (These particular descriptions only deal with speaking ability, not reading or writing.)

Umm... Yeah. That's exactly what it means.

And there aren't 'levels of fluency' beyond fluent. Beyond that you enter into skill beyond fluency. The most illiterate person in the country is 'fluent' if they grew up with the language. Why would you try to hold someone to a higher standard than native speakers?

wcrawford - There seems to be some misunderstanding.

The link provides 10 levels of proficiency, with Intermediate High being somewhere in the middle. It's obvious that Kristin use of "levels of fluency" is referring to these levels. In fact, the link was provided to avoid the ambiguous use of the word "fluent" ... and the confusion it creates.

The highest level, Superior, is still not considered native. This is a ranking of foreign learner proficiency levels. The description of Superior includes possible weaknesses at that level.

So the idea is not to be better than a native speaker. Rather, Kristin is pointing out that it takes longer to advance through the higher levels (the curve flattens out), so any discussion of "time required to become fluent" needs to take this into account.

Kristin reminds us that these are speaking levels (b/c the site has a separate proficiency testing and ranking for writing), so I don't really understand your point there either.

wccrawford Wrote:

KristinHolly Wrote:I'm surprised that people haven't talked about the proficiency descriptions in the link in the original post. It seems like what many people are thinking of as fluent is Intermediate High -- Someone who is "able to converse with ease and confidence when dealing with most routine tasks and social situations" and "can generally be understood by native speakers unaccustomed to dealing with non-natives" but who has some mistakes and problems and who can't always maintain a high-level of speaking. (These particular descriptions only deal with speaking ability, not reading or writing.)

Umm... Yeah. That's exactly what it means.

And there aren't 'levels of fluency' beyond fluent. Beyond that you enter into skill beyond fluency. The most illiterate person in the country is 'fluent' if they grew up with the language. Why would you try to hold someone to a higher standard than native speakers?

I agree with Thora about this case. In other cases, there's still a big difference between "fluent" and "native". (JLPT1 is often cited as "fluent" level, which is still below "native" level.) Still, like everything else, it depends on your own definition. If you define fluent as "someone speaking exactly like a native", that's how far it goes. That isn't the common definition of fluency however.

I think the meaning of fluent is pretty clear. Its root meaning is "flow".

fluent

adj.

1. Able to express oneself readily and effortlessly: a fluent speaker; fluent in three languages.
2. Flowing effortlessly; polished: speaks fluent Russian; gave a fluent performance of the sonata.

[Latin fluēns, fluent-, present participle of fluere, to flow.]

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=fluent&gwp=13

ぺらぺら

(態) 〈(と)副〉 （１）1 深く考えずに，よくしゃべるようす． （２）1 〈ダ〉 外国語を上手に話すようす． （３） 〈ダ・スル〉 布や紙の薄いようす．

http://www.sanseido.net/User/Dic/Index.a...J=checkbox

As long as people can agree on some shared understanding for a particular discussion, that should be enough. No sense comparing apples and oranges. I'm not sure a definition of "fluent" in the abstract helps much.

From what I've read here, it appears the meaning is far from clear and musigny's dictionaries only confirm the different connotations. "With effortless ease" treats fluency as a separate skill from level of difficulty or accuracy (so does that testing site). One could be a fluent beginner, in other words. But I think people generally have something more advanced (polished, 上手) in mind when they ask, "Are you fluent?" For other people it means bilingual or equivalent to native level. It doesn't really matter. I like the idea of clear and helpful information though, so that's why I wish the word "fluent" would magically disappear. (This isn't about some desire to debate minutia.)

What mentat-kgs said somewhere about enjoying the language learning process and savouring aspects of the language resonated with me. Striving for 'fluency' strikes me as striving for elusive happiness. Instead, just realize that we'll all encounter many different language milestones at different times depending which route we take. Celebrate each one! Stay for awhile at one if it gives you particular pleasure (maybe reading alone is the final destination for you). Take a shortcut if you need to for work or school. But who cares about the other guy's route or how fast he got there, wherever there is.

Edit: I take it back - just sit at your computer and TV for 6000 hrs and you will become fluent in Japanese...
.

kazelee Wrote:

Squintox Wrote:No more than 10,000 hours.

If studying is done in an on/off fashion lots of time can be wasted and it could possibly take more.

Not really - to be "fluent" according to most people's description, it should take around 6,000 hours - but to reach a native level fluency, it should be somewhere around 10,000.

Of course it isn't definitive, each person is different >_>

Squintox Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:

Squintox Wrote:No more than 10,000 hours.

If studying is done in an on/off fashion lots of time can be wasted and it could possibly take more.

Not really - to be "fluent" according to most people's description, it should take around 6,000 hours - but to reach a native level fluency, it should be somewhere around 10,000.

Of course it isn't definitive, each person is different >_>

A warning that was. The thing of forgetting humans have. When I say on/off, I'm talking very long spans of off, from which the possibility arises that one journey will take longer (whether going for fluency or native fluency). Staying regular will, almost, always help you get where you are going faster than taking very long breaks... I think.

You are fluent when you can hold the same conversations you can now in your native language in Japanese readily and effortlessly. Your Japanese will flow effortlessly and be polished.

Thanks for that lovely definition. I'll submit it as a candidate for The Official RTK Forum Definition of "Fluent", but I need to warn you that the competition is stiff. And you know how folks here like to debate... [sarcasm - sigh]

Here's another link with definitions for levels of "proficiency," this time specifically for Japanese and including writing, reading, speaking and listening. I don't think this resolves the questions raised, but I found it interesting -- in a depressing way -- to do a little self-evaluation and think about the ridiculous number of years it took me to get there.

Edit: forgot the link:
http://sokogakuen.org/actfl.html

I don't see the problem in the idea of levels of fluency. It's possible to have good pronunciation, accurate usage and acceptable speed with a limited repertoire. I am fluent on good days when I'm not stressed out or in a weird or formal situation. An elderly Japanese nun told me over and over how shocked she was that it was just like talking to a normal Japanese person. That was a good day. But sometimes I get an attack of keigophobia or hit a situation when I can't seem to put two words together properly in Japanese and even English is coming out wrong. The bad days and the mediocre moments don't take away from the fluency of the good days, but they do help show me where my limits are.

tokyostyle Wrote:For someone who has been through their entire college education in English they have a very expansive vocabulary and may know the lingo of one or more specialized fields.

This is amusingly ironic. This simple sentence is written incorrectly in a language in which the author is stating he has been through an entire education. If the definition of fluent were to include speaking the the language correctly, it is quite possible that one could be fluent in no languages, not even their own.

I like musigny's definition, too. I think it's the most reasonable one I've seen.

Anal-retentiveness reaching critical mass! It's gonna blow!

Hmm, that painted a slightly different picture than I'd really intended.

Ew

Anyways, I like this page: http://french.about.com/library/weekly/aa072701b.htm

And from said page,:

Quote:A fluent speaker can participate in extended conversations, understand the language when spoken normally (on TV, radio, film, etc.), figure out meaning of words within context, debate, and use/understand complicated grammatical structures with little or no difficulty. Has good accent and understands dialects with slight-to-moderate difficulty.

tokyostyle Wrote:Then you have failed to consider all manner of conversations that you can have in English that you shouldn't have in Japanese. If you do not consider the social and cultural in your speech then you aren't close to fluent at all. You are just doing basic translation.

"...That you may have in Japanese..." perhaps? Social and cultural what? Your writing style is making it very difficult to figure out what you are trying to say here.

Speaking of Anal, if I see "Anyways" one more time I might just blow! LOL.

KristinHolly Wrote:Here's another link with definitions for levels of "proficiency," this time specifically for Japanese and including writing, reading, speaking and listening.

Thanks -- I found it a lot easier to evaluate where I thought I was on the various scales with the aid of the specific examples than with the other link which only had fairly abstract definitions.

Quote:I don't see the problem in the idea of levels of fluency. It's possible to have good pronunciation, accurate usage and acceptable speed with a limited repertoire.

Yeah; also progress across reading/writing/speaking/listening is likely to be uneven; certainly mine is...

Irregardless, it's clear that the forum is having a seizure as the amateur sociologists and amateur linguists begin to clash!

kazelee Wrote:Speaking of Anal, if I see "Anyways" one more time I might just blow! LOL.

I have a real bad habit of overusing that word. In written and spoken English. And Japanese for that matter...

Sorry to irritate.

nest0r Wrote:Irregardless

Classic!