mschmitt:

sudanglo:Anything less than this and you are kidding yourself about your competence.

I've been learning/speaking english since 30 years now and still I'm kidding myself about my competence because under terrorist attack I might potentially lose control of my foreign language skills.

Feel free to look down on me, just because you are a native english speaker. I do know for sure that I never look down on my non-native colleagues who speak fluent german with frequent errors.

I won't look down on you . Bis bald!

InsaneInter:

mschmitt:

sudanglo:Anything less than this and you are kidding yourself about your competence.

I've been learning/speaking english since 30 years now and still I'm kidding myself about my competence because under terrorist attack I might potentially lose control of my foreign language skills.

Feel free to look down on me, just because you are a native english speaker. I do know for sure that I never look down on my non-native colleagues who speak fluent german with frequent errors.

I won't look down on you . Bis bald!

Fluent speakers make mistakes to but, we can usually catch them our selves and self correct.

diegoami:But this can also be very frustrating - I have passed a C2 exam in English with an "A", the CPE (Certificate of Proficiency in English), but still I have a lot of trouble understanding movies in English without subtitles, for instance.

Me too, as a native English speaker

sudanglo:To my mind it ought to mean - faced with a stressful situation, some emergency or panic-inducing situation, you can express yourself using the right expressions without hesitation.

Anything less than this and you are kidding yourself about your competence.

By this criterion I suspect a great many people speak no language at all.

sudanglo:From time to time you might hear someone say I speak X (where X is not his mother tongue but a language learnt in adulthood).

What does this mean? What should it mean?

To my mind it ought to mean - faced with a stressful situation, some emergency or panic-inducing situation, you can express yourself using the right expressions without hesitation.

Anything less than this and you are kidding yourself about your competence.

Do you speak Esperanto?

Oijos:

sudanglo:From time to time you might hear someone say I speak X (where X is not his mother tongue but a language learnt in adulthood).

What does this mean? What should it mean?

To my mind it ought to mean - faced with a stressful situation, some emergency or panic-inducing situation, you can express yourself using the right expressions without hesitation.

Anything less than this and you are kidding yourself about your competence.

Do you speak Esperanto?

Mi parolas iomete

I've reached a conclusion that I will not learn to speak any languages, no matter what I do and no matter how much effort I put into. The problem with all foreign languages to me is that I can learn to speak (really only write) about all things not related to everyday life - abstract, conceptual, intangible things - but not to speak about tangible things in kitchen for example. Generally speaking I lack all the words to name objects around me. Names of food are very hard, even dictionaries don't have English equivalents for things I eat.

Only thing I think would solve this problem would be to move to the location, where a language is spoken. But it isn't going to happen. And in case of Esperanto, that's impossible, until we establish our own country (it can be set up in the future on the ocean for example).

This problem is even more serious for Esperanto, because many are only fluent in Libera Folio -style of topics.

Oijos, you have correctly identified a fundamental problem in foreign language learning.

However it is not in fact necessary to move to the country where that language is spoken. If you have access to their TV, you can learn a lot. Dipping into their shopping channels will give you a lot of concrete vocabulary. Drama will give you many useful expressions of abuse. Even the news is helpful.

In short access to their TV will give you the language as it is spoken, and the link with the image and the situational context makes it all much easier to get into your head.

With Esperanto it's different. Sometimes it's very easy. You may never have had occasion to name or hear named something, but what its name should be is obvious. On other occasions finding the right expression involves much head-scratching.

Getting a command of any foreign language (even Esperanto) to a level comparable to that enjoyed by a native speaker of a national language is not something that can be achieved with little effort.

However you could argue that in the case of Esperanto that is actually not a sensible goal.

sudanglo:With Esperanto it's different. Sometimes it's very easy. You may never have had occasion to name or hear named something, but what its name should be is obvious. On other occasions finding the right expression involves much head-scratching.

Esperanto has one good advantage. If you don't know the name of an object, a description can be compounded from words that you know and you will usually be able to get your point across. In the kitchen example, if I need to refer to a cheese grater, I can construct "fromaĝo-muelilo" and it will probably be understood. That would not be as easy in other languages.

Do you sudanglo speak Esperanto according to your definition?