Fluent in 3 Months - Benny Lewis

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formal ones. And because I’m Irish, I have had to learn to adjust the way I speak and the words I use whenever I’m with Americans or other foreign native-English speakers.

      Finally, I can’t participate in any conversation a typical native might have. If you start talking about football (or any sport, for that matter), which I don’t follow, you’ll lose me quickly. Many guys can talk about sports for hours, but I’m just not that interested, so I can’t join in. If you start talking about nice fashionable clothes, which many native English-speaking women can do fine, I’m a dunce and can’t contribute. I almost never watch TV in English anymore, so if you start talking about the latest show everyone is mad about, I’m going to be able to offer nothing more than defeated shrugs.

      These aren’t necessarily complex conversations, and they are conversations many typical natives with no specialization or advanced studies can participate in, but I can’t because I’m not either interested in or familiar with the topics.

      So if you had these criteria for fluency in the past, discard them immediately, because this is effectively saying that you have to be able to do in your target language what you can’t even do in your native language, which is a totally unfair and unrealistic standard to set for yourself.

      What Fluency Is

      Let’s look at a more formal definition, from the Collins English Dictionary:

       fluent adj 1 able to speak or write a specified foreign language with facility 2 spoken or written with facility: his French is fluent

      I don’t see any implication here that you have to pass yourself off as a native speaker or never make mistakes. Speaking a language with facility is precisely what I have in mind when I aim for fluency.

      However, this is not something you will ever get a consensus on. There is no absolute, discernible point you pass when you can say, ‘Now I speak the language fluently.’ It’s like the idea of beauty, in that way. You can have more of it, but there is no threshold you finally cross that signals you’ve arrived. It’s all relative.

      This is a problem if we want something distinct to aim for, though. And even if we each came up with a personal understanding of what feels accurate or good enough, because we are all filled with bias, confidence issues, unrealistic expectations, and elitist standards, as well as definitions of the word fluent that might be way too flexible, I don’t think such vague understandings are useful for a mission with a specific target.

      The CEF System

      With such conflicting ideas about what constitutes fluency, the system I rely on is a much more scientific and well-established language threshold criterion used by the major bodies that examine language levels in Europe. Foundations like the Alliance Française, the Instituto Cervantes, and the Goethe-Institut all use the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, which is frequently shortened down to just CEF or CEFR, a comprehensive guideline of language evaluation.

      This system uses standard terminology, accepted across Europe (and used by many institutions for Asian languages, even if not adopted by those countries formally), for specific language levels. In the terminology, basically A means beginner, B means intermediate, and C means advanced. Each level is then split into lower 1 and upper 2. So upper beginner level is A2, and lower advanced level would be C1. The six levels on this scale, from the simplest to the most complex, are A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2.

      On this scale, an A level is what I would generally call a functional tourist: good enough to get by for basic necessities, or a beginner in various stages. C level implies mastery: you can work in the language exactly as you would in your native tongue and are effectively as good as a native in all ways, though you may still have an accent.

      In my mind, fluency starts at level B2 and includes all levels above it (C1 and C2). More specifically, a person who reaches the B2 level on the CEF scale, relevant to the conversational aspect, is defined as someone who

       can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party.

      This means that, for a solid fluency goal, you should aim to participate in regular conversations without strain for either you or the people you are speaking with. That’s regular conversations, not debates on sixteenth-century French politics.

      For me, B2 fluency – at least in a conversational, social context – implies that I can live my life in this language exactly as I would in English. I can go to any social event that I would typically go to in English and chat with natives without having them slow down for my benefit. I can discuss anything I would in English at a casual event, and natives can generally talk to me as they would with another native speaker.

      What it doesn’t imply is also very important to consider. Hesitations are okay, and accents are fine. (In fact, you can earn a C2 diploma with an accent, as long as it doesn’t hinder communication.) Also fine at the B2 level is the inability to discuss some very complex topics.

      Realizing your limitations is essential, because aiming for perfection is a fool’s errand. You need to be realistic, but you can also aim for the milestone on your path of maybe someday ‘mastering’ a language. There is never an end point at which you can say your work in learning the language is done. Even in my native English I still encounter new words and aspects of other dialects I didn’t know before. Learning a language can be a lifelong adventure, but the point is that you can reach certain stages within finite times when you have those stages well defined.

      Even if you don’t agree with my specific definition of fluency, make sure your definition is as clear as possible and includes specifics of what it is not.

      How Much Time Do You Need to Reach Fluency?

      Now, as you read previously, you can have a particular milestone in mind to aim for – advanced beginner (A2), conversational (B1), fluent (B2), mastery (C2), or others – but here comes the big question: How long does it take to get there?

      This book, of course, suggests that you can become fluent in three months, but fluency won’t be achieved if you don’t do the work! You have to live up to your side of the bargain – you have to put in the time and stick to the plan. Also, the process requires a lot of strategic mental and emotional adjustments. It’s very hard, for example, to realistically become fluent in three months if this is your first-ever language-learning project.

      Generally, I would recommend you aim for conversational (level B1 on the CEF scale) or advanced beginner (level A2) in three months. In the process, you’ll discover tweaks you’ll need to make to your learning approach in order for it to work best for you. If you succeed in learning one language to fluency over a longer period, then your approach may be ready for you to use in a shorter – say, three-month – period of time on your next language.

      An intensive language-learning project demands your absolute focus. But if you’re serious about learning a particular language, you will always make the time and give it several hours a day, even if you work full-time.

      Ultimately, languages are learned in hours, not months or years. It’s not about the amount of time that passes from the moment you begin the project, but the amount of time you put into it. Whether or not your process adds up to a huge number of hours, the only thing worth counting is the time when you are 100 percent focused on learning, living, and using the language. To realistically expect to make good progress in a language in a short amount of time, you have to put at least two hours a day into it, and ideally more. As mentioned in the previous chapter, you can always make the time, even if it’s a few minutes a day, to advance. But you have to set aside much more than scattered study sessions if you want to advance quickly. Do what it takes to create this time, avoid other side projects, and fill your language-learning slot every day. If you put just a few hours a week into it, fluency in three months is indeed impossible.

      There’s

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