One of the professors of my collage, who was a British, was a very fluent speaker of Japanese. Although his accent sounded like British certainly, his vocabulary and skillfulness of making a speech were obviously superior to those of the average Japanese people. From what I see, that proficiency was partly due to his openness and motivation for acculturating to Japan. He is also married to a Japanese woman, so he must have had plenty of opportunity to learn it.
To add one more person, one of my American friends is a brilliant language learner too. Compared to the professor I stated above, she still has much difficulty in grammatical aspect. But her speaking competence was exceptionally superb, considering her experience of learning Japanese was just one year when we first met. I find her feeling little anxiety in making mistakes or stumbling during conversation. And she also has a positive attitude toward Japanese culture.
Who is[are] the most advanced learner[s] of your language you have ever met?
To what extent s/he is proficient, and how is s/he like?
She makes (rarely) grammatical mistakes, but I would absolutely do what I can to help her publish a book here:)
2. Speaking of beginners, the most impressive was a gril from Argentina. She wrote short dialogues, just some 4-5 lines. They were artistic pieces, they involved some fairy-tale characters.
She was trying to make sense of certian Russian constructions that are always avoided by foreign learners because they are different. They are too Russian.
Our "bookish" langauge is much closer to other lnagauges, just because our books are often translated from another language:) This langauge is easier to learn but it sounds dry.
So what this girl did is played and experimented with what other learners do not use! She also experimented with some colloquial expressions. As result she sounded much warmer and "native" than advanced learners. She often made mistakes when experimenting and she was still a beginner, but... :)
I've encountered two people who happened to be absolutely fluent in English. I couldn't believe it once I knew that they are non-native English speakers. One of them is from Iran, and the other one is from Europe (I forgot his country name). I think they can compete with natives themselves with their current level in English.
Edit summary: Fixed some mistakes
@drasvi, Thank you!!
I found the second girl, from Argentina, especially interesting. I suppose she must have learned some foreign language other than Russian. Otherwise, people would rarely make such an attempt, right? But if not, that's stunning indeed.
