I've been speaking Spanish for a little over 3 years now. I've taken 100+ hours of lessons on italki with teachers from Spain and most countries in Central & South America. I've spoken with taxi drivers in Cuba, food vendors in Peru, strangers in Chile & Argentina, all with varying levels of "fluency." With some people I'm able to discuss my favorite books, political views, just about anything. I've recently returned to the Caribbean coast of Colombia to visit some friends for the holidays and I can hardly understand anyone! I've had to ask people on several occasions to repeat basic sentences. Naturally, I have been asking myself a lot of questions.
I know there's no definitive answer to this question, but has something like this happened to you before? Which accent in the language you're learning is the easiest/most difficult for you to understand? Must someone understand many or all accents before being considered "fluent"? Or, is it enough to be able to speak "fluently" within one region?
I have A2 students that speak fluently as they keep to well learned phrases and vocab despite how limiting it may be for them. I have C1 students that pause a lot and search for expressions as they try to use more advanced vocab.
As for understanding spoken language, this is a different skill all together and requires active listening of comprehensible input from the target language/accent/dialect.
I do think that as a proficient learner it is good to have at least rudimentary comprehension skills in all the major dialects in the world, but that learning this is a part of the continuing education of a C2 student.
Watch some scenes or dialogues from this video and tell me if you are capable of understanding it at first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktBg7K0DhVY
I thought I was fluent in english and then started watching this movie and I swear to you that after the first few minutes of it I was like "Damn, downloaded it dubbed in Dutch or something" but no, it was english.
@Wanda
It is demotivating. Especially when a whole room laughs and you're sitting there with a blank face trying to keep up!
As a student, have you ever asked your teacher to speak to you in a quicker and more authentic accent (from wherever that teacher is from)? This is why I've sought out teachers from many different countries on Italki but I've found that most of them speak with a neutral accent and use this as a selling point on their profiles. This is not a problem at all, and probably a sign of higher education and exposure to foreigners as you said. But, ironically, it might be a disadvantage in this case. What to do? What to do? Just keep learning, I guess!
@Tom
Well said. I agree with just about everything you said. I know it's a loaded word so that's why I wanted to ask. To me, fluency is a blanket term which includes understanding spoken language. If you can't understand what someone says to you then you can't respond "easily & articulately."
Has this ever happened to you with any accents in Italian?
