What are the differences between language proficiency levels?

Are you a Novice, Intermediate or Advanced speaker of your target language? Or could you even be at a Superior, Distinguished or Native level of proficiency? How do you know. Check it out in this video.

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[MUSIC]

Hi, there language learning aficionados.

This is Keith Swayne at Five Arrows again.

I've been talking in my previous
videos about the difference

between proficiency and achievement or
proficiency and fluency.

Today, I wanna talk about different levels
of proficiency and what those look like.

When you think of yourself
speaking another language,

you'll find some of these descriptions
are helpful to peg the level at

which you are able to perform
certain tasks in a language.

When people are learning languages,
they always move through

a particular series of levels of skill and
this is very helpful.

When I have people joining our classes,

I asked them to take a look at a chart on
a website which I'm gonna be referring to.

You'll see my eyes looking over on other
parts of my computer screen here as I look

at some of the descriptions.

But I ask students to take a look and
see what describes them the best.

With a chart like the one
that's on my website,

you're able to figure out
exactly what level you're at.

It also helps you figure
out what you need to do or

what you need to be able to do in order
to speak at a new proficiency level.

So if you're a beginner in Polish,

what would it look like if you were
an intermediate speaker of Polish?

And what should you be doing in
order to reach that next level?

It hardly matters what you study or
what kind of a program you use.

You will progress in the same
order of development.

So let's take a look at a few of these.

And again, as I said, I'm referring
to something else on my screen.

First, let me talk about the very
first level of proficiency and

this is describing something between
absolute beginners and a novice.

There's various levels of novice, but an
absolute beginner is a person who doesn't

really have any ability at all in
their target language and that's fine.

That's the starting point for everyone
at some point including in English.

That's where you're at, but
a person who studies a new

language will soon move to
a novice level of proficiency.

And a high novice level speaker of
a new language can use maybe 50 or

100 words in their new language, they're
able to do some really basic things.

They're able to survive in
the most predictable situations

by using rehearsed words and phrases.

There can't be any surprises for a novice.

And if there are any surprises,
they are quickly lost.

It doesn't take very long to move from the
novice level to the intermediate level.

And an intermediate student
of a new language looks very

different from a novice.

An intermediate student can start
a conversation and end one,

can order food from a menu, can tell time
and the days of the week and the dates.

An intermediate student is able to make
purchases in their target language.

Maybe get directions on foot or
in a vehicle, can introduce themselves and

get some personal information about
the person they're speaking with.

And they are able to distinguish
between formal and informal address if

you're speaking Spanish or French,
or Portuguese, or something.

You'll know there's a difference between
the way that you speak to somebody that

you know well and somebody you don't.

They're able to maintain
very simple face to face

conversations with lots of mistakes,
that's fine.

But now, they're beginning
to function this language.

That is an intermediate student.

But again, they're looking at
predictable uses of the language.

What you'll find is that the time that
it takes you to move from a novice to

an intermediate is doubled when you
go from intermediate to advanced.

And when you move from advanced to
advanced plus or to superior or

to distinguished levels of proficiency,
each level takes twice as long or

more than the previous level.

So that's helpful.

So sometimes you'll say, I feel like
I'm at a plateau in my target language.

That's completely normal.

It just takes longer to get to
the next level of proficiency.

And keep going, you're gonna do fine.

It's impossible to keep working on your
languages and not become bilingual if

you're just following a few basic rules,
and that's another video to come up.

Let's talk about advanced
levels of proficiency.

An advanced student, this is not
a perfect speaker of the language.

And sometimes when people are calling
me about advanced Spanish classes or

French classes,
they'll say I don't know if I'm advanced,

because they're freaked
out by the term advanced.

Advanced doesn't mean perfect.

Advanced means someone who has a pretty
good idea of how the language works.

If you are an advanced student, you have
probably worked through some kind of

a textbook and you know the basic
structures of your language,

does it have genders like masculine and
feminine.

How did the verbs work?

What's roughly the word order?

Are there any weird
sounds in this language?

You got a picture, it doesn't mean
that you've mastered everything or

even that all the things
that you studied and

maybe tried to memorize that
you can use them perfectly.

That's a different thing, but
advanced means you've got a handle on it.

Your pronunciation is always intelligible.

It's not perfect.

You might be easily recognized as
a native speaker of something else.

It means that you could exchange
a basic message over the phone.

Generally speaking,

you can understand maybe 80% of what's
going on in a simple conversation.

And the people who are speaking with you
can understand 80% of what you're saying,

but there's still mistakes and
there's still difficulties.

There's still challenges.

The communication works when
you're at advanced level.

So when you're at an intermediate level,
you can survive.

This is what we mean when we say
things like I can get by in.

I can get by in Greek.

It means I can survive.

I could handle basic situations.

I can combine the words and phrases that
I've learned before to get my way around,

and it's far from perfect, and
sometimes it's really confusing.

That's intermediate.

Advanced means I can
have a conversation and

I might not pass myself
off as a native speaker.

In fact, I can't quite at that level, but
I don't need a predictable situation.

If I run into somebody who speaks
my target language, we can talk for

a half an hour in connected discourse.

Meaning, sentence after sentence
without large pauses and hesitation.

And sure, you stop and you look for a word
and you mix up your word order and you say

some things that aren't quite right and
maybe make an embarrassing mistake.

That's still at an advanced level,
but getting beyond an advanced level

means that you're able to perhaps
work in your target language,

that you don't avoid certain
features of a language.

I know when I was learning Spanish, one of
the things that I did early on is I would

talk in the present tense all the time.

Everything was as if
it's happening now and

then I'd add in some words like yesterday,
I'm going downtown.

Two years ago, I am talking with my
friends and I'm doing this and that.

So I was avoiding certain structures and I
know that a lot of my advanced students in

Spanish will avoid the subjunctive,
because it's so different from English.

When you get to a superior
level in your target language,

then you don't avoid certain
grammatical features.

Another thing that differs
between advanced and superior.

Sometimes even when you're
an advanced level in language,

I know that this has happened to me.

You start a sentence and you get
halfway through it and you think, no,

I can't finish this sentence.

No matter what I do, I don't know how
I'm gonna find a way around this.

At a superior level,
you can finish any sentence you start.

Sometimes in an advanced level, you can't
finish it in anyway that you thought of.

And you have to step back and say, okay,
how will I say this in some other way?

Can I paraphrase this?

Can I find some other way around?

Can I draw a picture on
a napkin to get the job done?

That's called circumlocution.

Talking my way around what I
was trying to say directly, but

a superior student can
complete any sentence.

They can participate in a conversation
between native speakers.

Sometimes when we're speaking
with native speakers,

they adjust the way that they talk.

Because they recognize that we're
not really all the way there yet and

they'll slow it down a little bit, and

keep their word choices
a little bit simple or simpler.

But when you are at a superior level,

the people you're talking with
don't adjust their language at all.

Some people who speak your target language
don't know how to talk to foreigners and

that makes it really difficult for you
if you're at an intermediate level, and

sometimes even if you're
in an advanced level.

But at a superior level,
you might not catch everything.

But you're okay talking with
native speakers in the way that

they usually talk.

You're able to understand
the information over the phone.

You're able to take notes when
you're listening to somebody talking

the language.

You're able to communicate
clearly with a group of people,

even on professional subjects.

There's some technical subjects other
than just sort of the day to day stuff.

You're able to get through
common blunders and mistakes.

That's super helpful.

Learning how to handle the problem
if you can't finish a sentence or

if you don't know how to say something and

you've really blown it
knowing how to handle that.

A superior student is able to understand
conversations between native speakers and

can serve as an interpreter for people
who don't speak that target language.

Again, it might not be quite perfect.

But at a superior level,
your knowledge of your native language and

your target language is good enough
that you can handle exchanges for

other people and you're able to
carry out job responsibilities.

You could actually work
in your target language.

There's another level yet,

which is the distinguished
level of language proficiency.

This is a person who practically never
makes mistakes in the target language,

is always understood by native speakers
when they're talking with them.

A distinguished speaker is able
to understand jokes and puns.

That's a tricky thing, when you can
understand jokes and puns spontaneously

without preparation, without reading
them in advance or something.

And somebody's making a joke or
wordplay and you can follow it.

A distinguished person is able to convey
exact meanings on various subjects,

including professional things and
talking about feelings and opinions and

that sort of thing.

It's one thing to be able to explain
anything that happens in your life in

tangible, physical objects.

But when you start talking about your
feelings and emotions and your opinions

about politics or the way your business
should run, that's a higher level yet.

That's more what we would call
distinguished proficiency.

There is a significant understanding
of target language culture and

that's one thing that is really
important to your development in

proficiency in your target language.

A distinguished speaker is also
able to adjust their speech to

accommodate whatever situation they're in.

So for example, if you are involved
in explaining a legal position before

a judge, you talk differently
than the way that you talk with

your buddies when you're having
a coffee in the coffee shop.

There is a different register.

Register is a reference
to a level of formality.

A distinguished speaker
recognizes that and adjusts.

A native level speaker is,

this is the holy grail of language
students and we all hope to get there.

The real truth is that as adults,

most of us will not become native level
proficient in a foreign language.

Although some of us get pretty close,
depending on how early we started and

our motivation level and
the amount of time that we put into it.

And of course, if you take my classes,

you have a better chance than
whatever else you're doing.

But native level proficiency
means that you are treated

like a native by outside speakers.

You're in a conversation and
you're one of the gang.

They don't adjust things to
treat you as a foreigner.

You feel more or less at home in your
target language as you do in English and

sometimes you feel you're at home more
when you're speaking your second language

than your first language.

You're really an insider at this point.

Another test, this is a tricky one.

If you can do mental math in your target
language, if you can sit there and

do calculations in your head
in your target language.

Wow, you've really accomplished something,
because that is not a simple task and

most language students can't do that.

When you are a native speaker,

that's when you would say that you
are completely bilingual and bicultural.

You function in this language
just like your own language.

In real life for most of us as
language students we're somewhere

else on the proficiency scale
other than native level.

If you grew up with two languages,
if you're the the child of a missionary or

if you were a diplomat's
kid in another country and

grew up with a couple of languages, then
it's very possible that you might be very,

very native like in in two or
more languages.

But if you're a person like me who
grew up in a mono lingual home and

spoke only English in your home and
then started to pick up languages.

Especially as an adult as I did,

then you're probably somewhere
else in the proficiency scale.

And of course, your proficiency in
various languages will be different.

In some languages,
you'll have a high level of proficiency.

And in other languages, it will be lower.

But it's very helpful for
describing your language skill.

And when you're talking with somebody else
and they tell you that they speak another

language fluently,
you don't know what that means.

So using a proficiency scale is very
helpful andat the bottom of the screen,

I'll put a reference to the chart on my
website that describes proficiency levels.

I hope this was helpful for you and
I look forward to talking to you again.

Thanks, bye, bye.