Re: [lojban] About the word "fluent".

[Sebastian Fröjd <so.cool.ogi@gmail.com>]

well, I agree that fluency has to do with speaking with ease, but not necessarily speed. Which speed you use when speaking a language, probably has to do with the context, the personality of the speaker and the language/culture itself. 

For example, Spanish is much faster spoken in Spain than in Latin America. And a more extreme example from fiction: wouldn't the Ents in Lord of the Rings be considered fluent just because they speak very, very slowly? In northern Sweden there also exists very slow dialects, where you don't speak more than absolutely necessary. I still would consider them as fluent swedish-speakers though.

So even if you speak slowly or take time to consider things, I still think you experience different degrees of ease of how well you can express different things in the particular language. I'm far from being a fluent english-spaker for example. It is an effort for me to combine phrases in english properly, and that really makes me feel limited in more intellectual discussions. So fluency might be measured by subjective standards.

A more objective way to measure fluency might be how well a person perform different tasks like vocabulary and place structure, how to combine different rafsi into lujvo, how the person make use of the grammar, how well the person is able to "play" with words, phrases, structures, attitudinals, rythms etc.

So with a suitable definition I think the concept of "fluency" is still useful.

mu'omi'e jongausib

2012/2/15 david demartin <davidandresloquehay@gmail.com>

hey Robin, I think the guys here have a point:
speaking fluently is speaking accuratly with speed and ease.
it is not so vage a notion that we should stop using it.

if you think that, like a bushman in time square, you are able to reason aloud (even if it is not interesting for the kids) with the language you already know, at a reasonable pace... I think THAT would deserve to be called "fluent".

Now the problem I think you are raising is that, even if your where indeed fluent in that sense, you still DO have to deliberate on how to call new objects. And that is not the kind of deliberation you would like to serve a child... so, in that kind of situation, even though being "fluent", you'd still opt to be silent quite a lot.

so, are you fluent Robin ?

:-) best - David Demartin

2012/2/15 Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>

Sajesh: did you mean to add something here?

-Robin

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 08:38:18PM +0100, Sajesh wrote:
> Am 14.02.2012 20:23, schrieb Robin Lee Powell:
> >On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 08:17:36PM +0100, selpa'i wrote:
> >>I'm not sure the bushmen analogy holds. li'o
> >I think that's really optomistic.  Sure, they might call the cars
> >"magic horses", but they wouldn't both instantly think of that, or
> >agree on it.  They'd be like "Uhh, that... thingy... what the hell
> >should we call that?" "Ummm, I dunno.  Fast box?"  "That's kind of
> >lame.  How about magic horse?" "Oh, yeah, that'll work."  [ignoring
> >that bushmen don't have horses, or anything like them (that is:
> >things humans ride to go faster), to the best of my knowledge]
> >
> >You seem to be assuming that they'd instantly come up with the
> >appropriate new vocab, which I think is deeply unreasonable.
> >
> I think what you described there is a very fluent conversation in
> which two individuals agree on a name for a new object.
> Fluency is real-time creativity and it's being demonstrated here.
>
> >>And it doesn't matter what the reasons for that are, the fact
> >>stays the same.
> >Then it is physically impossible to be fluent in Lojban at this
> >time, because this will happen all the time every day until idiom is
> >built up.
> And here I disagree. I am asserting that with the current Lojban,
> you *can* be fluent. Not having lujvo for some things doesn't mean
> you can't talk about them by describing them in "simpler" terms.
>
> >"That is, I believe it's possible to make do with what we
> >have right now, "
> >I agree, and I did.
> >
> You did, but it took you time and effort. Fluency means speed and ease.
>
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