The idea of fluency as fluid is hard to get across if you've never tried to become fluent (at least I flounder and end up looking stupid when I try to explain), and I've been thinking of ways to explain my fluency for a while now and I've decided - fruit.
English, oh my natively English speaking audiences, is like a grape. The actual meat of the fruit isn't affected by the skin. Actually, crunching through the skin is kind of fun - there can be lots of unexpected juice hidden in a particularly good grape. English usually doesn't get in the way of saying what you actually want to communicate. It can be fun, you can actually play with it with puns and jokes and double entendres. It's enjoyable to have the skin on a grape (have you ever sat around actually peeling grapes? The result is kind of... weird...).
When I got here, French was like a pineapple, but I was armed with a machete. It was hard as hell to get my point across, but, with the generous use of a dictionary, I could usually, eventually, get to some fruit.
Now, on the fru-ency scale, French is a banana. A particularly hard to open banana. After lots of straining and trying to figure it out, one can open the fruit. Usually the meat's pretty smooshed by this point, but it's there. Also, nobody can eat a banana and retain their dignity. You just look stupid doing it. Which slightly strays from my metaphor, but you get the point. I can get to the banana meat, but I'm going to A) smoosh it and B) look reaaaaaaally stupid.
Tah-dah. Hopefully, now, when I hesitate to call myself fluent, you'll understand why. French is not a grape. It's not even an apple or an orange yet. And probably wouldn't be for quite a few years. But it's a smooshed banana. And I'm pretty satisfied with that.
Well spoken, Hattie.
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