Proficiency vs fluency in adult acquisition of languages
I'm curious.
How many of you acquired a language past childhood (say, you started learning the language when you were 13 or older) and feel you have achieved native-level fluency (for a specific region, class, etc.), such that you feel you can appreciate nuance, word-play, implications, embedded references, and other kinds of subtlety as well as you do in your native language?
For instance, do you think you'd 'get' poetry in your adult-learned language as well as a native speaker would, or as well as you would get something similar in your native language? Jokes? Layers of meaning?
I should start by saying I am not one of the above. I have not yet achieved real proficiency or even competency, let alone fluency in any language I have studied except my own.
How many of you acquired a language past childhood (say, you started learning the language when you were 13 or older) and feel you have achieved native-level fluency (for a specific region, class, etc.), such that you feel you can appreciate nuance, word-play, implications, embedded references, and other kinds of subtlety as well as you do in your native language?
For instance, do you think you'd 'get' poetry in your adult-learned language as well as a native speaker would, or as well as you would get something similar in your native language? Jokes? Layers of meaning?
I should start by saying I am not one of the above. I have not yet achieved real proficiency or even competency, let alone fluency in any language I have studied except my own.