Proficiency vs Fluency: What’s The Real Difference? (And Why It Might Not Matter)

I've got a great if somewhat controversial question from Manchester AUL who asks: “What's the difference between fluency and proficiency? Do you consider yourself fluent or proficient in your languages?“

I'll be honest – proficiency vs fluency is a topic I generally dislike. And I find all the endless arguments about fluency rather boring and tiresome.

For certain people in certain situations and professions, it's extremely relevant and important. But for me personally? It's just not something I've ever worried about.

You know the question I hate the most? When someone asks: “Are you fluent?” What does that even mean?

Let me give you my no-holds-barred take on this.

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Why I Think The Proficiency vs Fluency Debate Misses the Point

I've only ever cared about learning languages for my own selfish personal reasons – to talk to people from different countries, make friends, and integrate into communities where I've lived abroad.

That's the only reason I learn languages.

But I recognise that people are in different situations. Some need certain levels for their jobs or to pass exams.

I know many translators who are sometimes even more proficient than native speakers in their working languages.

So there are different contexts – I can only speak from my own experience.

And from my experience, fluency is a completely arbitrary concept depending on what you want to be able to do.

You Don't Need To Worry About Being “Fluent Enough”

The first thing I want to say to anyone who's ever thought, “Am I fluent enough?” or “Am I even fluent?” is this: please don't worry about it for one second. It does not matter.

You have absolutely no need to be “fluent” – whatever that means. In fact, as we'll see in a moment, you can be very fluent in a language at a rather low level.

It's not about whether you're as proficient as the next person or as fluent as whoever it may be. This is all about YOU and what YOU want to get out of it.

What Does Language Proficiency Actually Mean?

Proficiency means different things to different people. If I say, “I'm proficient in Spanish,” what does that actually mean? For me, it has the connotation of “I'm okay, I can get by, I don't make too many mistakes.”

But others might take that to mean something entirely different – perhaps that I'm like a native speaker or at some specific level.

If you do even basic research on this, you'll find that everybody – literally everybody – disagrees about it. So it's kind of a non-concept.

Yet people still talk about “high levels of proficiency” and “low levels of proficiency.” As soon as you look into language exams and assessment, you encounter this kind of talk a lot.

You can obviously have a high level of proficiency (in Spanish, I think I have a very high level) or a low level (in Arabic, which I'm still learning).

To me, this simply means I can do a lot more in Spanish than I can in Arabic. You could try to quantify that, but I'm not going to bother.

The standard way to do this is through the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) – that's where you get those A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2 language levels.

Within that framework, they spell out different criteria for proficiency at different levels, and it's pretty good actually – very well done. Lots of people use that as their benchmark.

The Truth About Fluency That No One Tells You

Fluency is different from proficiency in a fundamental way. In language testing, there's a distinction drawn between accuracy and fluency.

Let's say you're learning English and taking an IELTS speaking exam. When you speak, you get one mark for accuracy (how grammatically correct you are) and another mark for fluency (to what extent you can keep going and hold a conversation).

When you're being evaluated on fluency, they're not looking at grammatical correctness – they're looking at your ability to be a good conversation partner.

• Can you express opinions coherently?
• Can you interact naturally with another person?

So where am I going with all this and what does it mean for you?

You Can Be Fluent At ANY Level – Even As A Beginner

This is absolutely key, and here's the main takeaway I want you to get from this: you can be fluent at all different levels of a language, including right at the beginning at an A1 level.

You can be fluent with very, very little language knowledge – if you know how to use what you have, it makes all the difference.

I'd even go further and say not just that you can be fluent at different levels of a language.

If you're someone who wants to learn multiple languages (or even if you're just starting your first), it's necessary to learn to “do a lot with a little.”

It's one of the best skills you can possibly develop – knowing just a few words and phrases but using them with confidence can sometimes make people mistake you for being fluent.

The Hungarian Waitress Story

I once ran some polyglot workshops with my friends Richard Simcott and Alex Rawlings.

Richard did a wonderful talk on speaking fluently. He speaks a huge number of languages – you don't even want to know how many! He's one of the most qualified people in the world to talk about this from personal experience.

In his session, he spoke about learning Hungarian. He only speaks a little bit – not very much at all – and he'd be the first to admit that.

He told a story about how we were all at lunch, served by a Hungarian waitress. He said a couple of words to her in Hungarian and everybody at the table (none of whom spoke Hungarian) turned to Richard and said, “Wow, you sound fluent!”

But Richard only speaks a few words of Hungarian – he was just able to use them very well and appropriately. That created exactly the same impression as if he were fluent in the language but only chose to say a few words.

So “fluency” is a very relative term.

Focus On Being Fluent With What You Already Know

Right from the beginning – whether you're just starting out or you've been going for a bit longer (maybe A2 or B1 level) – your focus should not be on getting your level up as high as possible or aiming to be like a native speaker or some YouTube polyglot.

Your focus should be on trying to be fluent with the language that you've already got. That takes lots and lots of practice.

My Personal Definition Of Fluency

Sometimes when people ask me for a definition of fluency, I've said this before (though I don't know if it's really THE definition):

Fluency is the ability to hold a pleasant, enjoyable conversation with a native speaker without either person slowing down unduly to help the other understand.

Olly Richards

In other words, it's the ability to do what you want to do linguistically without overly inconveniencing the other person. Does that make sense? That's what I consider fluency to be.

How Fluency Can Come And Go: My Italian Story

In terms of my own languages, which Manchester AUL asked about, it's very difficult to give a straight answer because here's the thing: you can lose fluency in a language.

The example I always give is my Italian. I used to speak very, very good Italian – so much so that I once translated a Master's thesis from Italian into English.

For many years, I had no cause to use my Italian. I didn't any Italian friends, so I pretty much lost the ability to speak it.

I still understood almost everything, but I wasn't able to hold a good conversation simply because I hadn't used it for so many years.

I know that if I went back to Italy and spent a few weeks there, I would get it all back very quickly, or at least quite a lot of it. (I actually did this from home with my Italian project when I reactivated my Italian in just three months).

So if you had asked me before that project, “Are you fluent in Italian?” I'd have had to say no, because I couldn't hold a fluent conversation back then.

But that in no way described the knowledge I had in my head and my ability to become fluent again relatively quickly.

Do you see how complex this is and how kind of meaningless a lot of these conversations about trying to pinpoint fluency are?

Final Thoughts On Proficiency Vs Fluency

I want to thank Manchester AUL for the question. It wasn't my intention to demean it or suggest it's silly – it's actually a good question that a lot of people ask.

It's just that for me personally, it's not something I worry about.

It's not a question that keeps me up at night, and I don't think it should keep you up at night either – unless you're planning to take a language test or need a specific level for some reason.

In that case, yes, you probably do need to look at proficiency frameworks in more depth.

But for most language learners, the question of “Am I fluent yet?” is far less important than “Can I use what I know effectively?”

Focus on being fluent with your current knowledge, rather than chasing some nebulous concept of “full fluency.”

Proficiency Vs Fluency FAQ

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.