Language fluency is a spectrum.

I meant to write about it the other day and then lost the link, but I saw some moronic linguist claiming that no one was “truly” multi-lingual — basically that someone being fluent in four or five languages is an impossibility.

Of course that linguist was using “fluent” basically to mean “knows absolutely every word in every language one claims to know.”

I work with a woman who is demonstrably fluent in German, French, English, Spanish and Russian. I’ve heard her speak all but Russian, conversing with native speakers in each. She has no problems at all making herself understood and understanding each language in turn.

Is she fluent? By any normal measure.

Yet I am quite sure because I am a word collector that I know some words in French that she does not — so by that measure the linguist-not-worthy-of-the-name would say she’s not truly fluent in French. Yet her practical French is far, far better than mine will probably ever be.

Fluency is a spectrum. Can not be anything else.