What does it mean to speak good English?

[Nikolai]

According to a survey every second German says, that he speaks good English, but I can't imagine this. Most Germans I know do many mistakes, have a very strong accent and are not able to follow a movie in English, for instance. Including me. Maybe they know how to ask someone for directions, but that's not enough for being good in English in my opinion.

please correct my English.

[Keswick]

According to a survey every second German says, that they speak good English, but I can't imagine this. Most Germans I know make many mistakes, have a very strong accent and are not able to follow a movie in English, for instance. Including me. Maybe they know how to ask someone for directions, but that's not enough for being good in English in my opinion.

Please correct my English.

Well I think it solely depends on the person's circumstances. If all you need is the ability to ask for or give directions, or order some food and drink, then this level of English can be considered good. I think the magic word that should be added here (and in the survey) is ENOUGH. People consider their English good enough.

[Nikolai]

But I never would claim to speak good English, if I'm not fluent.
It is my goal to get fluent in English, but I haven't much time a day to increase my English vocabulary.
What do you think how many words I should learn per day?

[Delfino]

I would never claim to speak English well - unless I'm fluent.
It is my goal to be able to communicate fluently in English,
but I don't have much time every day to increase my English vocabulary.
What do you think, how many words should I learn per day?

Apart from you, nobody can really know how many words you are able to learn each day.

Try to learn as much as you can (handle) without feeling stressed. Remember to
enjoy the process. There will be good days with more time and concentration
and other times when you can only revise. So, don't worry about the number.

Learning is easier for 10-20 minutes each day of the week
than for 90 minutes only on Sunday.

[Nikolai]

Thank you for your correction.

Why can't I say "to get fluent in English"?

[Keswick]

Have a look here: become, get, go turn

[tiorthan]

Apart from you, nobody can really know how many words you are able to learn each day.

While this is good advice it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with achieving fluency. Fluency doesn't mean to know a lot of words it means to be comfortable using the language. Of course you will have to know the words that are used most often but fluency basically means that there is no translation (language-wise) involved between your thoughts and the things you read, speak or write.

The best additional advice I can give for anyone who wants to be fluent is to listen or read a lot and to practice speaking and writing regularly. Keep both separate from learning vocabulary, that is to say don't look up words you don't know, well at least not immediately. When you read and you come across a word that you don't know make a note of that word and read on, try to guess even and look it up later when you're done reading. When you watch movies do so without subtitles. When you speak or write, do so without a dictionary. Try to find a way to express yourself without looking up words.

Having said that, if you are stuck on a word and have absolutely no idea what the meaning could be or if there is no way to avoid using a word then you have to lock it up but try to keep that to a minimum.

[Nikolai]

Have a look here: become, get, go turn

Sorry but I don't get it.
I often read "to get fluent" in the internet
for example
http://german.stackexchange.com/questio ... ght-months

[Keswick]

I have checked the link that you provided and googled it and as a matter of fact over 90% of examples that I looked at were written by non-natives, i.e. they made a mistake.

You can use "get" in combination with the verb tired, however this changes the meaning from "muede werdem" zu "ueberdruessig werden"

Duckduck, tiorthan, what are your thoughts on this?

[Nikolai]

hmm there are also homepages, which are called "getfluent".
for example
http://www.getfluentfast.com/

There is a software, which is called "getfluent"
http://getfluent.com/main.php?wcId=1&visitorType=parent

Someone asked on this page how he can get fluent in Python.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1507 ... -in-python

On google I get 48 000 000 results for "get-fluent" and 14 100 000 results for "become-fluent".

Therefore I thought it was right.

[Keswick]

Right, listen, what I will do I ask my husband once I am home. He should know best. I will get back to you asap

[tiorthan]

COCA (Corpus Of Contemporary American) has one hit for "get fluent" and 49 hits for "become fluent". If you do it right, google yields different results as well "get fluent" scores 98k and "become fluent" scores 945k. The only way I could reproduce your results on google was to look for pages that contain both "get" and "fluent" but not necessarily as a phrase.

In fact "get fluent" is not wrong, per se (it may be in some dialects), but it has a somewhat different connotation than "become fluent" which is probably why the latter is more common.

[Keswick]

Thanks tiorthan, couldn't have put it better myself

[brian f]

It doesn't matter if you have an accent. Practically all foreign speakers of any language have a strong accent. Besides, there are a multitude of accents among native English speakers.

Believe me, we are used to it.

[cassielfsw]

Even within the same country! People from Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Dallas will all have markedly different accents. There are lots of different regional accents in England as well. I don't know about other people, but I like listening to accents. Even if you're barely understandable, I'll try really hard.

Re: get/become fluent, "get" works, but it is very informal. If you were at, say, a job interview, you'd want to use "become".