What level of German is considered fluent?

German is the official language of Germany and Austria, and one of Switzerland’s official languages. German and English, Friesian and Dutch are members of the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family (Netherlandic, Flemish). With the first contact of their speakers with the Romans, the recorded history of Germanics begins in the 1st century BCE. There was only one “German” language then and for several centuries thereafter, with a few more than minor differences in dialect. It is not until about the 6th CE that a “Deutsch” (i.e. High German) could be spoken.

While they may seem like the same thing, they are in fact, two different sides of the same coin. There is a totally different method of evaluating your proficiency in language and evaluating your fluency in the language. In fact, proficiency is objective in nature while fluency is completely subjective. Additionally, everybody has a completely different idea as to what they believe it’s fluency in the language but when proficiency is concerned, they all seem to agree on the same thing.

Let’s first address proficiency in the language. In order to achieve proficiency in the German language, you must achieve C2 level in the Goethe test. The Goethe test follows the CEFR protocol and therefore divides their evaluation of proficiency into six different levels. A1,A2,B1,B2,C1 and C2. These six different levels evaluate every student on different aspects of the language but they most definitely include listening skills, speaking skills, reading skills and writing skills. An individual is tested not only on their knowledge but also their application of the language. It is not easy to achieve the C2 level in this test. If anything, students take months to prepare for this test if not years. Therefore, proficiency Is accompanied by an official certificate that every individual can use in any university or job opportunity.

Hence, if you plan on using this language as a career asset, then I strongly suggest that you focus on achieving proficiency and not fluency in the language.  On the other hand, fluency varies from individual to individual. Some people believe fluency in the German language is the equivalent of being able to speak the German language very well. While others believe fluency in the German language is the equivalent of being able to read and write the language. And some others would say that fluency in the German language is the equivalent of being able to understand every single word in the language. In order to understand what level of German is fluent for you, you need to focus on your end goal. Do you wish to speak the language well? Or do you wish to read it well? Depending on what your final goal is, you can evaluate your own fluency in the language.

An Inflected language German consists of three genders (male, female, neuter), three powerful and weak verbs, and four cases for nouns, pronouns and adjectives namely nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. German is the mother tongue of more than 90M, making it a language spoken largely around the world. German is a foreign language that has been studied widely and is one of the Western world’s main cultural languages.