Fluency has always been a big topic to all foreign language learners, even for bilinguals. We have always been told that “practice makes perfect.” However, is it true that we can speak like a native as long as we practice hard enough?

Having studied English for nearly 14 years, I feel that there is a fluency improvement threshold which practicing can bring. Indeed, as we speak more, we will get used to the pronunciations and words will come out naturally and smoothly. When we study more and read more, we will not hesitate due to lack of vocabularies and could express ourselves smoothly.

Nevertheless, practice can only help us increase our accuracy in translating one language to the other. Even though we are speaking with perfect grammar and word choices, we might not sound like native speakers because we lack the style, the culture. The ultimate step to speaking like a native is to learn the culture embedded in the language and think in that language. The fluency difference among bilinguals shows that culture matters.

As dictionaries define, bilinguals are people who speak two languages fluently. Reasonably, people assumed that all bilinguals speak like the two languages are their mother tongues. Yet, in reality, there are variations in their fluency. According to the Linguistic Society of America, there are two main types of bilinguals, one being individuals who acquired the two languages concurrently as they grow up and one being individuals who acquired a second language after the first language was acquired. Generally speaking, the former tend to end up being a native speaker of two languages, whereas the latter tend to end up being a bilingual who can communicate in both languages but did not master using idioms or slangs.

Individuals who acquired the two languages concurrently are more likely to master the two languages because they usually grow up in a bicultural environment. One example was a friend of mine whose parents are Canadian and English native speakers. Even though we went to the same school and took the same English as Second Language (ESL) course, she speaks English more fluently than I do because she was regularly involved in two cultures. For instance, at school, she was constantly surrounded by Chinese slangs as she spoke with her friends and classmates, whereas at home, she would learn English idioms from her parents. On the other hand, before college, I only spoke English in class and learned English for exams. Because I was exposed to Chinese culture at both school and home, I mostly think in Chinese and was not as fluent as my friend due to all the translation going on in my head.

Language and culture are strongly linked. In “The Relationship Between Language and Culture Explained,” the writer claims that a language reflects cultural and social values. As mentioned in the article, the fact that Chinese value family relationships and have strict family structure is reflected in the Chinese idioms. Similarly, Confucianist traditions in the Korean society is also reflected in the language. In Korean, the verb ending changes depending on the person you speak to. Longer verb endings are used while speaking to people who are older than you whereas shorter verb endings are used while speaking to friends and people who are younger.

This also conforms to the idea in “Blurring the Line between Language and Culture,” which argues “Language is culture and culture is language.” Because language and culture have such complex and homologous relationship, to speak like a native, we must understand the culture. In that way, we can speak with the social values and common beliefs just like how a native speaker would. Not only would we master the use of idioms and slangs, but we would also be capable of speaking with the right tone and attitude.

Without doubt, fluency is affected by the amount of practice but only when we understand the culture can we fully master a language. All in all, it is important to learn about the culture if we want to speak like a native speaker.