kirakira, I am not seeing what you are seeing. She said her husband's family supposedly speaks the oldest dialect in japan. Is that what you are talking about? What is the big deal about that?

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I think it depends to where will you be going..
coz I passed JLPT1 but when I arrived in Shiga, people here tend to speak kansai dialect which is totally different from what I've learned from Japanese classes~ but since the root words is still the same, it is only a matter of time for me to catch up with my communication life.. huhu~
hmm, my friends who failed every test of JLPT still have no problem in his everyday life here.. from what I heard, JLPT is important if you would like to work in Japan based companies and stuff~

I`m sorry kirakira, I really don`t know what on earth I have done to make you want to go after me anytime I post something about language, but it`s really starting to get old.

As for putting words into people`s mouths - I never said that JLPT3 was "fluent", nor did I ever say that every single word on the JLPT1 was used in daily life. I know of plenty of people who make it through life perfectly well, living in Japan, the full works... Who struggled or are struggling to pass JLPT3. I meant exactly what I wrote - "You could technically get by in life without much problems with JLPT3."

The sad thing is, I completely agree with you about the JLPT being a very very flawed way of measuring language proficiency... But you never gave me the chance to express my agreement before jumping to criticize what I said - as usual.

As someone who lived throught it personally I can tell you this:
No test can make you fluent in any language. A test can check your knowledge, but fluency is something else.
To be fluent you need to live in contact with native speakers 24 hours a day...so either you go to Japan or you marry one in your country.

Two things:

1. I think chryuop has a very good and accurate definitino of "fluent." I see that word bandied about by conversational speakers as if they were fluent all the time. Fluency to me is the ability to almost always say exactly what you want to say without editing to avoid phraseology you don't know, but you don't have to have the native accent.

The third alternative to chryuop's ways to attain and maintain fluency is to get a job at a Japanese embassy in your country. I have a friend who did this. I haven't heard her speak Japanese in a while, but it was very, very good. I could sense no hesitation on her part. She may not have been fluent, but she was pretty damn close—closer than I in any case.

2. We all know the oldest dialect of Japanese is Korean, guys. Stop fighting. ;)

For further reference guys, I'm female :)

I didn't intend for this post to cause arguments or anything, so please don't. Japanese is different to many people, I was looking for different idea's and opinions, but please don't get nasty with anyone over it.

Okay, maybe 'fluent' isn't the right word. More of 'enough knowledge of the Japanese language to survive comfortably in the country'.

Nokutetsu, I would call that "conversational." Or, at least, nearly conversational. To me, conversational is the only other concrete name before fluent.

Something like:
1. beginner
2. ??? something goes here ???
3. conversational (comfortable in pretty much any "everyday" situation)
4. fluent (being able to say pretty much anything without having to walk around your weak points)
5. native (pretty much flawless in usage and accent)

I don't know about that. I can speak only about my language, but all Italian people have different accents and about flawless...well yea in our heart we wish it LOL.

2. Intermediate