Am I Fluent - Language Proficiency

In order to figure out whether you are fluent in a language, you need to analyze your own language abilities. According to the official definition, fluency refers to an ability to converse fluidly and easily. Do you feel comfortable  speaking  the language? Can you communicate easily with native speakers? Can you read  newspapers, listen to the  radio, and watch  tv? Are you able to understand the gist of the language as it is spoken and  written, even if you dont know every single word? Can you understand native speakers from  different regions? The more fluent you are, the more of these questions you can answer yes to. Context   A fluent speaker may have some gaps in  vocabulary but is capable of figuring out these terms in context. Likewise, s/he can reword sentences in order to describe an object, explain an idea, or get a point across, even if s/he doesnt know the actual terms. Thinking in the Language Pretty much everyone agrees that this is an important sign of fluency. Thinking in the language means that you understand the words without actually  translating  them into your native language. For example, non-fluent speakers would hear or read the sentence Jhabite à   Paris and would think to themselves (slowly if they are beginners, more quickly if they are more advanced) something like: J  is from  je  -  I...habite  is from  habiter  -  to live...à  Ã‚  can mean  in,  to, or  at...Paris...  I - live - in - Paris. A fluent speaker wouldnt need to go through all that; s/he would intuitively understand Jhabite à   Paris as easily as I live in Paris. The reverse is also true: when speaking or writing, a fluent speaker doesnt need to construct the sentence in his/her native language and then translate it into the target language - a fluent speaker thinks of what s/he wants to say in the language s/he wants to say it. Dreams   Many people say that dreaming in the language is an essential indicator of fluency. We personally dont subscribe to this belief, because: Weve only dreamed in French once (13 years after we began to study it) and weve never dreamed in Spanish.We know a number of people who have dreamed in a language after only a year or two of study.We once had an entire dream in Polish, which we studied for a total of about 12 non-intensive, non-immersion hours. We  certainly agree that dreaming in the language of study is a good sign - it shows that the language is being incorporated into your subconscious.