Before my wife gave birth in our host country, I knew I was quite fluent in my host language. I could order food, chat with neighbors, renew my visa, and even formally teach without much difficulty. But then, as we prepared for the delivery, I found myself in the hospital, surrounded by medical staff using terminology I had never encountered.
As my wife’s due date approached, I realized that, should any major medical issue arise that incapacitated my wife, I would need to be able to understand medical language and make decisions based on it. The potential consequences of misunderstanding here were massive, so I set about learning as much as I could about medical birthing language. The birth went fine, and now I know a bunch of terminology that’s useless in everyday life.1
This experience made one thing clear: fluency is domain-specific. You can be fluent in everyday life, yet struggle when faced with specialized language, whether it’s medical terms, legal jargon, or technical engineering lingo. It’s not just a matter of language level; it’s a matter of knowing the right vocabulary for the right context.
Today, I’m going to explain why this is and help you know how to learn language in light of that reality.
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What does domain-specific fluency mean?
Have you ever had a moment in your native language where you went from a situation where you understood everything that was going on, to a situation where you had to struggle to understand the conversation around you? For example, what if you were to overhear the following fictional conversation?
Person A: Have you reviewed the opposing counsel’s motion to dismiss? They’re arguing that our client’s claim for promissory estoppel is barred by the statute of frauds because the agreement wasn’t memorialized in writing.
Person B: Yes, I saw that. But we can counter that the doctrine of part performance applies here. Our client took significant actions in reliance on the promise, which should remove the claim from the statute of frauds’ constraints. There’s precedent for that.
Person A: I also think we should emphasize the equitable estoppel angle. If the court finds that the defendant’s conduct induced our client to reasonably rely on the promise, we can argue that the defendant should be estopped from asserting the statute of frauds as a defense.
Now, unless you’re well-versed in law, that interaction is probably nonsensical to you.2 (By the way, if you are a lawyer and I got something wrong, please let me know—I’m not fluent enough in the domain of law to know if I got something wrong!)
Why would even fluent native English speakers be at a complete loss if they overheard that conversation? Because it belongs to a specialized area of language—law—in which even fluent English speakers are not actually fluent.
Why could you be fluent in English but not understand lawyers speaking English?3
Because fluency is domain specific. Each area of knowledge or activity—a domain—has specialized vocabulary that isn’t commonly used in everyday life. Since the domain is specialized or technical, the average person growing up won’t encounter any of those specialized terms in normal life. Thus, that person may be fluent in buying groceries or calling a bank or chatting with friends, but because they’ve never participated in a specialized domain, they won’t be fluent in it.
This is what it means to say that fluency is domain-specific. Just because you’re fluent in everyday life doesn’t mean that you’ll understand medical terms; just because you’re a nurse who understands medical terms doesn’t mean you can understand the field of archaeology; just because you know archaeology doesn’t mean you know linguistics!
And just because you’re a fluent English speaker doesn’t mean you know what it means for fluency to be domain-specific. That’s a linguistic concept and semi-technical language, which is why I needed to explain it at the start of this article.
Implications for language learning
Ok, so what does it matter if fluency is domain-specific? Does it actually make a difference in your learning? I’m sure you know the answer is “yes” (or else I wouldn’t be writing about it!), so what are those implications?
I started posting some ideas on this concept on Threads the other day, but the topic is worthy of a more extensive, albeit non-exhaustive, discussion.
1. Build your base first
There is a base of language and vocabulary that every fluent speaker knows. You need to know this base yourself if you want to be fluent in any specific domain.
You should learn ‘ten,’ ‘blue,’ ‘board,’ ‘struggle,’ and ‘cake’ before you learn ‘palimpsest.’ This is not just because the base language is more useful, but also because you need to know base words like “scrape,” “leather,” and “document” before you can understand a more specialized term like “palimpsest.” Basic language gives you the foundation through which you can understand more technical or unusual words.
2. Don’t learn everything equally well
Just because you hear a word doesn’t mean that you should spend time learning it. Let your language teacher or helper be a guide here and ask if the word is important. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. Let your focus adjust accordingly. It’s good to re-encounter any word that you’ve already heard (e.g., through listening to a recording), but it’s okay if you understand more technical words less well than other words.
In fact, it’s not just okay, it’s good to know common words better than you do uncommon ones. That’s how it is in your native language, after all!
In your native language, you know some areas better than others. Why would you expect it to be different in your learned language?
It’s simply the wrong goal to understand every single word that you come across.
I made this mistake early on in my language learning journey. I figured that, if a word was common enough that it popped into my life, then I should understand it. I spent time trying to master an unusual word that would have been better spent growing to understand far more common words and language.
3. Choose what domains you want to understand
You’re not ever going to understand 100% of what you hear—you don’t do this in your native language! So set the right goal and expectation, to understand most of what you hear and be able to clarify the new words that you hear. There will always be domains that you don’t know about, and that’s okay.
Just make sure to learn about the domains that will help you the most. Perhaps they’re important because of daily living (e.g., buying groceries, taking a taxi, ordering food), because of social relationships (e.g., small talk, chatting about local news, etc.), because of your work (e.g., being able to talk to your colleagues, order supplies you need, etc.), or because of your hobbies, interests, or goals (e.g., sports, politics, business, etc.).
There are a multitude of factors that you should consider when choosing what you want to understand. Here are a few: how frequently you encounter a domain, how urgent it is for you to understand, how important it is to you personally, how relevant it is to your goals, and how dire miscommunication would be in that topic.
Since evaluating all these topics against each other is potentially difficult, I built a tool to help you evaluate and prioritize the different areas where you may want to learn! Here’s a tiny bit of what it looks like and a few of the eight questions it’ll ask to help you prioritize your learning:
To help you out in your language studies, I’m giving away this tool for free to anyone who subscribes to my newsletter! It’s no more than two emails a week and entirely spam-free.
4. Grow in your priority domain
Now that you know your priority, you can focus on your language growth in that specific domain. This won’t be achieved in a large class where the teacher is choosing topics for your learning, but it can be done in small groups, with a tutor, or with friends who are willing to help you out.
You want to grow specifically in the domain that is a priority for you. How do you do that? The ways are endless, but here are some ideas that will help you learn in a specific area:
Practice or role-play
Whenever possible, go with your language helper and actually experience the situation you’re trying to grow in! If that’s not possible, then role-play the scenario so it’s as close to real-life as you can.
Talk with someone in that domain
If the domain you want to focus on is law, then see if you can find a local lawyer (or a law student) who could talk with you and help you grow in that domain. See if you can shadow them and then debrief what you observed afterward.
Use domain-specific resources
There may be books, podcasts, videos, talk shows, etc., that are relevant or specific to the domain you want to grow in. Find those and use them as content to grow.
Don’t just look for “published” materials; there may be a community of practice that you can join in. If your priority domain is sports, see if there’s a sports club that you can join. If your priority is education, see if you can find a gathering of teachers who meet together to talk and discuss.
5. Never stop growing
When you know a domain well enough to meet your goals, it’s probably no longer a priority for you. So, choose another domain for focused growth! The reality is that you want to be fluent in as many domains as matter to you, so keep going even when you’re “done” with one domain!
I say this to set the expectation that you’re never “done” learning a language. You regularly learn in your native language, so why would you stop with the language you’re learning?
Conclusion
Fluency isn’t just about general language skills; it’s about being able to navigate the domains of life that matter to you with ease. My experience as my wife gave birth shows that, even with a strong grasp of everyday language, there are specialized situations where you have a lot of growing to do. Because fluency is domain-specific, we language learners need to build our base and then prioritize the areas of life that will make the biggest difference to our life and goals!
By focusing on the topics that align with your needs, interests, and goals, you’ll supercharge your language learning, ensuring that your growth is in the areas of highest priority. Remember that you can’t learn everything, so don’t set that as your goal! Instead, seek to be proficient in the key areas that matter most to you. In doing so, you’ll be better able to survive and thrive as an expat!
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Footnotes
- I mean, it’s possible that I’ll encounter a situation where someone talks about how dilated or effaced they are…but, on second thought, I’ll probably feign a lack of understanding. ↩︎
- In normal English, this interaction roughly means: Lawyer A: Did you see the other side’s latest argument to get the case thrown out? They’re saying our client’s claim can’t go forward because there was no written agreement. Lawyer B: Yeah, I saw that. But we can argue that because our client acted based on the promise, it should be an exception to the rule that requires a written contract. There’s even a legal principle that backs us up on this. Lawyer A: Exactly. We should also point out that it wouldn’t be fair for the other side to use the lack of a written contract against us since they made our client believe the promise was real. ↩︎
- I’m restraining myself from a lawyer joke at this moment. ↩︎
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