I don't think it's a good test of fluency. My first month without speaking any English to a Finn probably happened 4 or 5 months after I moved to Finland, but that does not mean I was fluent: I was just speaking fairly bad Finnish with a fair lot of effort.Cuckoo wrote:It's dependent on situation. The big test would be if someone goes for a month or more without speaking English to a Finn, then I guess they're coping in most situations they find themselves in. That's fluent, IMHO.
And I've never met a foreigner who could really do that.
Took me about a year to become fluent enough to participate in conversations with several Finns at a time at a normal conversation speed. Talking with one person at a time was a lot easier, and so was following lectures.
It's not hard to learn Finnish. You just need to find Finnish people who want to talk with you, ask them not to use any English with you, and also ask them to correct your Finnish when you are saying something wrong.
Vera