I agree with you Liliana.

You are making a difference between basic and professional knowledge of a language. I totally agree that the latter is a product of years of experience. I think that you can never tell of entirely knowing a language as it is a continuing process that lasts a lifetime.

I was not just talking about us profesionals here, but also about them that have a good basic knowledge of a foreign language, and who according to the definition of the term, can be called polyglots.

The other ones that you mentioned are linguists/translators. Please make a difference, this is a profession, while the other is just the everyday life and can be achieved (almost) by anyone.

Concerning the soap operas, they really have a relatively easy level of communicating, but sometimes this can by tricky. As Ines mentioned, this can be percieved only by translators, as sometimes you should have an excellent knowledge of the language and context background in order to better understand their thoughts and communication.

And by the way, Ines, you do an excellent work. Your language skills are really excellent.

Hi Daniela.  Welcome to Translatorscafe.  You make some excellent points and you seem to have some experience behind them. You are right - language learning is indeed a multifaceted affair taking a number of years, and a distinction should also be made between the professional and non-professional polyglot or bilingual.

Maxi

Thank you Maxi.

Indeed I have an experience of more than 10 years behind and I can tell that it has been my best teacher in all these years. I love my job and as such I am very passionate when I discuss about it

Have a nice weekend,

Daniela