Beyond Perfect Fluency: Rethinking What It Means to Be Bilingual
Understanding the real impact of language education
Ask someone what it means to be bilingual, and you'll get a different answer every time. "You need to dream in both languages," some say. "You must write and speak perfectly," others insist. What I've discovered is that this question often serves as a gateway for people to share their personal journeys with language—whether their own story or that of someone they hold dear.
Recently, at a student event, someone shared how her Dominican husband could communicate fluently in English but struggled with writing. "English is just difficult to write," she explained. But this common perspective misses something crucial: the role of formal education in language development. While we often think of language learning as something that happens naturally at home, with "real" learning—math, science, history—taking place at school, the truth is more complex. Those academic subjects are actually vital vehicles for advanced language acquisition. Without years of formal education in a language, reaching higher proficiency levels becomes nearly impossible.
In my work studying bilingualism, I often explain that there isn't a single definition of what makes someone bilingual. Instead, there are many types of bilingual individuals, shaped by the unique circumstances of their language learning journey. Once, while sharing this perspective with a friend, he interrupted me with a pointed question: "But why does this matter?"
Despite having just completed a Ph.D. in bilingualism, I found myself momentarily stumped. The answer felt obvious yet remained frustratingly difficult to articulate. After years of reflection, I now understand why this question is so crucial.
Language—from our word choice to our accent and sentence structure—forms an integral part of our identity. We constantly, often unconsciously, evaluate others based on how they speak. We make assumptions about their origins, social class, and even intelligence, all through the lens of language. When we struggle to express ourselves fully in one of our languages, we often feel diminished, leading us to avoid using that language altogether. Ironically, this avoidance becomes the very barrier that prevents us from improving our proficiency in our non-dominant language.
Understanding what type of bilingual we are and why we speak the way we do represents a crucial step toward eliminating the shame often associated with imperfect language mastery. By recognizing how and why we judge accents, and by examining our own tendencies to comment on others' ways of speaking, we can begin to dismantle these feelings of inadequacy. The goal isn't to sound like a monolingual speaker—it's to embrace our unique linguistic identity.
For those of us who navigate life in multiple languages, the value of bilingualism is visceral—losing access to one of our languages would feel like losing a leg. Yet articulating this importance to monolingual individuals, particularly to policymakers who shape educational priorities, remains a challenge. As I prepare to meet with legislators in Washington, DC for Language Advocacy Days this March, I'm reminded that we need to bridge this understanding gap. We must move beyond viewing language education as a luxury and recognize it as a fundamental component of educational equity and cultural understanding. The investment in language education isn't just about learning new words—it's about opening doors to different ways of thinking, fostering empathy across cultures, and preparing our society for an increasingly interconnected world.