Is it possible for a foreign language learner to achieve the level of a native speaker?

[BiggusDickus]

@tando

A homeless person could be a former professor.

Possibly.

[shiadoa]

I am so in awe of foreigners in Taiwan who can speak Mandarin fluently. I am equally amazed with the quality of a few Taiwanese English speakers, who seem to have a natural aptitude with the language.
After 7 years here, my Taiwanese is better understood , in daily life . Even though there are more tones, i have learned from listening, which i find harder with Mandarin tones, for some reason.
At my age , it does become harder to assimilate a new language , I fear .
I often wonder if my Mandarin sounds like this gentleman and his regional interpretation , to Taiwanese people. The clip highlights the different regional variations and accents having effects on comprehension.
I must try harder. Anyway , this clip was funny to me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjATOfNvyEQ

[spaint]

@Mr.Lin

Is it possible for a foreign language learner to achieve the level of a native speaker?

From 7.0 to 9.0?

Native English speaker here who had to take the IELTS for immigration purposes. I scored 9 on the Listening, Writing and Speaking sections EDIT: and 8.5 on the Reading section. (9 overall). My Taiwanese wife scored 8 overall, with 7 for Speaking, 7.5 for Writing, and 9 for Listening and Reading.

I would stack her English ability up against most native English speakers any day of the week. Her accent is unplaceable; not Taiwanese but not native to any one region. It’s hard to say if other native speakers would think she’s a native or non-native speaker based on accent alone.

In general, I’d say the speakers of European languages are much better at getting native (and better) fluency in English than Asian speakers.

@lostinasia

Any idea what hurt your score? I’ve taught for those sorts of tests a few times - not recently - and I don’t know how on earth the students manage to stay focused. I don’t have a problem understanding the listening sections, but wow I have a problem paying attention to them.

My score was hurt by overthinking the questions. Some of the questions were poorly formed and appeared to be asking for information that could not be verified from the text. I wish I could give a concrete example of what I mean by this.

I’m sure my wife’s speaking scores were hurt by the double whammy of being a little shy and finding the subject matter irrelevant and uninteresting. They make you talk about a topic that might be relevant to language learners who’ve prepared for it, but in my case, for example, I was asked to talk about magazines. (When’s the last time you even bought a magazine?)

[BiggusDickus]

Some of the Part 2 questions are crackers. I remember one student got “Describe your furniture”. Try doing that for 2 minutes.

No standardized language test is ever going to be perfect. A big weakness with all of them is even a native speaker could theoretically screw them up because they are not aware of key elements that are required.