G'day, how you going mate? Today, I am going to talk about the characteristics of advanced English speaker. Please note that what I am going to say are all based on my past experience and thoughts, not based on any available sources. So, some might be somehow incorrect, but please understand there might have my preconceived belief. Ok, let's get into it, shall we?

First of all, advanced English speakers do not necessarily care about others in terms of how well they speak, write, read and listen. This is simply because that such advanced English speakers should already be satisfied with their ability, so that they have more guts to boost the level of their English, not to criticise others.

Second, advanced English speakers are not fussy about English exam scores. Once you've reached a certain level of English proficiency, you might feel I don't really need to be particular about English exams. Although some still needs to crack a particular English exam for immigration purposes, normally you can stop mulling over the exam and learn more practical English seriously.

Third, advanced English speakers tend to make the most of simple words, not difficult or esoteric ones. Until reaching upper-intermediate level, you presumably want to practise more advanced vocabulary even if the usage is not quite right nor appropriate in terms of word-choice or collocation. So I reckon once you're sufficiently confident about the use of advanced words, you'd like to learn how simple words should be used more flexibly.

Fourth, advanced English speakers do care about oral fluency rather than pronunciation. Of course, I am not saying they don't care about pronunciation itself even if they mispronounce some particular sounds, in which case they should be worried about it, definitely. But nevertheless, normally such advanced English speakers don't have any difficulty in pronouncing, so I'm saying they care more about how fluent they are. Learning how to pronounce is still on the way to or a half way through the advanced level, so to speak. Boosting oral fluency is more advanced training. Such as pitch, accent, intonation, rhythm and speed are the things that I want to say when it comes to oral fluency.

Fifth, advanced English speakers do try to neutralise their English accents, depending upon circumstances. For instance, when you are attending a formal meeting or gathering, you wish to be seen yourself like a well-educated person, fluent English speaker, etc. To this end, you're trying to control yourself so that you could always be ready for it. Interestingly, you might have almost no space to take into consideration the neutralisation of your perceivable English accent until you've become an advanced English speaker.

The last thing I want to point out is that advanced English speakers tend to see your mouth, not your eyes while talking and listening. That is, they want to make sure they can understand pretty much 100 per cent what you're trying to say, because they're checking how you are pronouncing words using your mouth correctly. This is just right, and pretty much all native speakers do see your mouth as well. This is a normal phenomenon. In Japanese, by contrast, we normally don't cast an eye on your mouth while speaking, do we? Instead of seeing your mouth, we do keep our eye contact. But it's only formal occasions, isn't it?

In conclusion, if you have all the aforementioned points or some, you might have reached the advanced level of English proficiency. And, good luck on stepping up onto the next level.

That's all for today! Thanks for reading.

Have a great day! Ta a ton.