When you start learning a new language, common wisdom suggests that you have two possible goals. One is passing an exam. Maybe you took French while in High School with no other goal than getting a good grade, not giving a damn about the country, the language or the people. The other common goal is the dreaded F word, fluency. Forget common wisdom, there is something more important than the vague notion of fluency. The term fluency is very ambiguous, because there is no scale in measuring fluency.