How would you define a bilingual ? Anything and everything

Hello guys !

I have been asked if I were bilingual in some languages, but I don’t really know if I am bilingual or not…

How would you define a bilingual ? What are the level, the competence, the skills, the things to have done, to be a bilingual ?

I think, a bilingual is someone who has two languages that are like his/her native one. So I think a level of B2 is the least you can expect. Also the accent shouldn't be too heavy. And in my opinion, a bilingual should know informal and formal as well as the slang of the "not native language".
Hope that helps you 😅

In my view a bilingual is someone who don't even take notice when there is a change of language. In my view, nobody can be native in two languages.

I think I'd call someone bilingual if they were able to have an actual conversation in two languages. I don't think they'd need to know fancy professional words in whatever their second language is, but I do think that it shouldn't be all too noticeable that they didn't grow up with that language, during a conversation.

Also I think with yourself, you can see how easy it is for you to talk in (I'm assuming) English in comparison to French. I personally don't really struggle to find words or build sentences or respond or anything, much more than I do in my native tongue. Obviously sometimes you'll just be stupid and forget the word for "chair" but that doesn't have to do with English being a second language for you.

I don't think you'd have to do anything in particular to be bilingual. I'd say it just depends on how hard it is for you to standard things in that second language. You don't have to be able to read and understand a study that some doctor wrote about microorganisms, because let's be honest, I probably wouldn't understand that in German either.

I can't really say anything about "levels" though because I don't know how they work. I hope I could still bring my point across in a way that wasn't entirely confusing.

At this point I don't know which one my second language really is. It could be Spanish, French or English.

"I don't think they'd need to know fancy professional words in whatever their second language is, but I do think that it shouldn't be all too noticeable that they didn't grow up with that language, during a conversation."