Since the publication of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages in 2001, plurilingualism – the ability to communicate in two or more languages – has played an increasingly central role in the language education projects of the Council of Europe. The CEFR defines plurilingualism as ‘a communicative competence to which all knowledge and experience of language contributes and in which languages interrelate and interact’ (Council of Europe, 2001: 4). This definition is a close relative of the concept of linguistic multi-competence, originally defined by Vivian Cook as ‘the compound state of a mind with two grammars’ (Cook, 1991: 112). According to the CEFR, a plurilingual repertoire develops ‘as an individual person’s experience of language in its cultural contexts expands, from the language of the home to that of society at large and then to the languages of other peoples (whether learnt at school or college, or by direct experience)’ (Council of Europe, 2001: 4). This assumes that all language learning has the same result in qualitative if not in quantitative terms – that although the proficiency an individual develops in a foreign language may be more limited in scope than his or her L1 proficiency, the two proficiencies are closely related cognitively and comparable in terms of their availability for use. Ofelia García has recently argued against this assumption, however, offering the following two examples as evidence: