I once heard a definition that you are not really competent in a foreign language until you're able to solve crosswords in it. This principle is obviously tongue-in-cheek, but there's much truth to it in my opinion.
Criteria like this are way too demanding, and it's one of the biggest problems in language learning that makes people feel worthless; having elitist standards that you "don't" speak a language unless you speak it like a university professor, regardless of the fact that you may not speak your mother tongue that way.