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Can adult learners achieve native levels? | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 9 of 303 30 September 2012 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I've heard many Norwegians (on TV) who emigrated to the US decades ago and could barely speak Norwegian anymore. I've met a large number of Norwegians who have visited relatives in the US and who report similar stories. Their relatives have more or less "lost their Norwegian". They speak with an incredibly heavy American accent, bad pronunciation and can barely string together very short, simple, comprehensible sentences. Maybe their native language is only rusty and that it would come back if they moved back to Norway. Who knows? As long as they live in a monolingual English environment where they never even think in their native language, it is hard to tell, but I guess you're right and that it would slowly return if they ever moved back. Edited by tractor on 30 September 2012 at 3:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 10 of 303 30 September 2012 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
By not using it. Very common, especially with Dutch in Canada. The Dutch are known to be excellent adaptors and assimilators after immigrating to a new country.
It is a very common scenario. He did keep in touch for a while. But remember this was 60 years ago. No Internet. Expensive phone calls. Expensive travel. Slowly but surely, it fades away. And remember this was just after World War II, so there were lots of reasons to forget the old and get on with the new. Nowadays, with the Internet, cheap phone calls, etc., probably it would be a lot easier to keep in touch and to retain your language.
Very often new immigrants consciously decide to lose their original language to better assimilate, and even speak only the new language amongst their old-language friends.
But yes, lose it. Very common. Very sad also, especially when the language is not passed on to their children. There are many stories about this issue on Dutch expats websites. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 11 of 303 30 September 2012 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I've never heard adult foreigners speak convincing Norwegian or Swedish (because the correct ''singy'' pronunciation is practically un-imitable for nonScandinavians).
On the other hand, many people who came to Germany as adults, learned to speak with virtually no accent, for example Argentina's PÍA CASTRO (who works for Deutsche Welle in Berlin now): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l1KyKcVOTg 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 12 of 303 30 September 2012 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I think the real challenge is to reach a native-like level in BOTH pronunciation and grammar. Most people who get anywhere near native-like fluency only master one of these two crucial aspects, the one that is easier for them.
And it seems like those that find the pronunciation easier are more likely to actually reach a native-like level of it, compared to those with the potential to reach the native standard in grammar. Perhaps because a good (not necessarily native-like!) pronunciation is more impressive, which is an advantage for those that have it and a disadvantage for those that don't. Edited by Serpent on 30 September 2012 at 5:40pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 13 of 303 30 September 2012 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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RE: Tommus - some of my cousins emigrated to Canada. The oldest have retained some or
most of their Dutch but the younger they were at the time of the move, the more they have lost the ability to speak Dutch. My aunt and uncle do still speak Dutch though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 14 of 303 30 September 2012 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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There is a section at the end of "Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition" by Leaver, Ehrman and Shekhtman which lists things that people need to do to achieve advanced levels of proficency. People don't need to do all of those, though it's pretty plain that the level of effort is quite high....higher than many of us might care to commit to. Edited by Snowflake on 30 September 2012 at 6:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 15 of 303 01 October 2012 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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What is the definition of "adult"?
An 18-year-old student who is starting a language degree and has a burning desire to work abroad is legally classed as an adult, but has more opportunity to study than a 30-something who moves overseas with a family and has to fit language learning around work and childcare commitments. I don't think age itself has a huge effect on the ability to learn a language. Time and exposure are more important and of course personal desire and motivation is the biggest factor. Edited by beano on 01 October 2012 at 12:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 303 01 October 2012 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I worked at a US university for many years, and so I've seen wave after wave of foreign students and researchers assimilate into US culture, with ages from 18 to nearly 30. These were all smart, ambitious people, and none of them arrived here with less than a strong B2. (Undergraduate students were almost always C1 or better.)
After 5 or 10 years, they all speak excellent English. Most have faint accents, but those accents are often less noticable than the accents of a typical Californian or southerner. Of course, there are two big things which influence how much progress people make: 1. Do they speak English at home? 2. Do they read a lot of books? People who don't read (or who only read journal articles) will often speak at near-native levels but will struggle with formal writing. Now that I'm very slowly advancing towards C1, I'm starting to realize exactly how much I still need to learn (I knew it was huge, but I'm discovering it's enormous). Educated native speakers have decades of practice, at least 16 years of school and endless time with books and movies. On top of that, they've lived in the culture all their life. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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