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Can adult learners achieve native levels? | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 249 of 303 24 October 2012 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Heh, well, I never know what cultural norms are like elsewhere in the English-speaking world, or who might be watching the video at work. So I prefer to warn people. There's nothing at all unique about Torvalds's English. If you work around a US university, you'll find plenty of people who moved here in their 20s, and who speak English just as well. And this is where I have a problem with Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research. Whenever you hear a researcher saying, "Adults can't learn a foreign language", they consider somebody like Linus Torvalds to be one of the failures, because he doesn't speak exactly like a native. His vowels are a bit off, and you if listen closely, you may hear a grammar error. Now, I have no desire to discourage anybody who wants a flawlessly native accent and intonation. Some people can do it. But even if most of us fall short of that standard, we can still aspire to do as well as Torvalds, and many others like him. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 250 of 303 24 October 2012 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | ||
As someone who is in the field of SLA, I don't think anybody says "Adults can't learn a foreign language." There is some controversy over the critical period hypothesis. But everybody can learn a language at any age. The question is how well or to what degree. As for my example of the New York Times journalists, I wasn't thinking in terms of any language learner being able to talk like a journalist immediately. I was thinking more of just what it takes to be any native speaker. Without being a journalist who writes more in one week than most people in a year, a native speaker has accumulated such a vast amount of cultural knowledge with the years that I find it hard to believe how a foreigner can arrive at the same level. But that should not prevent us from doing the best we can. As I have said a gazillion times, this whole thing about native-like performance is overblown and basically irrelevant. You do what you can do. What is more important, and more up my alley, is what is the best way to achieve one's language goals. This is where the rubber meets the road. What exactly are the best techniques, the best strategies to move my language skills forward? What we do know is that massive exposure at the earliest age is the biggest factor in ultimate attainment. Everything else helps of course, but nothing can replace actual contact with the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hiiro Yui Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4718 days ago 111 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 251 of 303 25 October 2012 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Am I the only one tired of this discussion? This is supposed to be a scientific debate: Is it possible to attain native-level pronunciation/accent, and if so, where is the evidence/statistics? Everyone here seems to agree that it's possible but rarely achieved. The next step is not to continue arguing about whether it's worth achieving or to "agree to disagree" about how people should try to achieve it. The next step is to start the experiment phase. Out of all the people reading this, am I the only one who wants to reach perfection in accent and is willing to work on it now? Am I the only one who is willing to try different approaches and document the results online?
I believe that what is holding me back is not that I didn't start learning my language before the critical age period, nor is it the statistics of the success rate that prevents me from improving. It's the lack of resources/information. No one provides self-learners the kind of detailed descriptions of what you're supposed to do with your voice at specific parts of your sentences in order to sound native. I feel that if I had this information, I could work on it until I develop the correct habits. I want to prove that I can reach perfection. Am I the only one? 1 person has 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 252 of 303 25 October 2012 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||
Ah, that explains why you're the only one doing what you're doing. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| petteri Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4933 days ago 117 posts - 208 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: German, Spanish | Message 253 of 303 25 October 2012 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | ||
The best pronunciation guide I have encountered is English Pronunciation in Use by Mark Hancock. Do you know any relevant publications in other languages? Edited by petteri on 25 October 2012 at 1:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 254 of 303 25 October 2012 at 3:16pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't think there is a lack of information and resources. You just have to search for them. For French, for example, do a google on "prononciation française" or "French pronuncation". There's a lot of material. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 255 of 303 25 October 2012 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
I think that if you find people who achieved what you are trying to achieve yourself, and you ask them how they did it, they won't tell you it's because they had the resources you are looking for. They did it on their own. Feedback is essential, of course, but the feedback will be informal or implied, ie. it will not come from specialists, and most of it will be from interacting with natives who use the language with you and who unknowingly give you all the material you need to fix your own mistakes. Find a way to do this on your own instead of waiting for material to arrive to you and you are much more likely to succeed. 3 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 256 of 303 26 October 2012 at 1:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch princess Máxima (originally from Argentina) speaks good Dutch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZXCPa1Rp_8 Edited by Medulin on 26 October 2012 at 1:54am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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