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Do kids forget faster than adults? | ||
Tags: Forgetting a language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 10 03 November 2014 at 12:05am | IP Logged | ||
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We always hear about how quickly kids learn languages but could it be the case that they rapidly forget a
language if the contact with it is broken? I've heard of situations where a child spends, say 2-3 years in an immersive environment, they are then moved away from the language and claim to have forgotten it all a few years down the line. But I haven't heard about this happening to many adults. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5099 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 2 of 10 03 November 2014 at 12:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I suspect that it depends upon the age of the child (presuming that they have been
immersed in the language in question for their entire lives) when the contact is broken. I now at least one person who claims to understand their native languages after being separated from it (since childhood) for more than ten years. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 10 03 November 2014 at 12:36am | IP Logged | ||
Wikipedia has a long and interesting article about this, titled Language attrition:
Mind you, I'm aware of other reported cases (not mentioned on Wikipedia) of people who did lose their native language in adulthood, but it seemed to involve total neglect over much of their lifetime. So I wouldn't trust Wikipedia too far on this subject. But yes, rapid and total attrition of languages during childhood is definitely a known phenomenon. Interestingly, one thing that seems to have been neglected in some attrition research is the possibility of reactivation. I've definitely witnessed cases where people had allowed their L1 to get noticeably rusty, but even a weekend among native speakers was enough to improve it noticeably. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 4 of 10 03 November 2014 at 1:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I wasn't actually meaning losing one's native tongue, but another language that you've been plunged into
before going back to an environment where your native tongue is spoken. If two people, aged 7 and 20 are thrown in a new language environment for 2 years, where they are pretty much forced into using the language all day long, who is more likely to recall the language 10 years down the line? Edited by beano on 03 November 2014 at 1:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 5 of 10 03 November 2014 at 3:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, at 7 it still has the potential to become your secondary native language. I think these are very hard to compare. For example, we can reword it into "who remembers more of the language they heard 10 years ago, a 19-year old or a 32-year old?" and the guesstimates might change. It's less about their capabilities at the age of 7-9 and 20-22 and more about what happens during those 10 years. The younger one's primary reason for forgetting is that they would (supposedly) be attending school/college and learning a lot of information and also (re)learning their original native language, especially the formal/academic usage. IMO, the equivalent for the older one would be not just university but postgrad research and preferably also learning one more unrelated language.
Speaking of that, the 20-year old would have a harder time getting comprehensible input. For the experiment to work, imo it would have to be a related language. But if they are suddenly Spanish kids exposed to Portuguese or Italian, this opens a whole new can of worms... I guess it depends on how exactly you measure forgetting, or what counts as remembering. The younger one would experience lots of new things in the language, not just cultural but simply things you learn while growing up. But many seem to remember their adult life much better than their childhood and teenage years. Edited by Serpent on 05 November 2014 at 3:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 6 of 10 03 November 2014 at 6:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Part of the equation is exposure to a language. As an adult, I spend as much time playing music on a piano
keyboard as studying languages. I tend to stick to the 2 that I know better: English & Mandarin. If I spend more time with French, I can become more fluent in 1 year. Another factor is attitude. Being exposed to a language include watching TV, listening to radio programs, reading the newspaper regularly. You also need to be in an environment where the language is spoken including moving to another language or in specific social groups. Attitude is very important. Successful language learners often set realistic goals and objectives. They know where they want to be (goal-oriented) and follow a very organized step-by-step approach up the ladder. Instead of somebody who goes to class every day and expects the teacher to do all the work. For me to learn a song on a piano, I'd find recordings of the song and then break it apart and learn it 1 section at a time. You need to have the mindset the song is playable at your technical level. It is the matter of time and effort you put in. If you already decided it is too difficult, then you'd never learn the song. Some would say adults have a harder time to master a language because: 1. They have trouble with the accent when learning to communicate. 2. They can forget easily due to stress and other factors. On the other hand, they are more disciplined. It is more difficult to get a child to sit down for more than 1h studying a phrase book when he/she can be playing outside. They have more experience in life and can apply certain methods to learning languages. Nowadays, you can watch videos in half-dozen languages on the Internet. It is the matter of spending the time. Don't forget, a lot of exposure to the language is outside the classroom. Someone who not only go through a French immersion program, but watch French TV programs at home would maintain a high level of language proficiency. A year ago, I decided to spend only half the time listening to English programs on the radio and the other to Chinese programs. Otherwise, I'd go to a video store and find all sorts of foreign films with subtitles. You don't need to be in China to maintain a high fluency in Chinese. I have a friend who lives in the US. We exchanged letters and Emails in Chinese regularly. Although he claims to be weak in communications, but his can write grammatically correct sentences. Across town there is a man who took Mandarin classes for 6 months and quit. His wife speaks fluent Mandarin and they used to attend social gatherings where there would be many Mandarin speakers. The exposure was there so what went wrong? My friend in the US is an adult who is successfully climbing the ladder. The man across town is also an adult but failed. As a Cantonese-speaker, he already knows most of the Chinese characters. However, he hardly ever listen to Mandarin on TV or the radio. And at social gatherings he would give his greeting: 你好 Nǐhǎo and then switch to talking in English without making an effort because everybody else can also speak English. How would you characterize an "immersion" environment? I live outside China but read Chinese news online a few times a week. I listen to the radio and watch Chinese programs regularly. Do you have to be in a language class or specific countries to be immersed in a language? Obviously not. I'm in an English-speaking country so I assume that I would be in English immersion just doing my day-to-day activities such as going to work, shopping, dinning out, etc. I wouldn't be in a Chinese immersion environment but I can read up to 90% of the characters in a newspaper and lookup the rest. If somebody asks me a question in Chinese I would have no trouble answering. Edited by shk00design on 03 November 2014 at 6:22am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| katarinaantalya Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3796 days ago 7 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB2 Studies: French, Bulgarian, Estonian | Message 7 of 10 05 November 2014 at 3:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I have no first hand or scientific experience, but I knew a pair of twins from Germany
for whom German was their first language (although their English was better due to complete immersion). They rarely spoke it at home, but spent every summer in the country speaking nothing but. Every school year I would watch them come back and struggle to string together a sentence in English, and then see them forget which nouns held der, die, and das by June. So, to some extent they would forget either of their native languages as they had no exposure, but would quickly regain their skills when reimmersed. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 8 of 10 29 March 2015 at 5:06am | IP Logged | ||
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The problem is not as simple as whether kids have a better memory than adults or the other way around. The
problem with learning a language in primary school is the lack of exposure. Back in my school days I was in a French class for less than 2 hours per day excluding weekends. With the summer holidays nobody in class would touch French reading materials or watch TV programs in French. The other issue is discipline. Nowadays kids tend to be around electronic devices all the time. A few years back, most kids prefer to play outside instead of sit still for hours trying to absorb words & phrases out of a language textbook. I know 2 kids living in the US who would spend hours watching videos on YouTube in English. Even if half of the videos they watch happened to be in Spanish, they would be fully bilingual by now. It is not easy to get a child to sit down for hours and learn a new language the way adults can. On the other hand, we assume that when we get to a certain age, our brain become less active and learning tends to be slower. A child usually have a better chance to acquire many languages. Again when we get older, we have other responsibilities such as family, kids, work and household duties. It would be difficult to find enough time during the week to really study a foreign language. The other factor in the equation is personal motivation. If someone have enough motivation to be able to read a French newspaper, he/she would get hold of a newspaper everyday or as often as possible and go through different articles to pick up new words & phrases. A few months ago, I was at a Christmas dinner. In the room were 4 people who claimed they passed their Gr. 6 piano exams at the Conservatory level and yet nobody felt comfortable playing a song on a keyboard. Each of them probably started music lessons when they were 5. Shortly after the holiday break, a took out a piece of music: "Little Fugue" in G minor (BWV 578) by Bach and started learning the piece. The copy I had was printed in 4 pages. In 3 weeks I managed to run through the piece from top to bottom a few times. I tend to think of myself as a slow learner in my childhood and didn't pick up playing piano until my early '30s. I wouldn't think of myself as being more intelligent than the people in the room who once played at an advanced level. As a member of a local band, I had a lot more motivation to practice and perform music all the time while the people who passed their music exams had lost their motivations for even keeping their piano playing at the same level. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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