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The SLA Puzzle | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | Scientific Research | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5563 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 9 of 13 09 January 2015 at 11:50am | IP Logged | ||
I'd also want to have a couple of electrodes inserted into my brain to (hopefully temporarily) switch off my L1. That would increase my active use of L2 a millionfold or so. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4124 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 13 13 January 2015 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think tastyonions is right.
I would add that both acquisitions are completly different one to another. The native language acquisition will be made in an enviroment in which you don't have any other language to interfere, you will have to learn from scratch all sounds and you wont have any previous knowlegde to help you (or to get in the way). So, to get native language, you spend a lot of time. Most children take 10 years of total immersion to speak properly (they will stop speaking like a child around adolescence age) After that, in order to achieve a C2 like level, we have to be educated, so I would say 18 years? Now imagine yourself having 18 years of 100% immersion enviroment + school. Wouldn't you speak the language like a native? I think so. The problem is: unless you moved to another country and forgot your previous culture, and want badly to wipe out any "remain accent", it is simply not worth to take the effort. In 18 years, taking like 3 years per language in total immersion (which is a resonable time, maybe a long time depending on the language), I could have 6 C1 languages with a little bit of an accent here and there instead of only 1 second "native language". 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 11 of 13 13 January 2015 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
I am not convinced that doesn't happen in a lesser way all the time with refugees and the other immigrants. My grandmother at twenty-six left Lithuania during the Second World War with my six-year-old mother, they both first learned German in refugee camps in North Germany, and the then immigrated to Australia in the 1940s, where they both eventually married English speakers. Neither really spoke Lithuanian again for much of their lives, not even with each other (at the time speaking a foreign language was seen as a sort of shame about not integrating into their new home). Both spoke very good English at the end, though my grandmother had noticeable accent, which I still think was quite beautiful. Of course both Lithuanian and English are Indo-European languages, but still they are pretty far apart. I am sure there are lots of other immigrant stories about people who learnt their adopted language to a very high level. It seems the main thing is immersion, which can be difficult if you continue to hang-out/marry people from the "old country". Edited by patrickwilken on 13 January 2015 at 9:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4625 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 12 of 13 14 January 2015 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a female friend who grew up in a remote part of the Soviet Union speaking only Russian. Because she
had German heritage, she was able to move to Germany aged 18 after the USSR had collapsed. She had just got married but her husband, another Russland Deutscher, scarpered not long after they arrived in the country. So she was alone in a place where she knew nothing of the language. She somehow found work packing apples into crates and has told me she was scared to speak to people because she understood nothing. But over time, she started piecing the language together and she now works in a well-paid import and export job. I speak exclusively a German with this woman and she sounds pretty close to native level to my ears. Yes, there is a Russian accent but her spoken German is amazing, she seems to be able to say anything she wants without hesitation and in a very articulate manner. Certainly miles ahead of me. She is the most extreme example I know personally of an adult being plunged into a cold immersion environment and left to sink or swim. It can be done if there is no other way. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4447 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 13 of 13 14 January 2015 at 2:48am | IP Logged | ||
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When it comes to acquiring a second language, age may be a big factor but no a proven fact. I know people
who came to Canada from Hong Kong, China and other places. The younger crowd tend to pick up the local accent much better although many older people do acquire very proficient grammar when writing. Part of the equation depends on how much exposure you have to local TV & radio programming including listening to songs with a lot of words, not Classical or orchestral music without lyrics. I know someone who came to Canada during his senior year in high school and another person about the same time from Hong Kong. Both maintain a high fluency in spoken Chinese but person A is able to communicate in English with hardly any noticeable accent while person B would occasionally make grammatically mistakes in both writing and speaking such as distinguishing between words used as a noun and verb. Both work mostly in an English-speaking environment but after work person A mixes easily into the Western crowd while person B tend to associate with the Cantonese-speaking Chinese crowd. Part of the equation is growing up in the environment where a language is spoken and associating with natives. I can name several people who acquired a second language later in life and communicate like a native with varying degree of foreign accents: 1. Gregory River (goes by the Chinese name 河國榮) the Australian who live in HK as a TVB actor and starred as police chief in may TV series. He is fluent in Cantonese & Mandarin although his Cantonese tend to show a bit more foreign accent. 2. Corinna Chamberlain a Hong Kong native actor and singer with relatives in Australia & New Zealand and travels between 3 places. She is fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Her English is her second language which is also very fluent but people say they can pick up traces of a Chinese accent. 3. Hugh Baker who is an English professor and lived in Hong Kong for many years. He got into Cantonese and wrote several editions of a Cantonese phrase book with a local Chinese. 4. Carlos Douh from Vancouver, Canada who relocated to Hong Kong a few years ago. He became an Internet sensation posting videos of simple Chinese slangs for foreigners. 5. Mark Rowsell from Canada who became the popular actor 大山 (Dashan or Big Mountain) )in China. He studied in Beijing after attending an university in Ottawa and became a Beijing native. 6. Jerome White who goes by the simplified name JERO is a popular singer in the Enka style in Japan. 7. Sonia Gandhi the widow of a former Indian PM. Born in Italy and picked up Hindi later after marrying Rajiv and moving to India. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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