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Critical Period Hypothesis | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| mki Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 7097 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian | Message 17 of 60 20 July 2005 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | ||
I saw a TV-program about what you are writing about. I am not an expert in the area, I am only going to write what they said to clarify things.
There are certain parts of the brain that deals with languages and if we do not learn our first language between infancy to early puberty the parts of the brain dealing with languages do not become developed enough. So the critical PERIOD hypothesis theory is probably true although it does not say anything about acquiring a language after the first language has been acquired between infancy to early puberty. So if we have learned our first language during the critical PERIOD it should be no problem to pick up another, because the brain has been fully developed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7163 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes  7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 18 of 60 21 July 2005 at 4:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Then that would invalidate this hypothesis, because virtually everybody learns his first language during this critical period.
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| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6695 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 19 of 60 16 October 2006 at 9:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am not an expert on the critical period hypothesis myself , but it seems that many people gleefully misinterpret it to mean the acquisition of further languages to fluency is nigh-on impossible post-puberty. The existence of forums like these and the people who use them, not to mention little things like the Defense Language Institute and the average motivated expatriate shows this to be completely untrue. Yet if I gained money each time someone pointed to the CPH as proof positive for the impossibility of learning languages in adulthood, I would have enough to book a trip to Europe. Just today, one of my teachers reiterated the "fluency after adolescence is verrry verrry difficult" line, and of course I kept quiet, but it's definitely something that seems to be 'common knowledge', though it's commonly mistaken.
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| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7194 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 20 of 60 17 October 2006 at 8:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Furthermore I think that the statement that native pronounciation cannot be mastered after a certain age is false as well. Mastering pronouciation and intonation is more a matter of method than a matter of age. The problem is that pronouciation instruction focuses too much on indivdual sounds and too little on intonation. Which is a problem since the latter area is where most adult learners have a real problem.
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| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6670 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 21 of 60 17 October 2006 at 8:36am | IP Logged | ||
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My hunch is that it's quite possible to learn a language extremely well in adulthood, but you are somewhat less likely to sound truly native.
There are often a few sounds in a language that are challenging for non-natives and for people who didn't start hearing and speaking the language very young. I think that an adult learner can sound really good but not perfect in a target language. If the native speaks the language 100% like a native, the adult learner might achieve 95% of a native sound while the learner who starts before a critical period might achieve 99% or even 100%. In other words, an adult learner might never be mistaken for a native, but can still be understood very well and not cause native listeners to cringe. Some intelligence agencies may have methods that allow a few very talented people with an unusual amount of time and motivation to sound native, but that situation seems to be the exception. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6779 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 22 of 60 17 October 2006 at 8:53am | IP Logged | ||
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It's obvious, of course, that one always learns one's native language during the critical period, without any special or conscious effort.
Interestingly, according to Introducing Second Language Acquisition, studies do not show that a child during this period is more likely to succeed at learning a second language than an adult is. The child might pick up certain things (like pronunciation) more easily, but the adult can generally achieve a higher level of mastery overall. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6695 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 23 of 60 17 October 2006 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
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^ Of course. If you gave a child and an adult 10 years to learn a second language (one from birth and one from adulthood), most children would speak the second language at the level of a...10 year old, after 10 years. On the other hand, the average motivated adult would likely fare much, much, Much better.
People always seem to forget this when going on and on about how easily children learn languages. It takes a child 15 years of language learning to develop the vocabulary and grammatical control of a 15 year old. It takes a child 5 years to be able to communicate at a 1st grade level. When these standards are applied to adults, it should become apparent to people that children aren't learning languages at some sort of hyperspeed, and that an adult with high levels of motivation and good access to resources should be able to reach high levels of proficiency in a language within fractions of the time it would take a child. But people generally stop after smugly declaring 'only children can learn languages, and that is that'. I think the average person who repeats this simply does so because s/he heard it from someone else, and accepting it as truth (or rather, dogma) was easier than setting about trying to disprove it. After all, if someone tells you something is impossible, it makes you feel better about not even beginning to try it. But this is one of those cases where the prevailing idea is incorrect. It's silly :^) Edited by lengua on 17 October 2006 at 10:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7194 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 24 of 60 17 October 2006 at 10:45am | IP Logged | ||
I actually think it is possible to sound virtually like a native speaker. If you are still in doubt have a look at this video: http://blogs.thelinguist.com/taiwan/?p=235 You will have to skip past the lady talking in mandarin in the beginning. After her introducion listen to guy called Jerry speaking in English. To my (admittedly non native) ears he sounds just like an american. But he isn't, he came to Canada in 2000 from China and when he came he was already over 20 years old. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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