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Critical Period Hypothesis | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6879 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 25 of 60 17 October 2006 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I personally believe that it is possible to learn to sound like a native, if a) you have a natural talent or b) you make the effort. Perhaps some people will never reach it, but the body still has the tools that it always had. I don't see why those can't be activated again. The thing I want to know about it "how".
Of course, to play devil's advocate, someone could say "Well, then, if a few people have the ability to compete in professional sports, then we all should, because the body essentially has the same tools". And this argument would be a good one. But I think that languages are more universal in that everyone communicates somehow, and that learning the sounds can always be done, it's just a matter of training one's self. I learned Spanish at age 17. Granted, I cannot pass as a native. But I don't see why I can't learn to. If I've come so far, I don't see why my body/mind would max out suddenly. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Walshy Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6953 days ago 335 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German | Message 26 of 60 18 October 2006 at 2:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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I just thought of something. There is a medical condition which causes people to never go through puberty. The condition is called 'Kallmann’s Syndrome' and occurs in males and females. I also read that 'Primary amenorrhea' can also prevent puberty, but only in females.
Theoretically, if the hypothesis is right, these individuals should be able to learn foreign languages as natives without accents. It would be an interesting experiment.
If the ear were to change in some way, there would be no way for natives to distinguish the sounds either, since their ears would undergo the same changes. Edited by Walshy on 18 October 2006 at 3:01am 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 27 of 60 18 October 2006 at 4:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ears do not physically change. However, after a certain age, the brain ends its plastic development phase, its overall structure being largely cemented by then. The main language centre is specifically attuned to perceiving certain sounds (phonemes) as meaningful, while ignoring others. This is why learning a language as an adult requires work!
Walshy: interesting link about Kallman's Syndrome. It seems to be related more to sexual development and hormones, though. At any rate, the "critical period" for language ends well before puberty. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6868 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 28 of 60 18 October 2006 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Despite some oddities in his speech, yeah, if I were to meet him for the first time and if he were to tell me he learned English to that degree in two years, I'd be amazed. Did anyone else watch it? I skimmed to the end, because this guy talks like a sales guy and was getting on my nerves. But I find HOW he learned English to be most interesting of all. He focused on memorizing text (I forget from where) with perfect pronunciation. This had to have come with audio, I can only imagine. In doing this, he bypassed the whole translation process completely, believing that's what bogs must language learners down. What he found was, especially in the beginning, maybe he'd finally be able to respond to someone in English. The words would come from all this reptition practice. And so maybe he couldn't say much, but what he said would sound native. So he kept learning that way - focusing on pronunciation - and there, you can see it, it sounds like he's spoken English his whole life. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| alcina Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6708 days ago 51 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Italian | Message 29 of 60 18 October 2006 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've seen that tv programme! If I recall it placed the age at which you start
to lose your ability to hear different sounds around the time at which you learn to read...usually well before puberty! My understanding of the theory is that after this "certain" age the brain becomes unable to differentiate between sounds that it has never heard before. In theory then, if you play your pre-age-X child recordings of every languge there is, then that child should be able to distinguish the sounds of every language on earth, and, extending the theory, that child should be able to reproduce those sounds so that (assuming there has also been the study of grammar and vocabulary) they grow up to speak each language as though they were a native speaker. I remember discussing this program with some collegues shortly after it was shown here. We were all professional musicians (thus, allegedly, used to listening very carefully!) and as it happened several were native speakers of languages other than English. We tried each other out with "difficult to distinguish" sounds in those languages. (I cannot for the life of me remember exactly which languages they were now though). The results were mixed - some of us could distinguish some of the sounds and some of us couldn't. There seemed no logic behind who could distinguish what. Different people "heard" different things. For example, I couldn't hear the difference between two sounds in, I think, Persian, whereas my English colleague who had never lived outside England and didn't have any Persian speaking friends or relatives, could. What I took from this program is that you must have heard the sounds before this magical age, not necessarily that you must have learned the language. On a positive note, if you think about it, unless you grew up in a very isolated village with no tv or radio, you undoubtedly will have been exposed to a great many sounds, but not necessarily all. Going back to our experiment, maybe I had simply never heard Persian before age X whereas my colleague somehow had. That said, whilst if you cannot hear the difference between two sounds you are never going to be able to reproduce the two sounds, the ability to distinguish the sounds does not necessarily mean that you can reproduce them. And accurate reproduction is the key to sounding "native". To my mind the skill to reproduce a sound accurately varies from person to person in the same way that the ability to run fast varies from person to person. So, adapting the theory to my own personal agenda :) I surmise that to stand any chance of sounding "native" you must have heard the language before age X; assuming you did hear it in time, you can then learn the language at any age, but how "native" you eventually sound will depend on your inherent skill in being able to reproduce the sounds accurately (and hard work with grammar and vocabulary!). Note: this is all my personal interpretation and experience, I'm undoubtedly wrong and it should all be taken with a pinch of salt! Alcina 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7103 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 30 of 60 18 October 2006 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
I just watched the video, impressive. His method of repeating the dialogs and focusing on pronunciation reminds me of Ardaschir's posts on shadowing. There is also some similarity with the material on Fluent French Audio and Language Bridge (and to a lesser extent the Cortina Method). Jerry said that he repeated the dialogs over and over until he knew them by heart. After a couple of months he could respond with the exact sentences in conversations, and the after a few more months he could vary the sentences to his own use. I remember Ardaschir said that he would shadow dialogs until he new them by heart and then depending on the language he would practice with a workbook. What I gather from Ardaschir's description is that our minds have the ability to make all the connections once we have mastered the audio material. This also reminds me of Sebastian Leitner's advice to skip grammar and focus on learning words and phrases. Once we learn enough phrases we are able to recombine the phrases in conversation. French in Action also followed a similar methodology, just with video rather than note cards. The common theme here is that we can learn languages through the repetition of listening and reciting dialogs. Over time the ear can tune into the sounds of the language and correct the ear, perhaps not perfectly, but enough to master another language. 2 persons have 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 31 of 60 18 October 2006 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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edit: post on page 5. Edited by lengua on 19 October 2006 at 1:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pentatonic Senior Member United States Joined 7258 days ago 221 posts - 245 votes | Message 32 of 60 18 October 2006 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
I listened to it and he has excellent pronunciation. There were a few words he mispronounced and he made a few noticeable grammar mistakes with plurals. It's ironic that he mispronounces "pronunciation" since that is his main theme and he must say it 50 times.
Yes, fascinating. He says he just memorized Act I of Family Album USA. Well, here (and here) it is and it isn't all that long. Obviously he went beyond that. It'd be interesting to know how. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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