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Critical Period Hypothesis | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| unlocked87 Groupie United States Joined 6631 days ago 42 posts - 44 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 49 of 60 21 October 2006 at 11:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I watched Jerry's video and it seems as if what he's describing is basically just a version of the Pimsleur system from Chinese to English. Possibly with a few modifications such as the use of readint he language at the same time. So maybe it has a similar effect as a Pimsleur/Rosetta stone program?
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| puellanivis Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 6622 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanC1, Swedish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Latin, Mandarin, French | Message 50 of 60 24 October 2006 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Is it *possible* to overcome all obstacles in sounding like a native? Yes, it certainly is. The issue here though is that that ability to sound like a native is something that drops off typically significantly when outside of the CP.
Am I lazy? Yes, I freely admit it. But no one can place my German accent, because it sounds native. My Japanese accent is also incredibly good. Yet with neither of them did I spend ANY TIME AT ALL on my accent. Just by simply practicing the language, and listening to natives my accent formed essentially natively. You can argue all you want that one can "try really really hard" in order to overcome this CP obstacle, which you disagree with, but the fact that there is even a NEED to try really hard, kind of shows that SOME kind of critical period has passed, because children learn an accent the same way I do... listen and use, not repeat repeat repeat. 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 51 of 60 24 October 2006 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with this. Memorizing dialogues is hard work. But it is possible. Deveoping near-native pronunciation is not easy. But it is feasible. If you can spend 2 hours a day watching television, you can cut out one of those hours and replace it with pronunciation practice. 365 hours later, your accent will be so much better. But you have to be willing to make that sacrifice, to keep going even when it isn't easy. There is a saying I read once, and I find it appropriate for most things requiring effort: Today we do what others won't. Tomorrow, we do what others can't. What will you do today? Edited by lengua on 24 October 2006 at 1:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6788 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 52 of 60 25 October 2006 at 8:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know how much "hard work" it takes to develop a native sounding accent. I suspect it takes more work for those who have already been speaking the language and practicing a poor accent. It's harder to overcome that than it is to get it right from the beginning.
Unfortunately, you are perpetuating the myth that children can pick-up languages and/or accents without any effort. I don't think the ability to sound like a native drops off after puberty. Everybody still has the ability. It's not lost. It's not gone. What is required is attentive effort. There are so many factors in regards to children that are never even taken into consideration. We can not just observe the results and draw conclusions and then say that our hypothesis applies to adults. Maybe I'm debating the wrong thing here, but I see some people who say adults can never achieve a native accent. And then when somebody like Jerry Dai does it, someone says something about only extremely gifted persons or genetically predisposed persons could do that. And somebody else says, oh you have to be young, or, you have to live in the country. I see no point in debating whether it can be done or not. People have already done it. The only thing left is to encourage others to do it too and to tell them how. If they are not interested then that's fine. Leave the discussion to those who are interested. Now where can I find the relevant thread? 1 person has 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 53 of 60 25 October 2006 at 8:27am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think it takes that much work at all if you use the right method. Unfortunately the problem is that when you suggest a method such as the one I prefer, listening over and over to the same sentence and repeating along with it, most people will just think that it seems boring and won't even try it. Actually it is not boring at all. When you listen to the sentence over and over again you start discovering some rhythmic subtleties that you don't notice otherwise. Each time you listen to the sentence you discover something else! This is not boring at all to me. I advise anyone who wants to improve their pronounication to give this method a try. Take a sentence and record yourself saying it. Then listen to a native speaker (in person or on a recording) saying the same sentence and repeat in chorus many many times. At least 100 times. When you feel you can say the sentence on your own without the native speaker record yourself saying the sentence again and see if you have improved. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kapherus Newbie United States Joined 6683 days ago 20 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 54 of 60 25 October 2006 at 10:38am | IP Logged | |||||
Maybe Jerry is on to something. I had a professor in college who insisted that the ONLY way to acheive fluency in a foreign language is to memorize dialogues with perfect pronunciation. He encouraged his students to purchase blank cassettes, and to request free copies of the audio dialogues from the University Language Lab for the book we used in class. At the time, I thought he was insane. But now I wonder.... The professor moved to the US from Cuba when he was 16, and his English was native (he was middle aged when I knew him). In addition to Spanish, he also taught Portuguese, French and Italian. I can't attest to his fluency in the other languages, but his Spanish was of course fluent, and his English was flawless. I noticed that my 4 year old nephew makes some of the same kinds of mistakes with verb tenses that Jerry made in the video. That leads me to believe that Jerry may be assimilating English in the same way a native does. I would be interested to know if Jerry's English continues to improve. I wish the video hadn't ended just as some of Jerry's students were getting ready to speak. I would have liked to hear their English. Does anyone know of any other audio or video of Jerry or his students? I'm interested to learn more about his method. 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 55 of 60 25 October 2006 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
The thing is, I don't think twenty is that old. I have plenty of friends who learned English at around that age, may a little younger or older, and they speak just as well as Jerry does, and I'm not sure how much time they spent repeating phrases as Jerry did. Nonetheless, I'm making a point to do it now in my own studies, because responses come out naturally. When I say "naturally", I mean without thought. That doesn't necessarily mean it's absolutely correct, though, but at least I have an answer for everything. :) I want to compare this with how some of my friends learn Spanish, who translate from English into Spanish. It makes speaking much more complicated than it needs to be. They first construct complicated sentences in English, and then translate. Or they look for literal definitions from English to Spanish. It's hard to have a natural, free-flowing conversation this way. If they used the words they already knew, it'd be so much easier. That's a tough concept for a lot of adult learners to grasp, I think. So yes, I think that Jerry's on to something, but he'd be more persuasive, I think, if he were thirty or forty years old. But maybe twenty is just young enough to still retain that ability to mimic, but old enough to be conscious of it? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| puellanivis Pentaglot Newbie United States Joined 6622 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanC1, Swedish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Latin, Mandarin, French | Message 56 of 60 29 October 2006 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ok, let's actually address this then. a.) it is known evidence that children do not have to be instructed in a language in order to learn a first language. While Americans, and most western cultures feel that children have to be spoken to, in a special voice in order that they will learn to be able to speak, of course some aboriginals believe that children have to have dirt molded up around them in order for them to learn how to sit. In fact, there are cultures where children are never addressed, and are not spoken to. Those children yet pick up language. During the spontaneous generation of Nicaraguan Sign Language the older kids picked up a pidgin, while the younger children creolized it, and are able to speak a true real language. b.) If it were a matter of effort, there would be plenty of people who began learning language at a post-critical period and speak reasonably well. As the point is, that these people are placed in a completely immersive environment, are instructed constantly, and yet still fail to obtain any language to any reasonable ability. c.) I have long been aware that people are possessed of different abilities. In College, I had someone ask me once, "How do you just remember stuff?" The only response I could really think of was, "I have no idea, how do you just forget stuff?" My memory is simply more capable of picking things up automatically. d.) It is simply about effort. I was told by a University professor in a German class who wanted us to bring in a tape so that he could record the "proper" accent for our poetic pieces that we were going to perform, so that we could build up a proper accent. Considering that I never brought a tape into class, he eventually addressed me and said that "Even your accent isn't perfect." Uh, duh, but I certainly never WORKED at it. Now, if you're going to argue that people have to sit there and rout memorize a language in order to pick up a native accent, then you're fundamentally failing to account for all evidence, and are simply attempting to assert that "anyone with enough practice can develop a natural accent." My assertion is not contrary to yours. I don't disagree that eventually anyone can work at it and perform an act where their phrase has a natural accent. But rather that how much work is required is very minimal to children, and fundamentally different from adults, considering that children are NEVER given formal instruction or rout practice to learn their accent. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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