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The experience of "picking" up a language | ||
Tags: Immersion | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 33 of 39 19 September 2013 at 9:51am | IP Logged | |||||
I have also found it to be a lot tougher to learn languages after I turned 35, but that may just as well be a function of life conditions (job, kids, other obligations) and the fact that this is the point where I turned to the Slavic languages. It does not have to be the age as such. Besides, saying that it is harder or takes longer does not mean you cannot do it. It just means you have to be more patient and possibly reduce your ambitions slightly. Fortunately patience and realism are likely to increase with age. :-) I would never say that I am too old to learn a language, but I am more forgiving of myself when I cannot do it fast and with a great pronunciation the way I was used to. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4667 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 34 of 39 20 September 2013 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
Nope: it's the second. I forget what the first is ... :-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4667 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 35 of 39 20 September 2013 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'd agree with this. My wife's a teacher and she's had kids turn up at age 5 speaking zero English and within a few months they're functioning and within a year they're very competent. All my kids have had various friends at school who are from various non-English backgrounds and they all speak English that is equivalent to that of their peers. (It's really quite hard to avoid the word "fluent" isn't it ... now I know how e.e.cummings must've felt.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5558 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 36 of 39 22 September 2013 at 2:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm always amused by this term: "picking up a language". If only I could find some Arabic lying around on the ground one day without any owners or prior claimants, I'd greedily stuff it in my language knapsack without a moment's thought.
The reality for children and adults alike, however, is probably far more gradual and stressful a process, closer to fighting over or searching out grains of wheat in the hope of one day baking loaves of delicious hot-out-of-the-oven bread. As for the magic of youth, I could conjure up long lists of benefits to learning a second language as both an adult or a child, but as long as we're still relatively healthy in body and mind, remain motivated and focused, and invest the time and care, we have every hope of getting in touch with our "inner bakers"...regardless of age. Edited by Teango on 22 September 2013 at 2:39am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6661 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 37 of 39 23 September 2013 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It sounds like "picking up" a language is easier if you are a child than if you are an adult.
It helps to have lots of good input around you. It helps to already speak a closely related language or two to begin with. It helps to keep your expectations low. Expect to be able to handle a simple conversation and read basic material, but don't expect to write anything lengthy or formal. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 38 of 39 23 September 2013 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
Although I am in general a great believer In immersion when you are a kid, I am actually not so sure the process is faster. I may seem to contradict myself now, but since you know more "big words" when you are an adult, that may actually make the learning process faster for you, and you are more likely to know several languages already. I picked up Italian faster at the age of 27 than I picked up Spanish at 11- having Spanish, French and English under my belt already made for superfast learning. A friend of mine went to an intensive course in Dutch once, where they were drawing upon the fact that everyone already spoke Norwegian, English and German. I fail to remember whether the course lasted 10 days or three weeks, but they learned it super fast. This does not fall into the "pick up a language" category, as they had to do a lot of hard core studying, but it does underline Ivsersen's point that once you have a opulent of languages from one language family, it does get a lot easier to learn the other ones. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4709 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 39 of 39 24 September 2013 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Not to mention that if you have mastered German grammar and word order, Dutch will look
like a walk in the park by comparison. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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