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Can adult learners achieve native levels? | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 1 of 303 29 September 2012 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The full questions are:
Can adult learners achieve native levels of proficiency, particularly in speaking? Is there any statistical basis for reaching a decision either way? I thought it useful to separate this question out from the long-running "can you speak better than you understand?" thread, as it's a different question really. Your views are invited. If you can point us to any learned papers, or any relevant articles from respected sources, so much the better. Ideally, it would be good to see some statistics. I have mixed views on the subject, but overall, I don't think it's possible for there to be meaningful statistics. it's difficult to measure, and I don't think anyone has really tried, for a large population, and only large populations are statistically significant. But I might well be wrong of course. Any information you have will be received with interest. I thought about making it a poll, but it's too difficult to define the right question(s), and polls always lead to discussions. If you want to repeat points you made in the other thread, it's all right with me. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 2 of 303 29 September 2012 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Here is one paper to kick off with:
Age and Ultimate Attainment in the Pronunciation of a Foreign Language The paper seems to come to a moderately positive conclusion, but I'm not saying it's a particularly significant paper. Just somewhere to start. I have a feeling we've seen this paper before on HTLAL. Well, it's not new. But it also suggests that there isn't all that much relevant research out there, although I know at least one member here will strongly disagree with me. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5382 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 3 of 303 30 September 2012 at 4:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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We have debated the question many, many times before here.
How about you give us as a specific example of what you are wondering whether a person could or couldn't do so we can all give our opinion on exactly the same thing? "Native levels of proficiency" is a very vague thing. Edited by Arekkusu on 30 September 2012 at 5:07am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raincrowlee Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 6703 days ago 621 posts - 808 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Indonesian, Japanese | Message 4 of 303 30 September 2012 at 4:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think, barring accent, there's no reason that an adult learner wouldn't be able to reach native level fluency if they put the time into it. Look at Joesph Conrad. Unfortunately, most adult learners have other commitments and can't spend the time necessary to build up the vocabulary and cultural background to get to that level.
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| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4493 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 303 30 September 2012 at 7:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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There is a lot of anecdotal, not tested statistical, evidence from posts in these forums that learners with a good ear and talent for mimicry have been taken for natives after using a course such as Pimsleur, based on pronunciation alone, until of course the native tries to converse outside the boundaries of 400-500 words.
As to the rest, since other non-native learners here attain a C2 certificate, albeit rarely in comparison to C1, there is hard evidence that it is possible. Thousands of hours of reading/writing/listening/speaking, more often in an immersive environment, seems to be "all" that is required. Edited by Peregrinus on 30 September 2012 at 7:15am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 6 of 303 30 September 2012 at 10:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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I believe an adult can reach native fluency. There are many examples of this. What is far more difficult is reaching the point where you easily fool people into believing that you are a native, I mean where you never make mistakes with prepositions and have a native "flow" to your speaking style, oh and an accent that sounds authentic.
But you don't need all that to communicate on a native level. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 7 of 303 30 September 2012 at 2:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
With full immersion, there is no doubt that they can. A good friend of mine, age 82, came to Canada at age 22, speaking only Dutch. He quickly stopped speaking Dutch and lived his life only in English. He is absolutely 100% native English, and has lost most of his Dutch. But I have another Dutch-speaking friend who came to Canada at age 35 and is now 70. He speaks good (but not perfect) English but with a very noticeable Dutch accent. I expect the difference is that the first person married an English-speaking wife and became totally immersed in English. The second had a Dutch wife and they speak Dutch at home. The first guy is native English. The second is bilingual, not native in English, and perhaps no longer 100% native in Dutch. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 8 of 303 30 September 2012 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
How did he lose all his Dutch if he was monolingual in this language as an adult? I appreciate he stepped into an English-only environment but surely you wouldn't forget your native language? I presume he kept in touch with friends and relatives back home in Dutch? Also, it takes quite a bit of time to reach native-like fluency in a new language, even in a total-immersion environment. During these stages he would no doubt still speak Dutch with any Dutch people he came across in Canada, and perhaps afterwards also. I'm sure it's possible to become rusty in your native language, but not lose it. Edited by beano on 30 September 2012 at 2:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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