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Can adult learners achieve native levels? | ||
Tags: Native Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 201 of 303 18 October 2012 at 10:35am | IP Logged | |||||
I say "anglophone media" - especially from North America. Before moving to the US/Canada, many people have already been exposed to movies and music. People find American culture "cool" and nothing beats that motivation. Whether the people achieve a near native accent or not, I don't know, but they're more likely to end up with something that sounds American (if they're at all interested in picking up another accent). 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 202 of 303 18 October 2012 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Indeed they do! And after living in the Netherlands for six years, so do we. And we now call speed bumps "dremples". And I am still riding my Dutch bike. Maybe someday I'll be mistaken for a native-Dutch speaker (about the year 2060!). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 203 of 303 18 October 2012 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
I have travelled to many places on the planet, but very few people have asked where I come from. It is not because I sound native in their languages, but they probably assume that I'm a foreigner who for some reason live in their town. Otherwise I can't explain why for instance museums employees who make surveys over the provenance of their guests ask about my postal code and (in the case of USA) my state. And if I then say "Denmark" then at least those in less touristy places look at me as if I came from Mars. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| palfrey Senior Member Canada Joined 5274 days ago 81 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 204 of 303 18 October 2012 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
You probably know this already, tommus, but for the benefit of others, it's worth noting that Queen Beatrix spent a few years of her childhood in Canada. According to the wikipedia entry, she was born in the Netherlands in 1938, but, because of the war, was evacuated with her family two years later, first to Britain, then to Canada, where she stayed until 1945. During that time, she attended nursery and elementary school in Ottawa. I don't know about the nursery school, but the elementary school appears to have been just a regular school where English was the language of instruction, and of all the children around her. So that probably helped her English skills. As for the British accent, I don't know. But I think it is common among royal families to include some tutors or governesses who speak the extra languages that the family wishes their children to learn. (The entry for Queen Elizabeth II says that she learned French from a succession of French-speaking governesses, for example.) It seems likely that the princess Beatrix would have had some British governesses when she returned to Holland, hence her particular accent. 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 205 of 303 19 October 2012 at 2:42am | IP Logged | |||||
Sorry - well, you've been a member a lot longer than I have I think, and although I trawl the archives from time to time, I guess I haven't read all the relevant threads yet. However, as I indicated in my initial post, it was intended as a spinoff from that other thread, and that part of that thread that talked about native level speaking in particular. s_allard said that this in an adult learner was rare to impossible, and said there were statistics to prove it, but so far I haven't seen any. We had in that thread a few counter-examples, and (taking the "black swan argument"), that would seem to disprove s_allard's assertion, but of course we need more evidence. And ideally statistics, but I think meaningful ones are going to be hard or impossible to find. I spent about 2 or 3 days on and off looking for relevant papers and statistics, and while I found a few things of interest, there wss nothing really conclusive either way, and certainly not at a statistical level. (I'm not saying that evidence doesn't exist - just that I haven't found it yet). I then got distracted by a long-running computer problem, and by the time I looked at this thread again, it had rather taken on a life of its own and didn't need my input :-) I would like to thank all the contributors. I've only had time to skim through the replies, but I will re-read them all. I've seen some great stuff here. And not just abstract ideas but I for one have been given some good pointers that might lead to a better approach to learning, especially regarding speaking, and I hope others have as well.
I think the thread has gone way beyond this now, but I was taking proficency in grammar and vocabulary as a given. I think we can take it as accepted that if someone puts in the effort in both of those, and learns enough idioms etc, and listens to enough native input, people can become extremely fluent and proficient. I'm not sure how many people earn their living writing in a language they learned as an adult ... not so many as do by speaking, I suspect, but we know that the latter is possible. There are probably a lot of people on this forum and who have contributed to this thread who can say this of themselves in all honesty, and for more than one language. They are not of course all claiming to have achieved native levels of speaking proficiency, i.e. sounding like a native and being taken for a native. As in fact you suggested, the issue of whether that is desirable or not is really best left for another thread....is worthy of discussing as an issue in itself, I mean. The question I raised was is it possible? Thanks to your replies, I think I now have an answer, although it's a matter of my judgement of what I've read, so it's not the answer. It's subjective and based on anecdotal not statistical evidence, but given the nature and makeup of this community, it's still pretty valuable evidence I would say. I leave others to make their own judgements! 2 persons have 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 206 of 303 19 October 2012 at 4:25am | IP Logged | |||||
I could only find a short example of Queen Beatrix speaking. It was good, but not quite perfect. However, this lady is really impressive. Sounds a bit like Margaret Thatcher (but nicer!) Queen Margrethe II of Denmark 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 207 of 303 19 October 2012 at 4:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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Joseph Conrad's name comes up from time to time.
To be honest, I've barely read anything by him, but I'll accept that he wrote good prose. Do we know however that what ended up in the published books was all his own written English, or did he have any help? I'm not trying to tarnish his image, but it does seem fairly unusual. Does anyone know any other examples like him? How did his written English get to be so good? According to Wikipedia, his first publisher (I think it was) wondered if the English of his first published book was good enough, but was persuaded to go ahead, as someone thought the style of English would prove interesting. Anyway, I ask because I listened to Håkan Nesser speaking on a podcasted lecture and Q&A session a while back. His spoken English is very good, as one would expect as I believe he has lived in England for quite a long time. He's certainly spent a lot time here anyway. His English isn't "accent-free", but it's not very noticeable. However, he is very modest about his abilities in written English. Someone asked him what he thought about the translations of his works in English, and he said that his English was not good enough to judge. He depends on having a good translator, whom he has got to know and trust. No one asked him whether he had ever considered writing in English, but it sounds as though it's not something he wants to do. He writes crime fiction. I don't know if his writing is considered at all literary in Swedish / Sweden, but one would think it is less literary than Conrad's work. So given that his spoken English is so good, why is it so hard for him to write a "Krimi" in English? Well, it's probably not as easy as it might sound. Which brings me back to: How did Conrad get so good at writing English? Edit: I wondered if the case of Sebastian Haffner might be at all comparable, although I have my doubts. He came to England in 1938 from Germany as an emigré and eventually worked as a journalist and became a successful editor. He apparently knew little English to begin with but became very proficient. However he returned to Germany in 1954 and I think any books he wrote after that would have been written in German originally. He presumably produced English prose during his editorial career in England, but that is likely to have undergone correction during the editorial process, so it's not quite like writing a novel. The book he is famous for in England, "Defying Hitler" was written in German and published posthumously, having been translated by his son. Edited by montmorency on 19 October 2012 at 4:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 208 of 303 19 October 2012 at 5:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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Putting aside the major question of whether attaining native-like proficiency is even desirable, I believe, as I have alluded to earlier, that the reason that there are so few scientific statistical studies is that a) there are some major methodological issues with the definition of native-like proficiency and b) irregardless of the definition of native-like proficiency, it is extremely rare in adults.
What usually passes for native-like proficiency is pronunciation. If you sound like a native, then everything else is secondary and you must be a native. But in fact it's a lot more complicated than just sounding native. More importantly, in all this debate is the the incontrovertible fact that proficiency is essentially a function of exposure and at the earliest possible age. The individuals who do achieve anything close to native-like proficiency in a broad sense have all some kind of intensive contact with native speakers. This is not really news to anybody here. Many of us are probably quite good in our respective language, but I don't that many people think that they have attained native-like proficiency even if their pronunciation may be excellent. Let me give a specific example. I listen very often to interviews on Spanish radio. When I look not only at the language used but also at the content and all the cultural, historical and geographical references, I conclude that I will never in this life be able to perform like any of the individuals interviewed because I will never have the comparable depth of experience in Spain culture. But that doesn't me I give and decide that it's not worth try to improve what I can do. It just means that I'm not obsessed with trying to sound like something that I will never attain. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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