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Adults vs. Kids learning | ||
Tags: Natural method | Native Fluency | Age | Scientific Research | Native Language | Children | Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| JacobTM Groupie United States Joined 5599 days ago 56 posts - 67 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 77 07 May 2013 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am an optimistic language learner, after learning Spanish and Portuguese as an adult
without having learned any other languages as a child. It is a common assertation that after age X, one simply can't learn a language as well. However, I believe (and remember hearing here) that if you compared the amount of hours spent on a language, adults were no worse than children at it, if they each spent the same amount of time on learning a language. The real challenge for an adult language learner is finding the time. But I'm not sure if there is any research backing this up? I know people here are optimistic about learning languages, but is there any overall research comparing the time-frame to gain similar levels of fluency in terms of hours, comparing adults and children? Edited by JacobTM on 07 May 2013 at 8:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 2 of 77 07 May 2013 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I remember reading the Foreign Services Institute claiming that they take people to a level in say 1400 hours that a child takes 14000 hours to reach.
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| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4255 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 3 of 77 07 May 2013 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd believe it takes adults less time because adults have a better grasp of how writing and reading works, as
well as how speaking works. That is to say that because adults are developed, they're own development isn't exactly impeding their language learning. So, a baby learns a language quite slowly, but it's also growing in a lot of respects. Adults don't have to deal with that trouble. I think what people are really asserting is it's 1) less effort to learn as a kid and 2) it's easier to get a native pronunciation. But that's my 2, non-scientific, cents. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mikonai Diglot Senior Member United States weirdnamewriting.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4930 days ago 178 posts - 281 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Swahili, German | Message 4 of 77 07 May 2013 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm afraid I don't remember any of the specific research, but allow me to copy some of
the things I've learned/heard in my linguistics classes: There has been some research into where language is stored/processed in the brain, i.e. what the "language centers" of the brain are, and whether these are different for people who are raised bilingual (on this forum we call them bilingual, as opposed to a diglot or some such) versus monolinguals or monolinguals who have learned an L2. It's generally been found that monolinguals and bilinguals have generally the same area of activation when processing language (except for bilinguals of spoken and signed languages, but that's a different, albeit interesting, topic), while learners of an L2 have overlapping, but different areas for language. These findings, coupled with cases of children who didn't learn language early (all really very sad languages), who never have quite acquired language to full fluency, has led people to conclude that after a certain age (or "critical period") it's impossible to learn language, or to learn a second language to full native fluency, since it seems there isn't the brain plasticity to allow for the languages to overlap. However, aside from the testimonials from people on this forum and elsewhere, there was another study that tested low-proficiency learners of an L2 versus high- proficiency learners of the same language, along with bilinguals and monolinguals. This study found that the greater the proficiency of the learner, the more the areas of activation would overlap, and the highest-proficiency L2 learners showed activation virtually identical to that of the bilinguals. That is, the centers for the different languages were basically fully integrated. So while the "critical theory hypothesis", which is the idea that after a certain age you can't learn language, still seems to hold well enough for first-language acquisition (although it's difficult to test, since it's not exactly ethical to just deprive a child of language exposure for the first eight or ten years of their life), it doesn't exactly hold up for second-language acquisition. As far as learning hours, however, I'm not sure there's any research on that particular aspect. The main difficulty is that adults can't really learn very well the way a child learns: the Critical Theory Hypothesis postulates that there are dedicated language learning centers or processes that sort of disappear as we get older, and what's more, how do we measure how many hours a child spends "learning" a language? They seem to learn better via passive exposure than adults can, and they don't really need to be taught grammar like an adult does. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 5 of 77 08 May 2013 at 1:16am | IP Logged | ||
Well, adults learn second languages *relatively* fast because they are already developed, physically and mostly intellectually. Plus, they already know a language or languages. However, I think of kids knowing languages as almost always being better than adult learners. Some people never get rid of a noticeable foreign accent nor can they speak as correctly or naturally as a native speaker. I would sure as heck take the bilingual speaker that is a certified translator or whatever instead of the adult learner. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese | Message 6 of 77 08 May 2013 at 5:55am | IP Logged | ||
Wow, great post. Are you or were you a linguistics major in college? Could you include some of the links of the studies that came to these conclusions? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5561 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 7 of 77 08 May 2013 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think there are a few factors most of these comparisons focussing on the theoretical technical capacity of the brain to learn a language neglect. In real life situations, children have massive advantages, such as how desparately children wish to communicate and integrate with their peer groups, and how easy it seems to be for them (or how hard it is for adults) to let go of their already internalised language habits. Maybe if you combined language learning with psychoanalysis or cognitive behaviour therapy, you could get the typical adult to be as effective as the average kid (Plus they would need full immersion: Job, partner, children all native speakers of the target language and with no ability in your native language).
It sort of comes under "motivation", but that just doesn't seem a strong enough word for it. [edit: Obviously I'm thinking along the lines of ideal conditions here, i.e. immersion. I guess in the typical school classroom situation, adults probably are better than children. But I'm just thinking of all those "start a new life in another country" programmes I've seen, where the kids usually speak like natives after 6 months in school, while the adults are still unable to do the basics after yearsof immersion] Edited by schoenewaelder on 08 May 2013 at 2:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 77 08 May 2013 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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My take on it is that they are sort of stupid and distractable (though obviously cute). Adults have a real advantage here in language learning. Also their progress is not that impressive. Adults can beat children quite easily (perhaps not in accent) if they put in the same number of hours.
I don't know the studies very well, but I read that children of foreigners who enter the school system here in Germany take about four years or so to close the language gap with their native speaking peers (though that could be because their home environment is L1 partly or completely). If someone has seen some data on this it would be great to know Edited by patrickwilken on 08 May 2013 at 4:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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