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An age limit to achieve fluency? | ||
Tags: Age | Learning Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Nature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5238 days ago 63 posts - 80 votes  Speaks: English*, French | Message 1 of 38 19 February 2013 at 8:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I know people say it's never to learn a language, but I think about my grandfather who immigrated to Montreal, Canada from Italy when he was 25. 55 years later, and he STILL can't speak English properly! He can speak, but he has a hard time with it. Same with French, but a little worse. Hilariously enough though, he curses mostly in French, which is his worst language.
I find this odd because my grandmother was an Italian-Canadian and she spoke to my grandfather 70% in English and maybe 30% in Italian. My mom's siblings speak to him in English . My mom speaks to him in English as well but she'll say things in Italian when he doesn't understand. He responds back half in English/ half in Italian. It's not an issue, as I do understand Italian so I can comprehend everything he's saying in whichever language, but it makes me wonder if perhaps there is an age limit when achieving fluency is not possible? Edited by Nature on 19 February 2013 at 8:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 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 2 of 38 19 February 2013 at 9:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Nope. Some people have achieved fluency in their sixties. Some just never do.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4658 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 38 19 February 2013 at 9:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think there is really an age limit unless the brain gives up. However, there are negative influences coming with the age.
First of all, there is the question of time and priorities. As we get older, our priorities are different. There is our family and the job. We are set in our ways - often socializing less or with a handful of our friends. It is harder to include new friends. Few people are ready to devote big part of their free time to language learning - if they even have any really "free" time not slotted for other activities. Immersion isn't everything in language learning. It gives us more opportunities but it is perfectly possible to throw this opportunities away. To learn language efficiently, you need to concentrate on it - be it learning from book or learning from life. You need to make the conscious effort anyway. I suspect that your grandfather lacked the time (probably devoting more of it to earning money and raising his family than learning), the know-how (there are quite a few tricks in language learning worth knowing) and the real motivation to master the language on high level. He learned enough to get by and there was no real reason to "waste" time and effort to go further. Even the "untalented" can go pretty far in language learning by spending hours studying. They may need more of them than "talented" people, may not get perfect, but they can learn not to have hard time with the second language. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 38 19 February 2013 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | ||
I doubt that age is only issue here. It sounds like your grandfather could get by understanding English and speaking mostly Italian. His wife understood Italian, his siblings and grandchildren all understood Italian. And when he interacted with people outside the family, he somehow managed to get by with modest English and French skills. I know that somebody is reading along and saying to themselves, "Yeah, but that never happens with kids. I mean, 55 years, and he still can't speak?" So let me give you an example involving a child. One of my friends was raised by her Hungarian-speaking mother. Up until about age 6, she was a native Hungarian speaker. But when she discovered that nobody else spoke Hungarian, she started speaking English to her mother, who understands English just fine. And this situation continues to this day: Her mother speaks mostly Hungarian, and she speaks English. Today, my friend has native-level passive skills (or at least C1+). She can watch gritty police dramas from Hungary with lots of slang and follow her Hungarian family's Facebook feeds. But she claims to have virtually no active skills at all. She says that at best she can produce isolated nouns, but probably couldn't put together a grammatical sentence. Now, I'm sure that if my friend ever spent 3 months in an all-Hungarian environment where nobody understands English, she'd improve so fast that it'd be scary. But for now, she has no concrete need to speak Hungarian, and she's busy with other stuff. It seems to be that your grandfather was in a very similar situation: He could get by with a certain mix of skills. He never really needed near-native English, and so he never developed it. I mean, if kids can fail to maintain their literal "mother tongue" given 20 years of input, surely adults (with their much greater financial resources and personal autonomy) can avoid learning a language almost indefinitely. The real test, for adults, is what happens when they go totally native: marry a local, work with locals, and consume vast quantities of local media. I know lots of people who've done this, and after a decade, they're all C1+ even if they never study at all, and plenty are effectively native except for a faint accent. There's probably a certain amount of truth to the idea of a "critical period" when it comes to accent and certain aspects of grammar. But both children and adults are quite good at finding ways to avoid learning languages, and that has nothing to do with age. 7 persons have 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 5 of 38 19 February 2013 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Others have expressed it very eloquently. It all boils down to exposure and need. Starting young gives you a head start. That's true for all activities, such as music and language, that require fine motor skills and neurological activity. Edited by s_allard on 19 February 2013 at 2:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 6 of 38 19 February 2013 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | ||
You're never too old to rock n' roll If you're too young to die 2 persons have 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 7 of 38 19 February 2013 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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If there is an age limit, it's certainly not 25. Many online polyglots, such as Steve Kaufmann, have acquired fluency past 60 without even living in the country (some are, I grant you, experienced language learners). I'm in my late 30's and there's nothing stopping me from learning a language to fluency.
But actually, I wonder -- although fluency is hard to define -- what is considered to be the oldest age at which one has started learning a language to eventually reach fluency? 3 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 38 19 February 2013 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | ||
Your grandfather seems to have learned enough English and French to get by in Montreal for over five decades. Maybe he got to the point where was happy with the skills he had and adopted a "that'll do" attitude towards the local languages. His immediate family were all able to communicate with him in Italian, so he wasn't plunged into a totally immersive environment. I don't think there is an upper age limit for developing fluency. In fact, people who are retired may make better language learners than those who are still working and raising families because they have more time on their hands. Edited by beano on 19 February 2013 at 4:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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