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An age limit to achieve fluency? | ||
Tags: Age | Learning Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 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 9 of 38 20 February 2013 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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There may be some biological factors which favor very young children - I'm referring to the research which shows that your mother tongue is stored differently from later acquisitions, and that it elicits stronger responses. But if so, these research reports suggest that the critical age is around 5 years or less, rather than the onset of puberty as normally claimed. Those in the interval between 5 and something like 10-12 years of age are also claimed to be better at learning pronunciation, which is an important part of becoming nearnative in a language. But I haven't seen much brain research which suggests why it should be so, so it may just be an effect of the social situation of children compared to adults.
Those who are older should however not despair - especially not if they already have learnt at least one foreign language. They can use sources like grammars and dictionaries better than children, and they have often more money for travels and study materials. The big question is whether they have other priorities, and having a busy daily life with job, spouse, children, tax and other burdens may mean that they simply forget both to learn and how to learn. Whatever we can say about school it does at least force children to consider themselves as learners, but a grown up person who has learnt basic L2 may not be in the mood for learning. Obviously an even older, tired person with tendencies to Alzheimer may have real problems learning a new language, but for those of us who haven't reached that stage the main problems about learning new things are psychological. Edited by Iversen on 22 February 2013 at 12:09pm 5 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 10 of 38 20 February 2013 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Without wanting to get into that hoary debate about the so-called critical period for language learning, I think that it's quite obvious that earlier is better than later for language learning. It could be before or after the age of 5.
What I think is really important, as @iversen has pointed out, is some early exposure to at least one L2 at an early age. In this regard, I think it is interesting to look at the experiences of the well-known polyglots that surround us. Although they are now excellent language learners, in most cases they were exposed to one or more other languages at a relatively early age. And many have had some kind of immersion experience. 1 person has 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 11 of 38 20 February 2013 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't remember the exact citations at the moment, but this claim has been challenged by some researchers. As I understand it, these researchers claimed that language storage locations were affected far more by proficiency than by age of acquisition. Specifically, highly-proficient L2 speakers used Broca's area, etc., in much the same way as native speakers. But novice and intermediate speakers had very different patterns of brain activation. If this research is correct, then there's not a huge difference between a C2-level speaker and a native speaker in gross brain function. But the differences are much larger when you're still struggling to use the language. This makes a certain intuitive sense—listening to a partially known language is hard work, and it recruits many more subsystems of the brain. (Of course, the causality may run in the other direction: If certain people are unable to move a new language into Broca's area, etc., they're never going to reach near-native levels.) However, even if highly-proficient L2 speakers use Broca's area normally, they can still be identified by other means. For example, there's some evidence that L2 speakers don't respond the same way to subtle grammar errors, including such things are long-range dislocations. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| PillowRock Groupie United States Joined 4735 days ago 87 posts - 151 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 38 20 February 2013 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Or maybe that's related to learning to produce that language's phonemes while they're still learning how to work their whole body in general (that is to say: before they've reached their full coordination). After all, ultimately pronunciation is an act of physical coordination. Also, that would match everything that I've seen in every other type of physical activity. Whether it's swimming or dancing or throwing a baseball or kayaking ...... People who don't start until they're adults can get to be very good, but it's very rare that they get to be quite as natural and fluid as the people who started as children and continued to do it throughout their lives. It's not about the length of time practicing. A 40 year old who started at 20 would have been practicing for twice as long as a 20 year old who started at 10, but the 20 year old will virtually always be the more fluid performer of the physical skill. I don't see any particular reason why pronunciation should not follow a similar pattern. 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 13 of 38 20 February 2013 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok, in a desperate attempt to settle this question once and for all, Volte and I have agreed to take up Warlpiri
in 2063 and to stick to it until fluency. I'll be 89. We reserve the right to change languages if it no longer exists. At 89, I won't have any time to waste with a dead language, that's for sure. Edited by Arekkusu on 20 February 2013 at 11:34pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 14 of 38 20 February 2013 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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''Language acquisition beyond early childhood is essentially a personal
and social process; one that is hardly appreciated in the confines of structuralist, product-oriented interlanguage data. If a comprehensive theory of SLA is possible, then the learning environment, L2 experience, orientation to the learning task, and the learner’s perceived reception as a speaker of L2 are all elements to be explored, not underestimated. Given that acquisition is neither a predictable continuum nor a mere accumulation of rule-based behaviors (Long, 1990, as cited in Brown, 2000), ultimate attainment inquiry should more consciously focus on the dynamic nature of SLA in its sociocultural context. Today’s shifting migration trends under-score the validity and urgency of such issues. The linguistic analyses in this study rely on native-speaker interpretations of ‘nativeness’ for acquirers who are very advanced in the second language (German). While I acknowledge that ‘nativeness’ is a murky construct, one whose usefulness has been recently debated (Davies, 2000 and 2003; Graddol, 1999), the notion nonetheless remains a psychologically real aspect of the foreigner’s experience of him or herself in the target language country. In practice, non-nativeness is perhaps most often associated with foreign accent. Yet, up to now, very little research has explored the relevant factors that determine long-term phonological attainment in L2 (cf. Bongaertset.al., 1997; Flegeet.al., 1995; Moyer, 1999; Purcell & Suter, 1980; Young-Scholten, 1994). Phonological attainment may be tied to neuro-cognitive, psychological, and even psycho-motor constraints, e.g. as articulatory habits from L1 become entrenched. It is therefore an especially relevant area of investigation for critical period studies. At the same time, phonological performance is perhaps the most salient factor in determining comprehensibility, nativeness, fluency, and belonging. As this investigation attests, accentedness, and the inclination to push beyond it, are significantly tied to contact with native speakers, motivation, duration of formal instruction, and length of residence, in addition to age of exposure.'' Age, Accent and Experience in Second Language Acquisition An Integrated Approach to Critical Period Inquiry by Alene Moyer Edited by Medulin on 20 February 2013 at 10:10pm 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 15 of 38 21 February 2013 at 5:43am | IP Logged | ||
There is truly nothing new under the sun in this debate. Exposure, education and age of exposure. End of story 1 person has 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 16 of 38 21 February 2013 at 2:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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People use the terms "child" and "adult" extensively when discussing the ability to learn a language. But how do we define an adult? My wife spent most of her childhood behind the iron curtain and was taught Russian as a foreign language. She didn't really begin using English until she moved to Ireland at the age of 19, an age at which western society classes you as an independent adult. She could barely complete a sentence upon arrival but several years in Ireland and the UK allowed her to attain a high level of spoken and written fluency.....yet she didn't start as a child.
Many young people in their late teens and early 20s move to a new country and rapidly acquire the language. They have to juggle this with their job and/or studies and all the other things that people do at that age. I contend that anything you can learn at 22 can also be learned at 35, or 45. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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