|
 |
Learning Language at 14 vs 20 | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 25 of 55 25 March 2011 at 5:59am | IP Logged | ||
I really want to commend Solfrid Cristin for her excellent post because I think it says it all. Yes, it's better to start younger than later, but that is only one factor in the process of learning a foreign language. You may not be able to roll the years back, but you can do many other things to enhance your learning. Do you give up because you're no longer 14? Of course not, and this is where I agree with Arekkusu, we can all be great language students and learners, 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 26 of 55 25 March 2011 at 10:08am | IP Logged | ||
|
Adults vs Children once again, huh?
Adults learn far faster than children. Far far faster. Example, according to FSI, the average student (at FSI) needs around 500 hours to learn Spanish to fluent proficiency. Now let's consider an average 8 year old. Let's also consider 16 hours days for language use and absorption, so, 8 X 365 X 16 hours = 46720 HOURS. . Compare and contrast. One is at a level that is considered fluent for diplomatic discussions. The other is an average 8 year old. 500 vs 46720 hours. Adult wins, flawless victory. A possible response could be that I am not making it fair because I am assuming that the adult is making an effort and the child is not, but I believe it is fair, because part of what makes an adult an adult, is the ability to know how to learn, to focus, and to drive yourself toward an objective. These are adult traits, which is why it is remarkable when they show up in children...we call them "prodigies". That would be if the 8 year old was extremely motivated an focused on learning his/her own native language. Children don't normally have the deep amount of focus and metaknowledge (knowing how to know) that an adult has. So to talk about natural ability was must include adult traits in such an assessment. I don't mean to add to a polemic but I just get so tired of the anti-adult vibe prevalent in SLA discussions, or my TESOL handbook for example which talked about the "adult learner" like it was some sort of disability. Human adults are the most powerful learning machine ever known, we are built to learn. We have mastered how to master and know how to know. Children absorb knowledge, adults devour it. Edited by irrationale on 25 March 2011 at 10:15am 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 27 of 55 25 March 2011 at 12:45pm | IP Logged | ||
This is the strangest piece of arithmetic I've seen in a long time. First of all, 500 hours of Spanish to attain fluent proficiency for diplomatic discussions. Wow, where can I sign up? I've been working on Spanish for years and I doubt that I could have subtle discussions with Spanish diplomats. Then to say it takes 46720 hours for a child to learn to speak like a an 8 year old. We're not talking about the same thing. Let's compare apples with apples. What we're talking about here is the fact that if you move to Spain with an 8 year old child and put that child in a Spanish school that child will be speaking like a native 8 year old in a few months. Will you the parent be speaking like a native Spanish speaker after 500 hours? I seriously doubt it. In fact, I suspect that even after years in Spain you will probably still sound like a foreigner and that your child will still make fun of your accent. I don't see an anti-adult bias in all of this. Quite the contrary. Nobody is saying that adults are stupid and can't learn languages. What some people, like myself, are saying is that adults face particular challenges that must be addressed. If learning a language were that simple for adults, why does HTLAL even exist? As I mentioned in my previous post, adults make good students. That's not the issue. The issue is that certain skills are best learned at an early age. Are you better off starting to learn the violin at 20 than at 7 because of the maturity and focus of the adult learner? All I can say, at the risk of repeating myself ad nauseam, is that I've never heard of an adult learning to speak French to native proficiency with FSI whereas I see every day native English-speaking children chatting in flawless French and other languages despite the lack of much formal instruction. If there are FSI graduates out there who can contradict me, I will eat humble pie. Edited by s_allard on 25 March 2011 at 12:46pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5586 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 28 of 55 26 March 2011 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Sure, it APPEARS to be easier to learn a language when you're a child...because you technically don't know you're learning it. It's not like I sat down and studied to learn my native language. I think age is BS, SURE, you might not develop native fluency/accent/ and things, but you can get very close! People that use age as an excuse think that the intelligence of a 20 year old man is overcome by a child's? I started Spanish at 14, I'm pretty fluent from years of self study, I don't have many natives to talk to, but I feel my German will progress MUCH faster than Spanish, due to the materials I've chosen and the methods I've found that work best for me. Once you know how you learn and how to study, studying isn't a chore, just a process. I think it'd be amazing to master a language every 5 years, like tack one on with age. Maybe one you DON'T want to learn now but later just to do it. When your husband or wife says "Hey honey, what are you doing?" You can reply "Eh...I think I'm going to learn Mandarin for fun." They will then look at you like this :| No matter what age, I appreciate and encourage anyone/everyone that is learning a language. As far as I'm concerned, Age is just an excuse for anything.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| PonyGirl Groupie United States Joined 5020 days ago 54 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 29 of 55 26 March 2011 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Ahh, but therein lies the mystery and magic of children learning a language. I think your "age as an excuse" argument is a moot point here. No one here is excusing themselves from learning another language because they are not a child. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5925 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 30 of 55 26 March 2011 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lightning Groupie United Kingdom livelanguagelove.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5339 days ago 58 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 31 of 55 27 March 2011 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I started at 12. I'm glad I did, or I wouldn't be where I am now. I'm not saying that my age or anything made an impact on how quick or how effectively I've learned Japanese, as I'm still learning now (at the age of 17), still have a long way to go but I'm glad I started earlier as I've a lot more time. :) As for if one age learns it better than an other, I'm not really in the position to say, as I believe it depends on the person. Individual differences and all that.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6651 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 32 of 55 27 March 2011 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I want to point out that an adult being put in an immersion environment is an entirely
different experience from a child being put in one. It's not fair to compare them outright without examining the differences. An adult who moves to another country must be able to support him- or herself immediately while a child (I'd hope) does not. This means that most adults who move to another country will live and interact first and foremost with other expatriates like themselves or foreigners who speak their native tongue well. They have to get things done, after all, like find food and shelter and whatnot. And their jobs are likely not ones where interaction in the foreign language are paramount (e.g. Mexican laborers in the U.S. need only know a few words of English and can likely find a Spanish-speaker readily available on their job). Because of this, very few of them are likely to learn the language to a very high level. Their children, on the other hand, will be provided for by their parents and have the luxury of focusing purely on socialization with natives. All they need to do is go to school and get immersed in an environment where they'll be expected to pick up the language or else be socially ostracized. That's pretty compelling motivation. I don't know of any adults, even independently wealthy ones, who would have the opportunity to be immersed in a foreign country with someone else taking care of all their essential needs and would also be so socially compelled to learn a language. My two cents. :) 4 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
