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Learning like a child learns their native | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4796 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 25 of 49 16 August 2015 at 4:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have an opposite kind of experience. I rarely understand the families with small children, as they tend to use lots of non standard vocabulary,specific for this kind communication, sometimes even with words invented by the child (a few such words persist in many families for years, at least as a memory of the times long gone). The adults usually use more normal vocabulary (their non standard or slang words tend to be of the widely known kind) and speak about normal things.
I think all those "you don't trully learn a language as an adult" theories are not doing much of a service to learners. First of all, even adults can learn the language well enough to write novels in it, I wouldn't say Kundera is writing in French-like language despite having emigrated as an adult. And many emigrants sound native in the new language while forgetting the native one as the decades pass. Madeleine Albright sounds much more like an English native than Czech native while speaking either of the languages now. A standard non-migrant learner is surely unlikely to learn the language to perfection, even C2 level exams do not require perfection (I am a living proof). But that still doesn't justify spreading such discouraging myths among the general population. Most people argumenting like "an adult cannot learn a language", "oh, the accent is such a problem" etc are just trying to make an excuse for their laziness, in my opinion. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6696 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 26 of 49 16 August 2015 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
I quote myself: "(...)it's not that uncommon to achieve "decent fluency" if you expose yourself to massive amounts of the target language, are eager to improve, have plenty of opportunities to use the language in speech and writing and so on. Just like many people around the world are doing with their major second language. However, the step from "decent fluency" to "a new native language" is gigantic, and very unlikely to happen unless... well, you somehow "forget" your native language." Help me to have a real native language 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ExRN Groupie United Kingdom Joined 3182 days ago 61 posts - 75 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish Studies: Dutch | Message 27 of 49 16 August 2015 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
How can we start to forget our native language? Im not sure I would be happy about sustaining a head injury in order to help achieve native fluency. I would however be willing to remove myself from English for as long as it takes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5013 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 28 of 49 16 August 2015 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have two friends, one born in the Netherland, the other one in Germany, who learned Spanish in their households and the national language through environmental immersion plus whatever help from their parents. Both families returned to Spain when they were still very young -- both of my friends forgot their 'foreign' native languages and remained monolingual in Spanish to this day.
Edit: however, I think it should be very difficult for an adult to forget his/her native language, if only because thought seems to incorporate linguistic elements early on (to the point most people don't think 'to think in language X' is an expression and often taken it literally), so it's very likely we all have our native language(s) bouncing to and fro inside our heads constantly, i.e. you I don't think you can lose it if this actually counts as if you 'use' it. Edited by mrwarper on 16 August 2015 at 9:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5328 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 29 of 49 16 August 2015 at 9:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
Step 1: Move to a country that doesn't have English (in your case) as an official or defacto official language. Step 2: Go to university or get a job where you aren't using English (this is going to require a very high command of the language you're using while working/studying). Step 3: Don't hang out with people who frequently speak English with or around you. Step 4: Make sure that most of the media you consume is not in English. Starting to forget or almost totally forgetting one's native language isn't too unusual. You actually see it a lot among children who immigrate at young ages (assimilation and such) and I know of a lot of adults who have said that their native language(s) have deteriorated because they haven't been using them as they've moved to a country where the language isn't used. I don't know if it helps one gain fluency, but if you have the resources (a good chunk of which are going to be monetary depending on where you want to go and what country/countries you're a citizen of) it's totally doable. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5328 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 30 of 49 16 August 2015 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it would be useful to define "native fluency" and contrast that with a definition of "near native
fluency" especially in the face of things being said like:
(from jeff_lindqvist) Edited by aokoye on 16 August 2015 at 9:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4796 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 31 of 49 16 August 2015 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's an extremely common situation, many emigrants keep forgeting their native language as years and decades pass. How much they've forgoten and how much their speech is affected (pronunciation, accent, fluency, vocabulary, grammar mistakes, outdated phrases) depends usually on the amount of time spent abroad and the limit to which they kept contact with the language. Whether they read books but missed opportunities to speak, or spoke in the household but didn't need anything complex, whether they had a penpal and visitors from their home country...
I'd say it is a scale. One extreme are people who know only their native language and none of the language of their new home. Second extreme are people who forgot their native language completely or almost completely and function only in the new language, which is not easy to identify as not a native one. The most interesting are, however, all the people in the middle, such as Madeleine Albright. It looks almost as if she had been an English native who has spent a lot of time learning Czech and has achieved a good level, not vice versa. Or our former minister for foreign affairs, Schwarzenberg. He had spent decades abroad in emigration and kept reading czech books. He is fluent, even though he speaks with mistakes and his accent is foreinger-like. And a specific piece of interest: he is quite an old man with health issues and you can hear that when he speaks. But he speaks much more clearly in German than in Czech. That is more than just accent or vocabulary, German appears to be clearly easier for him to function in. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6696 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 32 of 49 17 August 2015 at 12:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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So ExRN, which language do you think you could learn to such a high level (and use so much) so you would somehow forget your English? Would you stop thinking in English? If so, at what point? Could you stop thinking in English if you lived in the Netherlands? In France? In Azerbaijan? In Guinea-Bissau?
I don't have any evidence, but I can't even imagine English taking over my Swedish, let alone something else taking over my English. I know it's a scale, like Cavesa says, and I think that other factors involved are the language combination and possibly your (and the language's) status. If your native language is English and you somehow want to forget that by living in, say, another Western European country, good luck. A Czech native might have an "easier" time forgetting Czech if there's no literature (or internet) available in a rural area in a non-European country. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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