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Heh,heh.
As long as you stay playful learning the spoken part of a foreign language comes easy. For the rest of it it's a matter of will and work. (sunday statement).
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There is nothing in the brain making it impossible for an adult to learn to speak a second language well, as has been implied.
Just to clarify my position.
1. Before some magic number age (the one I remembered was age 7) humans learn language natively and without study.
2. After that age, some may acquire a language, by hard study and over a period of years much greater than was needed before the magic number age. Their fluency is not native, but may be quite good. These people are few and far between.
3. It is not impossible to learn a language after one's youth. It's simply tougher and the process of acquisition is different.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I completely agree zmjezhd. Any adult who studies for long enough will learn the language. And if what you say is true that "these people [who succeed] are few and far between", it is due not to a physical impediment in the brain, but insufficient determination. In other words, few succeed because few are prepared to make the effort required to succeed; not because few can succeed. The marked difference in difficulty, together with my observation that rote learning a second language as an adult is worse than useless but that mnemonics are very effective, was what prompted me to wonder about possible differences in brain dynamics. Wikipedia has some interesting information on that question. Critical period hypothesis Language acquisition: Critical period hypothesis
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I completely agree zmjezhd.
Yes, I think we've reached some kind of consensus.
Any adult who studies for long enough will learn the language. And if what you say is true that "these people [who succeed] are few and far between", it is due not to a physical impediment in the brain, but insufficient determination.
Well, here we disagree slightly. There does seem to be something physical going on. That humans before a certain age learn language with what we call native fluency in a different manner than humans past a certain age suggest to me that something has changed. And, yes, I was ambiguous in one of my statements. The people who are "few and far between" are those who've slogged through second language acquisition and succeeded. I did not mean that people physically capable of the arduous work were few. Ostensibly ever adult human can learn a second language, short of some brain-damaged individuals, I suppose.
In other words, few succeed because few are prepared to make the effort required to succeed; not because few can succeed.
Yes.
The marked difference in difficulty, together with my observation that rote learning a second language as an adult is worse than useless but that mnemonics are very effective, was what prompted me to wonder about possible differences in brain dynamics.
I distinguish between normal first language acquisition and second language study. If by rote learning, you mean simply memorizing a written grammar of the language, some vocabulary, and sample sentence patterns, then I agree with you, it's not enough. But it seems to me that using mnemonics is just rote learning done better. I wonder if any studies have been made about second language acquisition in people with so-called eidetic memories.
Wikipedia has some interesting information on that question.
Yes, I was looking at them when you'd posted. Lenneberg was the fellow I was thinking of. His 1967 book is a classic. I merely skimmed it 30 or so years ago. Pinker is probably the most accessible.
At this late juncture, I'd like to say that most of my linguistic studies have been focused on historical-comparative linguistics, and I've only taken some survey courses and done light reading in the biology of language and applied linguistics.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I don't know about rote or mnemonics learning of a new language. Please tell me what ou'd consider this :
Two years ago, I decided to learn Spanish in order to prepare for a trip. For about three months, I listened to language CDs from Berlitz. The CD's are in Spanish, combining individuals that speak, and background noises to confirm the content of the conversation being held. Except for the first CD, which explains how the program works, there was no other language used on the CDs but Spanish.
The courses start off naively, with a small child (Pedro) counting and arriving in class, being asked to close a door (sound of door closing) and window (sound of traffic being blocked out and window closing) - all the way to the end of the set of CDs where you can understand everything being said in a party and in a store.
They start of speaking very slowly and the last CD is spoken at natural speed.
Well, I found this extremely easy to follow and each concept and word introduced was immediately adopted as a verbal representation of a thing, so when I say zapatos, I know I'm talking of shoes. When speaking I don't translate "shoes" = "zapatos", I automatically think zapatos because I'm thinking in Spanish.
So finally the question. What is that type of learning considered?
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Please tell me what ou'd consider thisAs with much in the field of education, there are a bunch of methodologies ( link, warning Wikipedia!) used in foreign language education. Yours is what's called the direct method. I've been exposed to many of them in trying to learn different languages.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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>Well, here we disagree slightly. There does seem to be something physical going on.
We actually agree completely, but I need to clarify.
I know nothing about this subject, hence my inquiry; but I am not guesstimating that nothing physical is going on. Firstly, because in my opinion there is nothing else. It's all physical. But also because I started by asking about differences in brain dynamics. Does a different part of the brain or a different neuronal dynamic govern second language acquisition? That is my question. I just know from experience that adults can learn to speak foreign languages very well (though not quite as well as natives) and that therefore there is no total physical "block" in the average adult brain. I thought that was what you were saying, but clearly I was mistaken.
In sum, there clearly is something physical going on up there that makes it very difficult for an adult to learn a foreign language, but whatever it is can be overcome through hard work.
> But it seems to me that using mnemonics is just rote learning done better.
Sure, I guess. But one works and the other doesn't, so the distinction is important.
From what I've read, there is no solid theory on all of this, but apparently it has to do with the number of neuronal pathways. If you rote learn that "kahl" is Korean for "knife" (you sit down and say "kahl, knife" fifty times or whatever) that's one pathway. If you use a mnemonic to associate "kahl" with "kill" and "kill" with "knife", then you have three. You can add as many as you like. The more pathways you create, the higher the odds that you'll be able to retrieve (find your way back to) the memory on cue. This is the simple substitute word system, but there are dozens of mnemonic methods and they can all be superimposed on a single memory task to create a bigger web of associations.
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There is a physiological factor in there somewhere. Children who have been denied the opportunity to learn language up to about the age of seven seem not to be able to learn to speak after that, even in a first language.
However, that doesn't mean adults can't learn to speak another language and be mistaken for a native speaker. The neural pathways required are probably there from the first language. Anyone can learn not to have an accent. Actors do it all the time. Vocabulary is just a matter of usage and rote. Grammar is also learned by usage and rote. Given time and natural ability, many people master a second language as an adult.
But, like I said before, it depends on a variety of factors, and may not be true (or as true) for every language. It is highly unlikely someone going from English to Vietnamese as an old age adult is going to be able to become like a native speaker. But learning a language close to yours (such as Dutch to German, or Spanish to Italian) is relatively easy. Languages that are completely phonetic like Spanish are easy, languages that are not (like English) are harder. Some languages are also inherently more difficult than others, either because they are unique (like Finnish) or just weird (like Xhosa) or have huge vocabularies (like Australian Aboriginal languages) or use tones like Mandarin (which makes it harder for an older person simply because of hearing loss!), or have more exceptions to rules than rules (like English).
Last edited by The Pook; 02/24/08 10:40 PM.
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>>>or have more exceptions to rules than rules (like English).
HA!
I know what you mean there. Living in a predominantly French province, I sometimes have a little trouble explaining a rule to somebody when they keep saying "but..."
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Remember that the folks who wrote the rules believe that if it works in practice but not in theory, something must be wrong with the practice.
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