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Are there any differences in terms of brain dynamics between learning and using a native as opposed to a second language?
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probably depends on how old you are when you learn the second language
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differences
The only information I've seen is that learning any number of languages before circa age 7 usually results in near-native fluency, but after that magic number, things get more difficult and accents and other problems occur. It was suggested in an article I read that this was directly tied to myelination.
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For reasons other than this topic, ZM, is that article still somewhere to be found?
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if it's myelination that interests you, here's the latest news - notice the archives on the left.
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Thank you a lot tsuwm.
EDIT: Thanks, both of you.
Last edited by BranShea; 02/23/2008 3:06 PM.
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that article still somewhere to be found?I'm sure it is, because it was in Scientific American. It was about thirty years ago that I read it, but you can probably find the same sort of information in a good textbook on the biology of language. I'll take a look in my library and see if I can find a citation. You might try googling myelination language acquisition ( link).
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Age 5 is the optimum age for learning another language.
I have a good friend who's a gerontologist, and another who tried to learn Spanish for her grand-daughter's sake; both say that it is virtually impossible for an "old" brain to learn a new language. Also witness to this is the old lady at church who comes from Ghana, I think--she came over a couple of years ago and has nearly no English. She sure loves it on fourth Sundays, though, when the Africans sing in their own languages!
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>virtually impossible for an "old" brain to learn a new language
But people do learn languages as an adult, and become very proficient. I've met some of them!
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How old should that "old" brain be exactly, Jackie?
I know of many "young" brains too that never learned the language well. There are more factors than just brain dynamics involved.
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But people do learn languages as an adult, and become very proficient. I've met some of them!
Me, too, but they're not the norm.
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>virtually impossible for an "old" brain to learn a new language
But people do learn languages as an adult, and become very proficient. I've met some of them! Alexander the Great was said to be able to learn a new language in several weeks. He was only in his early thirties when he died though.
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>Me, too, but they're not the norm.
You are wrong, and I can prove it.
But perhaps we are speaking at cross purposes.
If you are saying it is more difficult to learn a second language as an adult then of course I agree. It is profoundly difficult. But Jackie's "nearly impossible" is quite incorrect.
I live in South Korea and several of my adult friends have learnt the language as I am learning it. Sure, it takes about ten to fifteen years of study and immersion, but it can be done. They speak it very well.
Most are university graduates teaching English, but a good number of the American troops stationed along the DMZ have married Korean nationals and learnt the language as adults, and many of them are "unschooled". I have seen some interviewed on television, and they speak the language very well.
These are ordinary people of average intelligence who have learnt as adults to speak a language that is notoriously difficult to learn, and to speak it well.
Interestingly, those who do speak it well that I have talked to were all conversant with various mnemonic techniques. And I have read of memory demonstrations in which mnemonists have learnt to converse in a language after incredibly little study by the application of powerful memory systems. I have not met a single soul who has succeeded in learning the language by rote. That may be nearly impossible for an adult.
Ultimately, I think this is a difference of cultural perspective. North Americans, like us New Zealanders, are inveterately monolingual, hence the misconception.
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As a friend of mine once said (with no idea of irony) "It's like everything - you can't generalise!"
It depends on the individual, their social situation, the language being learned, access to good teachers and time, and a host of other factors.
A 70 year old trying to learn Mandarin at a technical college in Sydney is going to find it much harder to become fluent than a 20 year old living in China.
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>It's like everything - you can't generalise!
I like it.
But it's true: Adults can attain near-fluency in a second language, even if it takes them 15 to 20 years. And when you think about it, that's how long one needs to attain complete fluency in their native language anyway!
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that's how long one needs to attain complete fluency in their native language anyway! Complete fluency, in a grammatical sense, is normally attained well before age five. The rest is just adding vocabulary. Your earlier examples of adults becoming completely fluent were a biased subset of the general populace; the ones who couldn't learn didn't stay the necessary 15 to 20 years.
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They speak it very well.
I have met very few people who've learned a second language as an adult who speak without a trace of an accent and exhibit other minor, grammatical problems.
A child learns a language by immersion and not by study. The mechanisms are different. They learn the actual rules that govern the language as it it used by its speakers. Later, they are exposed to other usage rules to insure that they write a language closer to the standard. A child also learns a great deal of the grammar of a language in a span of five years or so.
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Your earlier examples of adults becoming completely fluent were a biased subset of the general populace; the ones who couldn't learn didn't stay the necessary 15 to 20 years. Fact: Adults can learn to speak a second language well. I gave you examples and I specified three things they have in common: immersion, mnemonics, and 20-odd years of effort. Your argument asserts the consequent. They left because they couldn't learn? No. They didn't learn because they left. My point is simple and very uncontroversial: There is nothing in the brain making it impossible for an adult to learn to speak a second language well, as has been implied. I have met very few people who've learned a second language as an adult who speak without a trace of an accent and exhibit other minor, grammatical problems. Absolutely. But the critical period hypothesis applies to native speaker fluency. I was careful to say near-fluency. Of course, the accent will always be a little "south of the border" and they will never be mistaken for a native speaker, but they can get by almost as well as one.
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Fact: Adults can learn to speak a second language well. but, of course. but it will take much more work than what a child requires. I think that's what everyone is saying, no?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Correct, etaoin. It is, "profoundly difficult", but not impossible. And that's all I'm saying.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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; 02/24/2008 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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It is not uncommon for someone who has had a stroke to lose their second language(s) but not their first. I have even had a patient who had not spoken French since age 5 (moved to an English speaking area) and whose English was indistinguishable from the English only speakers around her. She woke up from a stroke fluent in French but with no knowledge of English. This suggests to me that there is actually a different area of the brain involved.
At almost 70 she started English classes and her husband of 45 years started learning French.
Pook, you mentioned that anyone can learn not to have an accent. Anyone can learn to sing opera too. But it will be a LOT harder for some people than others. One of the problems in language and especially accent learning is that we lose in childhood the ability to distinguish sounds that we do not hear. Is phoneme the work I want for the sounds in a language? Some people have perfect pitch and others have to work at it and others are tone deaf. There is also "an ear for language". The more polyglot the surroundings a child is raised in the better their "ear" will be and the better that child will be at hearing and therefore being able to reproduce foreign languages accurately.
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>One of the problems in language and especially accent learning is that we lose in childhood the ability to distinguish sounds that we do not hear.
That's right. My African foster son came at the age of five and in 4 to 5 months he could talk fluent with his class mates. Now 22 he speaks without a trace of accent. His sister who came in also at five with her Franco-African mother speaks with the accent of her mixed mostly immigrant school.A second sister who was born and raised here also speaks the immigrant schooling accent , because they never had the real native accent at home.
My son grew up only hearing the Dutch accent for his starting years.
I always admire people who can hear which part of a town or country someone comes from.
I remember from a period we often were in contact with Belgian friends one day someone came at the door and on hearing me asked: "are you from Belgium too?" Without noticing I had taken over the softer sound from our Flemish friends.
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One of the problems in language and especially accent learning is that we lose in childhood the ability to distinguish sounds that we do not hear. Is phoneme the work I want for the sounds in a language?
We hear all sorts of sounds, even the ones that are not in our language. That is what accent is, hearing the difference between the phonemes in your language (or dialect) and how non-native speakers pronounce them slightly differently. What happens is that we perceive sounds differently. (For example, most anglophones when they hear the Japanese voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/, as in futon, perceive it to be an f or a w).) Acoustically, the t in top, stop and the one in pot all differ slightly from one another, but most native English speakers perceive them as being the same sound or phoneme. Theese different pronunciations of a phoneme are called allophones.
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the Japanese voiceless bilabial fricative One of the hardest languages to learn from English, or so they say.
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Is there a web site that would give me Japanese words spelled out in the English alphabet? I like to watch Ninja Warrior, which has a lot of Japanese; I've decided that the word that sounds like sah must mean now; but in hearing only, meaning I can't tell where one word ends and the next begins, I don't have a hope of picking up any meaning. Every time I've tried to look up such a site, I was given ones with Japanese characters!
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Is there a web site that would give me Japanese words spelled out in the English alphabet?Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Japanese Dictionary Server may help. Technically, it's not the English alphabet. It's the Latin (or Roman) one. The Japanese language can be represented in Latin characters using what is called romaji (or a romanization system). It may take a bit of getting used, and it would probably help to become familiar with the native Japanese phonological syllabary systems ( hiragana and katakana).
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For the Japanese sounds this is one of the most beautiful movies I have. Just a short trailer, but there are more on that page. Nothing to read, image and sound. Kwaidan of Masaki Kobayashi (ghost stories),I mentioned that movie once before.For words to come it takes a minute. (whole thing 2,5 minutes total) Kwaidan (smuggle this one in, only sideways' related)
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Anyone can learn not to have an accent. Actors do it all the time. Anyone can learn to do brain surgery. Neurosurgeons do it all the time. Anyone can learn to sing like Celine Dionne. She does it all the time. (^_^)
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Anyone can learn not to have an accent. Actors do it all the time.
And some do it better than others. Some actors can't do a decent accent to save their lives: e.g., Keanu Reeves, Lord Larry Olivier, at opposite ends of the acting spectrum. Some can. Hugh Laurie does an amazing US accent. Some people are natural mimics. A friend of mine taught for a year in Sweden. His accent was near flawless. His grammar and usage were abysmal; he did not speak any Swedish before arriving. When first meeting and listening to him, Swedes were confused. They figured he was a brain-damaged Swede.
[Corrected typo.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 02/25/2008 10:50 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Anyone can learn not to have an accent. Actors do it all the time.
And some do it better than others. Some actors can't do a descent accent to save their lives Is that one with a falling inflexion? 
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