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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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old hand
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old hand
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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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Carpal Tunnel
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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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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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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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Carpal Tunnel
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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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