[HN Gopher] When does our ability to learn a new language like a...
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When does our ability to learn a new language like a native speaker
disappear?
Author : vanusa
Score : 46 points
Date : 2020-10-05 23:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| syspec wrote:
| > It was shared 300,000 times on Facebook, made the front page of
| Reddit and became a trending topic on 4chan
|
| Not to take away from the study, which I think is quite valid,
| and interesting. But, is seeing "became a trending topic on
| 4chan" written like it is a metric of success along with number
| of likes is a bit weird.
| bryan0 wrote:
| should have (2018) in the title.
|
| > "There are three main ideas as to why language-learning ability
| declines at 18: social changes, interference from one's primary
| language and continuing brain development."
|
| I wonder which is the most dominant?
| aeyes wrote:
| Social changes probably, you just don't have the time.
|
| At 30 I took a year off, went to school to learn a new language
| which I never had any contact with. After one year I started to
| work in tech again only communicating using the language I
| started learning a year ago.
|
| After 2-3 years I had no communication issues at all anymore,
| working with dozens of people.
|
| The article focuses on native grammar skill and that is a
| problem I have. Every language has grammar (and vocabulary)
| which is rarely used. I struggle with some of the rarely used
| but more advanced grammar. I know that I could master it if I
| studied for 3-6 more months full time but I just don't see the
| benefit of investing that time. My time is better spent
| working.
|
| I have been thinking about doing it all over again for a while
| now. Mandarin should be an interesting challenge.
| emj wrote:
| > [what's the] benefit of investing that time.
|
| Please continue studying the language, it is frustrating
| hearing non-native speakers say this. Your bad grammar or
| foreign mind will always hinder how you can interact with the
| community you are in. English is pretty strange in this way,
| I feel the cultural part is so estranged from the language,
| the width of the english speaking community is just too vast.
| You can get by with much less english than in other languages
| IMHO.
|
| Malay is my challange, going pretty well.
| VRay wrote:
| yeah, I think you're right
|
| Little kids are studying hard in a total immersion
| environment for 12+ hours a day, with no other language to
| fall back to
|
| I think an adult who puts the same incredible amount of
| effort into it can learn another language and get to a native
| level
| lurquer wrote:
| A child spends all their time immersed in their native
| language... they hear nothing else. There is no other 'competing'
| language. Thus, they learn it quickly.
|
| An adult, on the other hand, can never be immersed into a new
| language like a child. Even if an adult is in a foreign country
| 24/7 without any speaking his native language, the adult will
| still hear his native language in his own head; that is, the
| adult will think and talk to himself in his native language and
| will always be a competitor for the external voices he hears.
| hoka-one-one wrote:
| This is not even true, plenty of people think in think in their
| second language.
| siltpotato wrote:
| I know from experience that you have to train yourself to do
| that. Unless you grew up with two languages, an experience
| only slightly familiar to me, you have been, until you
| started learning language 2, thinking in your native language
| your whole life. Very hard habit to break!
| billforsternz wrote:
| No, because we are talking about the foreign person trying to
| learn the new (second) language by total immersion. They
| obviously aren't going to start thinking in the second
| language until _after_ they 've learned it.
| disprofuse wrote:
| > An adult, on the other hand, can never be immersed into a new
| language like a child. Even if an adult is in a foreign country
| 24/7 without any speaking his native language, the adult will
| still hear his native language in his own head; that is, the
| adult will think and talk to himself in his native language and
| will always be a competitor for the external voices he hears.
|
| I am a native English speaker who learned Italian in my 20s.
| When I stay for a week or two with my Italian in-laws who don't
| speak English, I find myself thinking in Italian after a few
| days. It's noticeable because my mind will wander into a topic
| about programming or something and my internal monologue will
| hit a technical word that I don't know. I also dream in Italian
| and report this to my Italian wife.
|
| It's not hard to slip into. I think your claim is based on
| speculation, because my experience says otherwise.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| Adults have a better capacity to learn foreign languages.
|
| It's just hard cause you have to re learn the system you know
| unconsciously.
| krspykrm wrote:
| IMO one of the most prominent reasons - and one that I never see
| mentioned - that learning a language as an adult is more
| difficult is that the older you are, the more socially-
| unacceptable it becomes to point out grammatical and vocabulary
| errors. When you're a child, elders correcting you is so natural
| it scarcely even breaks the flow of conversation:
|
| child: "Me and Tim went -"
|
| adult: "Tim and I went."
|
| child: "{pause} Tim and I went..."
|
| As an adult, you simply do not get this kind of feedback. There's
| no chance in hell I would interrupt another adult to make the
| above correction. It's simply too disrespectful. And yet it is
| precisely this disrespectful interruption and correction that
| enables children to have tight feedback loops which result in
| fast, effective learning.
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| I correct my father all the time and yet he keeps making the
| same mistakes
| rootbear wrote:
| If I corrected all of the incorrect grammar I hear on a daily
| basis I'd be exhausted. I'm not too polite to correct, I'm too
| busy...
| OJFord wrote:
| > If I corrected all of the incorrect grammar I hear on a
| daily basis I'd be exhausted.
|
| AmbiguousParseError: consider punctuation, or for 'on a daily
| basis' try 'throughout the day'.
|
| > I'm not too polite to correct,
|
| MissingObjectError: unknown direct object of 'to correct'.
|
| --
|
| (Just kidding :))
| rootbear wrote:
| I was _really_ hoping someone would offer corrections!
| Thanks!
| camillomiller wrote:
| That's why as a non-native I'm glad I have a native girlfriend
| who's also an English teacher. She definitely corrects me,
| especially about pronunciation, and I'm grateful for that,
| because I can see improvements I didn't think I needed.
| ngokevin wrote:
| I'm in a relationship with a native speaker too (I'm
| American, she's Chinese), and am actively learning. I talked
| to a lot of couples and some people have patience to teach
| and some don't. It's nice though that couples are close
| enough to correct each other and help each other out.
|
| I had a friend learning French that was French teacher, and
| she gave up after two sessions, not having the patience.
|
| Actually, I just started working on an app to help couples
| improve each other's languages. You're pretty fluent already,
| I wonder in what other capacity's your girlfriend who is an
| English teacher helps you!
| [deleted]
| ngokevin wrote:
| Perhaps it's more likely if you are in a deep relationship with
| a native speaker, since often that's a reason why people want
| to learn a language.
|
| This is sort of a plug, but I just started a new project to
| help couples to learn each other's languages
| (https://learncoupling.com). Since my wife is Chinese herself,
| and I've been learning Chinese for quite a while. Most couples
| around me have tried and failed to learn each other's language
| as well since they expect each other to be their sole on-demand
| language teacher.
|
| For me, I think it works if I do mostly self-study with Anki.
| We schedule a certain time of day for like 5 or 10 minutes
| where I'm just running through my flashcards and my wife can
| correct me or clarify things. And if the corrections can
| asynchronous through an app, it'd feel less awkward as you say.
| shard wrote:
| One issue is that often it takes someone who has had language
| instruction experience to properly explain nuances. I've
| often asked my spouse questions about grammar usage, and
| since it is instinctive for her and not a premeditated
| decision like it is for me, she is unable to clearly
| delineate the proper context and edge cases where a certain
| grammar would apply. Same with vocabulary. When you have a
| dozen synonyms, each with a different nuance, it's often
| tedious and difficult for a non-language instructor to
| provide clear explanations.
| saas_sam wrote:
| Wow this is cool. My partner is Chinese too.
| holoduke wrote:
| I once had a girlfriend from Ukraine. I was 20 and so much in
| love that I spend 4 hours everyday studying russian. After a
| year I got to a point where I could be in any conversation.
| Now I am 39 and for 10 years I try to learn French. The needs
| are there, but the will and motivation just doesn't want to
| be there.
| ghaff wrote:
| Look on this board. The person who corrects breaks to brakes,
| loose to lose, etc. is going to be viewed as at least mildly
| pedantic. Granted, people make mistakes typing they wouldn't
| make speaking but the principle is at least similar.
| irrational wrote:
| I'm one of those who feel the urge to correct to/too,
| their/there/they're, etc. errors. But, I recognize that the
| main issue is I don't know who is on the other side. Is it
| someone for whom English is a second language? Is it a native
| English speaker that doesn't know or doesn't care to know
| proper grammar? Is it someone who knows proper grammar but
| just made a simple mistake? Is it someone who welcomes
| correction?
| [deleted]
| vaccinator wrote:
| It is not disrespecful if done correctly....
| toufka wrote:
| Not only this, but play talk seems "silly" to adults and is not
| widely seen as acceptable.
|
| Trying to learn new vocabulary during a hearing or negotiation
| just isn't going to happen.
|
| I recall being overseas and hanging out with 1st and second
| graders and none of us had any shame just asking "what is
| this?!" And pointing at a rock or a tree or a ball and
| correcting each other. I learned more practical vocab in a few
| hours from a 6yr old than from studying in a book over a week.
| dheera wrote:
| Personally, I don't think that is the primary reason adults
| have a hard time learning languages. Neural plasticity isn't
| the biggest reason either, IMO.
|
| Rather, the biggest showstopper is that adults tend to always
| be busy, and fall back to their native languages to get the
| busy stuff done, and only end up practicing their new language
| during positive interactions when they have time. Which is
| really only a very small fraction of their life.
|
| For example, I routinely see people in cross-cultural
| relationships try to learn each others' languages but fail
| miserably at learning when they get into disagreements and have
| that disagreement in English instead of the language either
| person is trying to learn. And thus, they don't learn. In order
| to truly learn a language to native fluency you need to be
| forced to use it for every common life situation, not just the
| occasional positive interactions. Children are more or less
| forced to be using the new language 100% of the time.
| billforsternz wrote:
| Sadly it seems there's a whole generation that's been raised
| without anyone correcting them on this specific point (that
| it's "Tim and I"). Not that this means I disagree with your
| greater point.
| saghm wrote:
| To be fair, a decent number of people also overcorrect and
| use "Tim and I" for the objective case as well (e.g. "The
| teacher told Tim and I that our grammar was incorrect"). I
| think simply giving the correct construction for the case
| that the speaker actually used isn't sufficient for using
| proper grammar; one needs to be able to identify which case
| is which to be able to use "correct" grammar.
| billforsternz wrote:
| Nicely put, I didn't realise it but I am, as you say,
| overcorrecting in this way myself. Interestingly I have a
| friend who has quietly tried to point this out to me (a
| counter example to the greater point) but you have
| explained it better.
| taylodl wrote:
| The real fun is when someone corrects you for saying "The
| teacher told Tim and me" and then you give them a grammar
| lesson to the use of the objective case. I'll admit to a
| little bit of smugness when that happens.
|
| Otherwise no, I don't correct people's grammar unless
| they've specifically asked me to review something.
| saghm wrote:
| > As an adult, you simply do not get this kind of feedback
|
| I think that's partially because most adults react pretty
| strongly to someone telling them that they're wrong about
| something, especially something considered as trivial as
| grammar. Kids are just more open to being corrected in general
| (whether through natural disposition or conditioning, I'm not
| sure).
| FrojoS wrote:
| I would say that kids are more dependent on the adults that
| correct them, hence they can't act as offended as an
| independent adult can.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| As parent of growing children, definitely this :/)
| emmanueloga_ wrote:
| Recently learned about LEX [1], they have a method that
| attempts to fight exactly this issue. Also, they attempt to
| learn as crazy number as 11 languages or so at at time, and
| apparently, it works...
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippo_Family_Club
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| This is very much an english speaking country phenomenon. We
| are used to having lots of people speak english, often
| incorrectly and are much more tolerant of people making
| mistakes (and therefore don't correct them).
|
| You should spend some time in Germany.
|
| I once had my German corrected by a casheir at a fast food
| restaurant.
|
| So from my experience, I don't think this is the reason that
| people stop being able to learn languages.
| forinti wrote:
| I once got invited to lunch at the house of a German lady. So
| I said I would make an apple pie and take it for dessert.
|
| The next day, she takes a look at it and says that that is
| not how you make apple pie and produces a pie that she had
| baked (and which she ate, ignoring the one I had taken).
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Well, the real point is that children have full-time tutors,
| their parents.
|
| Adults don't. Closest you can get is date someone who wants
| to help you out.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > Well, the real point is that children have full-time
| tutors, their parents.
|
| That's not universal, though. Many children are neglected
| to various degrees, and my understanding is they'll still
| work out their language if they get adequate exposure to
| it.
|
| You probably only need a tutor the master the intricacies
| of the more prestigious registers, but that's a different
| thing than fluency.
| throw0101a wrote:
| >> Well, the real point is that children have full-time
| tutors, their parents.
|
| > That's not universal, though.
|
| Also: children whose parents immigrated.
|
| The parents may never end up learning the language of the
| new country, but their children often will.
| friendlybus wrote:
| The English will correct your accent, by lightly making fun
| of it. It is most clear when you are an immigrant from an
| english speaking country or switch class brackets.
| contexto_ wrote:
| Along the same lines, as adults, we often take these
| corrections personally (perhaps as a matter of habit) and
| therefore avoid situations where they may occur (conversation
| groups for new speakers, explicitly asking native speakers to
| correct you etc).
| ratww wrote:
| Interesting, my German friends do it to me sometimes and I'm
| very grateful for it.
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| Haha nice to see this isn't just me!
|
| Maybe it is a specifically German thing.
| allenu wrote:
| I don't think it's the lack of feedback that's the issue. I
| think it's more that people are less willing to risk using the
| language wrong as they get older (regardless if there is or is
| not feedback coming).
|
| Growing up in Canada, we had to learn French. I was not fluent
| in it, but clearly knew enough to get by if I ever visited
| France. Well, when I was 28 I did visit France. When I got
| there, I did not want to try any of my French for fear of
| getting it wrong. (And yes, it was about 10 years since I had
| been using it in school.)
|
| However, I encountered an American who had been in France for a
| couple of months by that point and he was using every bit of
| French he had in all conversations, even if it was broken. I
| was jealous because he was actually communicating and putting
| an effort into it. He didn't have the fear of getting it wrong,
| so he would try and try and try. Meanwhile, I would just keep
| my mouth shut and not learn at all for fear of failure.
|
| That experience did stick with me when I tried learning some
| other skills years later. I realized I had to push myself to
| fail and get things wrong before getting them right, otherwise
| I would never make any progress. I'd think of that guy and his
| attempts that sometimes wouldn't land, but that he'd make
| progress.
| aeyes wrote:
| There is another reason: People understand you, interrupting
| with corrections hurts the conversation. I often ask for
| corrections but nobody ever does it. When I'm unsure how to say
| something I sometimes ask to get some feedback. Sometimes I
| only understand 70% of what a person is saying (mostly due to
| dialects), I rarely need to ask them to repeat it because the
| brain is capable of piecing it together.
|
| Another problem is that unlearning something you always did
| wrong is extremely hard. You need to get it right from the
| beginning.
|
| That's the beauty of language school, they point out your
| mistakes early and you can learn from the mistakes of other
| students in your group. If you take the time and take real
| classes, you'll have that tight feedback loop you need.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| In my experience, people are helpful. Sometimes, in Norway,
| it means folks speak English with me. Not so much now, but
| once I struggle, out comes English :D But it also means that
| folks will let me know the right words for things or help
| with sounds. But at other times, folks will let things slide
| as long as I can be understood.
|
| I can't recommend actual language classes enough. I was in
| Norwegian classes for two years - immersive classes for
| adults, taught by native speakers, about 15 hours a week in
| class. All in Norwegian, from the beginning. It was so
| wonderful getting real-time corrections and as an added
| bonus, a lot of culture/civics was worked into the lessons as
| well, in no small part because vocabulary centered around
| fairly practical subjects. If I ever need to learn another
| language, I hope I can have something similar.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| With no support except armchair making things up, I think that
| children talk to themselves a lot, describing what's happening
| through the day. " _Now we 're going to get into the car and
| drive to the shops, right mommy?_" "yes, dear".
|
| Adults who talk to themselves are seen as insane, and as an
| adult you get into the car and drive to the shops on autopilot
| without using any words for it, and go your whole day without
| thinking of the words for anything you touch - plates, bowls,
| cutlery, doors, clothes, vehicles, places, bus tickets, and you
| can get by day-to-day in a foreign country by already knowing
| wordlessly how to exist. Children don't know how to exist, and
| are continually asking, describing, or being told, the ways of
| daily life in their native language(s). Adults don't have that
| either.
| wryoak wrote:
| Missing the important qualifier "like a native" in the title
| 01100011 wrote:
| Doesn't it depend on the language? I've picked up quite a bit of
| Spanish late in life and I think it came fairly easily. Granted,
| it helps to be in CA where Spanish is quite pervasive.
|
| I'm now trying to pick up conversational Vietnamese and, wow,
| that is a whole different ball game. Tonal languages are full of
| subtleties that don't come easy to someone who has never paid
| attention to them. It feels like I'm trying to learn perfect
| pitch.
| gbronner wrote:
| My observation is that you lose the ability to sound like a
| native speaker if you start learning the language sometime around
| puberty.
|
| Haven't seen any studies on this, but it holds up well when you
| talk to people who came to the US at different ages.
| czzr wrote:
| "researchers from three Boston-based universities showed children
| are proficient at learning a second language up until the age of
| 18, roughly 10 years later than earlier estimates. But the study
| also showed that it is best to start by age 10 if you want to
| achieve the grammatical fluency of a native speaker"
| Causality1 wrote:
| Friends of mine who moved to the US as teens have what I would
| call off-native. Their mastery is definitely native-level but
| their accent is a bit odd. You might wonder if their accent is
| just an American one you haven't heard before. A good example
| of this level of English proficiency is YongYea on YouTube.
| microtherion wrote:
| One detail the article does not discuss is the distinction
| between oral and written competence.
|
| I started learning English in my teens. I would judge my
| reading and writing proficiency to be at the higher end of
| the native speaker spectrum. I speak fluently as well, but
| have retained a distinctly non-native accent, and I sometimes
| have difficulties understanding spoken English (getting older
| does not help there either...).
| lottin wrote:
| The barriers to learning a new language like a native speaker are
| mostly economical rather than biological. The amount of effort
| that it requires is just huge and the return is very small,
| because you don't really gain much from speaking like a native
| speaker compared to speaking like a foreign speaker. The
| difference is mostly cosmetic.
| auganov wrote:
| Here's the quiz used to conduct this research. It's supposed to
| predict one's native language. Predicted English for myself even
| though it's not. Doesn't seem particularly tough. Not sure it's a
| well-designed test.
|
| http://archive.gameswithwords.org/WhichEnglish
| [deleted]
| yelloweyes wrote:
| I don't know if this means anything but now, at 30, I have sooo
| many more things going through my mind than when I was a child,
| and I think it makes it harder to learn _anything_.
|
| Did I turn off the stove? Have I fed my dogs today? Oh fuck I
| gotta do my taxes. Can't sit down too long or my hemorrhoids will
| flare up. Am I really going to be hunching over a computer for
| the rest of my life?
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(page generated 2020-10-07 23:00 UTC)