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virtutesromanae t1_j4gcnnn wrote

Reply to comment by 5slipsandagully in What it means to “know” a language by thenousman

>By the time you've reached adulthood, the critical period for acquiring a language has passed and you're stuck with what you've got.

I agree with everything you stated, except for this. While it is certainly more difficult to learn another language in adulthood, you are not "stuck with what you've got." The learning process for another language is different than for one's native language, and the way adults learn most things is often different than the way children learn, but it can be done. The trick is to find the best way to learn at whatever stage one finds oneself - and that may vary from person to person. Also, continually working on foreign languages throughout life helps one more easily acquire new languages. If that particular muscle is allowed to atrophy, it doubtlessly becomes a much more difficult task.

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percautio t1_j4hcxm3 wrote

In general I think this is true, it largely comes down to learning styles, effort you put in, and willingness to practice even if you're afraid of making a mistake.

One notable exception - children are born able to discern differences between many sounds, even the most subtly different. We lose the ability to make any of those discernments that don't help us in whatever language(s) we are exposed to in the first few years of life. I don't think it's possible to relearn those, which can present an obstacle in mastering another language that needs them, particularly in terms of pronunciation.

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SinnPacked t1_j4htlll wrote

We lose the ability to naturally discern subtle differences in consonant and vowel sounds beyond an age, but it is totally incorrect to suggest you can't "learn" them later.

If you're simply trying to discern the sounds in a language you can become arbitrarily good at the task (as in, your ability to discern the sounds used in a language scale with time spent invested practicing it, up until well after you exceed the capacity of a typical native).

The issue is that most foreign language learners never spend that amount of time and often learn to speak before they learn to listen/understand. This causes them to permanently ingrain their incorrect pronunciation. What everyone else is left with is the illusion that complete 2nd language acquisition is impossible, but this is just wrong.

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virtutesromanae t1_j4hi67n wrote

Agreed on all points. That loss of abilities that you mention is a definite challenge. That just means that a person has to work harder and smarter to learn new languages later. But, as you pointed out, it is far less likely that they can gain native fluency and pronunciation - at least in a language with sounds that are not found in one's own language.

And regarding making mistakes... I have found that the most embarrassing mistakes I've made in other languages have cemented in my mind the correct way of saying things far more efficiently than any other method. In other words, if any of you are hesitant to make a mistake in another language, fear not - let the mistakes fly and the blushing commence.

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percautio t1_j4hkgou wrote

Good point, I don't think I'll ever forget the time a French man told me my pronunciation of "thank you very much" sounded more like "thank you, beautiful neck" 🥲

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--Ty-- t1_j4iosdt wrote

Beaucoup:

If pronounced Boh-kew or Boh-koo, with a slight pause in between them, sounds like the word is being split into Beau Cou, which means beautiful neck.

If pronounced Bohkou, quickly, with no gap, comes across as Beaucoup. I gotta admit tho, I had to really think about that one, it's a very subtle difference.

(don't mean to sound condescending, I'm sure you know how to pronounce it now, you just got me interested with your comment :P)

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namom256 t1_j4j4gzh wrote

This might be generally true, but is not always true. I, for one, have a condition where I cannot filter sounds. I cannot focus on any particular sound unless it is significantly louder than all surrounding sounds. No matter how hard I try, if you speak to me as a train goes by, I will not be able to understand what you are saying if my life depended on it. I have been through many tests and have been told it is an issue with the way my brain processes sound, not my ears themselves. As such I absolutely need subtitles to understand most movies.

As a side effect, I am easily able to differentiate even the most subtle differences in language. Although I am aware that most people cannot. It has given me an edge in language learning and have learned 3 languages as an adult. 2 of which I speak at near native level fluency and am constantly mistaken as a native speaker due to my near perfect accent. Still working on the 3rd. It takes practice and time, but I can imitate the exact pronunciation unlike many other language learners.

I'm sure there's plenty of other people like me out there who can also tell the subtle nuanced differences between similar sounds, even long into their adulthood.

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magifool t1_j4k5ebn wrote

It's true that we stop discerning differences between sounds that don't carry meaning in our native languages, as you said, but I think it's possible to regain the ability later in life if you become very accustomed to the language and you find those differences mattering in your every day linguistic environment.

I gradually became fluent in Japanese over the 6 years I lived in Japan, and just last year I realized the way I had been pronouncing ん "n" in some contexts was wrong, but I only realized because I first noticed the way a native speaker was saying 千円 "sen-en" (the way I'd been saying it) was something more like se-yen (which maybe explains why in English we call it yen instead of 円 "en").

There were other pronunciation things I realized over time like this. So it takes a long time, but in my experience you can re-learn to make differentiation like that, and you really do start hearing things you couldn't before.

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WeReAllMadHereAlice t1_j4hta63 wrote

They're not talking about a critical period for learning second language, but for a first language.

We have a few case studies of extreme neglect where children were kept alive but never spoken to or around by their caregivers. These children do not learn any language, and after a certain point (the critical period) they don't seem to be able to ever truly learn a language anymore. "Genie" being one of the most well-studied cases. She was kept restricted on a potty chair for 13 years, in a dark bedroom away from the rest of her family. She was fed, but that was about it. She was eventually rescued, but was never able to master English grammar. She knew some words, and could somewhat use them to communicate, but was never able to convey more complex ideas.

What you are talking about is a so called "sensitive period." It is easier to learn a second language earlier in life, but not impossible to do so later.

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Ebolamunkey t1_j4hm6i5 wrote

This is ridiculous. Learning languages is just a grind and it's a skill in itself. You are right that the more languages you learn the faster you get at acquiring new one.

It's super fun though, and i think it's a critical part about learning and understanding other cultures.

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muriouskind t1_j4jcc6p wrote

Unfortunately it requires a lot of unlearning. While this is more of an observation through experience - there is no ONE way to make a sound or even a specific phoneme, it is a spectrum. In very much the same way your ‘walk’ is uniquely formed from more or less a blank slate, so is the way you use your voice, mouth, etc.

So to properly process and form phonemes that your native language doesn’t have is an additional challenge and if it requires unlearning bad habits you have exponentially more work to do. That says nothing about the other mechanics of the mind-body connection

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5slipsandagully t1_j4gd6hi wrote

That's all true, but at that point you're not using the same cognitive mechanism that you used in childhood to acquire a first language

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denisoshea13 t1_j4ggs57 wrote

Children can differentiate between two different languages from before birth. Children can grow up learning two or more languages, which makes it much easier for them to learn languages later in life. Learning a second language impacts the first. A childhood native language can fall out of use in adulthood and a non-native language can become dominant. You do not have to be native level speaker to be entirely proficient In a language. (Think of people from the Netherlands speaking English) This critical period you reference, as well as this “cognitive mechanism that you used to acquire language”, is heavily contested and has more to do with the effects of language on cognition than linguistic ability or competence .It seems like you are devaluing language that is learnt at a later stage in life, this upholds an out of date view on a commonly misunderstood process that is not actually true and can be harmful.

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CiciMcGee45 t1_j4ijugd wrote

I used to work at a daycare and I had a lot of bilingual kids, especially English/Chinese and some of their parents were concerned that speaking Chinese would delay their English and I was always telling them no, the kids know there’s a difference and they rarely use words from one language while using the other. It’s amazing. Some of the toddlers couldn’t tell you that they spoke two, like if you asked them what’s this in Chinese they couldn’t but by the time they were four or five they knew they understood two separate languages. It was so amazing to see them just switch when they’re parents picked them up.

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virtutesromanae t1_j4hk1bu wrote

I don't think he/she is devaluing language learned later in life. I think he/she is just stating that the approach and mechanism of learning changes over time. I agree with that point. I know that I learn nearly everything (language or otherwise) differently now than I did when I was a child.

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5slipsandagully t1_j4iunes wrote

OP's article was about what it means to "know" a language, not what it means to be competent in a language, so of course my comment was about the effects of language on cognition. The only point my original comment made is that childhood language acquisition (no matter how many languages that may involve) and language learning later in life are qualitatively different. I'm not sure why that's controversial or harmful

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denisoshea13 t1_j4qfzsg wrote

But where you say “you’re stuck with what you got” is controversial and (can be ) harmful

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BrakumOne t1_j4ggrd5 wrote

That's not true. It depends how you learn it. I would say that i learned english after 18 the same way i learned portuguese as a child. It was solely through exposure. I didnt have any classes and i made no effort to actively 'learn' it.

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