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5slipsandagully t1_j4gagiu wrote

It's risky to compare language acquisition to other kinds of knowledge or learning, because strictly speaking you don't "learn" your native language the same way you might learn a second language later in life.

From what we know about it, first language acquisition is automatic, begins in infancy, and occurs even with a paucity of stimulus. That is to say, your knowledge of your native language exceeds the sum of the language you've heard. Your capacity to acquire a language also diminishes over time. 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*.

There's also a whole lot we don't know, such as why it's almost impossible to learn a second langauge with native-like proficiency later in life given first language acquisition is effortless. Second language learners can reach a point in learning where no amount of effort or immersion in the target culture will help fix the errors that remain in their understanding of the second language, and we don't know why this happens.

Language acquisition probably has more in common with learning to walk than it does with learning to ride a bike, that is to say it's innate and somehow you know when you're ready to do it, even before you're old enough to know how to not shit your pants. So, discussions of what it means to "know" a language need to differentiate between the processes of language acquisition and language learning, and be clear-eyed about how bad we are at the latter even though we're miraculously talented at the former.

*To clarify this point, because a lot of people took issue with it, I don't mean you can never learn another language, only that the process of learning a language in adulthood will be different to the process of acquiring a language (or multiple languages) in early childhood. This is an important consideration if you're going to talk about what it means to "know" a language

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virtutesromanae t1_j4gcnnn wrote

>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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eliminate1337 t1_j4gi8vk wrote

> it's almost impossible to learn a second langauge with native-like proficiency later in life

The gap between an advanced learner and native speaker is more in accent, idioms, and other cultural specificities than in functional proficiency. Past the critical period, you won’t be mistaken for a native speaker.

There are plenty of people on /r/languagelearning who pass the C2 exams (basically native proficiency). Look up the C2 English exam, it’s effortful even for a native English speaker.

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IHeartCannabis t1_j4ibhz3 wrote

I'm bilingual but I see myself as more of a francophone and I can still ace the English C2 tests 9/10. Education is a prime factor, speaking and writing are essentially two different skills.

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IAmTriscuit t1_j4gv3wz wrote

Man is it painful to be a sociolinguist and read this thread. People really like to throw the critical period hypothesis around without really thinking about how absurd it would be if it was definitively true that someone just can't learn a language after a certain age.

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5slipsandagully t1_j4iwpn2 wrote

My understanding is that you can obviously learn a language after a certain age, but that learning happens differently later in life than in early childhood

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IAmTriscuit t1_j4ixe85 wrote

Yeah, absolutely it does. A huge part of additional language teaching is learning exactly how those differences manifest and what teachers can do to best navigate those challenges and differences. But it is undoubtedly, 100 percent possible for someone to learn a language well past the "critical period".

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marenicolor t1_j4kf9lp wrote

But not for first language acquisition. This has been shown in studies of children who experienced extreme neglect. Perhaps the original commenter was mixing up information they've heard and applied it to learning additional languages. I agree this thread has been painful to read because nearly everyone is making the incorrect assumption that first language acquisition = learning a second, foreign language.

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Daflehrer1 t1_j4gmxa1 wrote

Your lack of knowledge, language acquisition, and imagination is glaring.

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Snuffleton t1_j4gp4vh wrote

I personally am under the impression that a lot of that has to do with social knowledge rather than actual knowledge about the language in question, though.

When I say something 'wrong' (f.ex. grammar-wise) in my native language, I do so with confidence. I know what I just said, and you gotta deal with that, full stop. And people will mostly just accept it, shrug their shoulders, and go:

'huh, guess that's one more way of saying it..? Sure, why not? He seems pretty stubborn about it, so I must be the stupid one'.

And when enough people start imitating the word, expression or manner in which you just said something, it will be considered 'in line' or within the range of the acceptable, respectively - others will think 'that guy definitely probably knew what he did there (maybe?), so he must be.. uhhh.. fluent'.

The same is not true for a second language, though. Going by my own experiences: as long as people don't see you and thereby aren't able to judge your nationality, ethnicity etc.; given that you speak their language well enough, they will simply assume you to come from a remote enough region that their assessment of themselves being in the wrong (or 'not in the know', rather) will somehow still hold true. When they do see you, however, they won't accept nothing they'd deem 'non-standard', because they will immediately assume that you just don't speak the language well enough.

I've found myself in this very situation several times, one of which even cost me a job interview, because the lady on the phone simply refused to believe me when I told her that I'm German and therefore didn't have to jump through some of their hoops regarding providing proof of language proficiency. That might sound like anecdotal evidence, but I'm fairly certain I am onto something with my observations so far

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hairam t1_j4hproe wrote

To your point, but different:

In my experience, I think it's a little less "huh, must be a thing where they're from!" and usually a little more "they know better, so it's a waste of time to correct" (unless the error is egregious or a popular annoyance like "alot" - see: reddit "grammar nazis"). This applies to the internet in particular, which is rife with mistyping and lazy typing for non-formal discussion, and in an age where autocorrect can actually make something you've said incorrect or nonsensical.

Eg: I'd assume "they won't accept nothing" is an editing error, and that you typed something out ("they'll accept nothing" or "they won't accept anything") but went back to edit your phrasing and forgot to correct agreement in the process. As quirks or little things like that increase, I'd assume you're not a native speaker whether or not I see your face.

Alternate example: I should have typed out that "Eg:" above as "E.g.," but people aren't going to take the time to correct that. They pooosssibly would if I had typed E.G.

Also in my experience, in person, native speakers will correct each other until they hear someone say that it's a peculiarity from their childhood or hometown. E.g. ^((maybe I'll try to write it correctly when I use it, now...)^) I have a friend who pronounces something oddly and uniquely. This friend has been corrected, but they have said it was always like that for them growing up. Now it has become accepted that "it's just how it is" for them with that particular pronunciation.

I think you're absolutely right about the impact of social knowledge and vernacular language on whether or not someone's considered native level. That speaks to the "personal knowledge" point in the linked article

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Snuffleton t1_j4kbvds wrote

I don't know what your native language is or where you are from, but I still want to add that I feel like the problem regarding the written language that you mentioned was something I didn't think of. I was talking about the spoken word specifically. So, I guess what you are saying is true, but - correct me if I'm mistaken with this assumption - together with your second point about native speakers correcting each other, I will still argue, that both of those phenomenons definitely happen more regularly when the language in question is English.

Maybe due to it being an internationalized language, so you never really know who you are talking to, unless you are seated square in front of them; or maybe due to English not being coherent regarding its own pronounciation, so people are more prone to point out what they consider to be 'faulty'..? Anyways, I have observed native English speakers doing that to each other quite a few times, while I can come up with exactly zero occurences of this in my own native language, which is German. This leads me to conclude that this happens with differing frequencies, depending on the language.

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hairam t1_j4rqmxm wrote

English is my native language and I'm from the US, for context!

Ah, I didn't know you were specifically talking about spoken language.

I would like to clarify, I agree with your initial point. If a native speaker makes a grammatical mistake (online through text, or offline/spoken), I've also experienced people just shrugging it off (that's kind of where "it's assumed they know better" came from in my first reply).

To elaborate on my comparative experience with pronunciation differences:
Pronunciation is more likely to be perceived as "faulty" if both speakers are from the same area, but pronounce something differently. E.g., I'd never correct accented English pronunciation from a native speaker (be they from England, New Zealand, or just another part of the US, etc), nor from a non native speaker (so long as the non-native speaker's pronunciation wasn't interfering with understanding, and they weren't trying to "improve" their pronunciation). My example comes from friends who have grown up in the same city but pronounce something differently.

Very interesting conclusion in your last sentence!

Also, I wanted to say - I used your own wording as an example of a small mistake. I hope that didn't come across as me speaking down to you! I was wondering at the time if doing that would come across as rude, but I wasn't sure it would, because it was such an understandable mistake to make... I've enjoyed your thoughts and this conversation, so I just wanted to make sure I didn't come across as having engaged impolitely with you.

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Snuffleton t1_j4tauvd wrote

No worries, I'm no part of the 'toxic assclown' faction on Reddit and always assume commenters to have the best in mind when they answer. It's always nice to come across someone who puts some thought in their words

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slickback9001 t1_j4hktfo wrote

Sounds like you’re confusing your own personal experience with fact. It’s not that hard to keep learning a language as an adult. People do it all the time every day

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purplestgiraffe t1_j4icrw4 wrote

Agreed. My father began studying Russian when he was in his early 50s, and got conversational (to the point his Russian friends and tutors kept insisting he was fluent, despite him not being confident enough in it to feel like he was) in just a few years. It’s ludicrous to suggest there comes an age where your brain just shuts off language acquisition forever.

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Zlec3 t1_j4i5bs5 wrote

You’re not stuck with what you got in adulthood. I learned how to speak Spanish & Portuguese between the ages of 25-30

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cbessette t1_j4ksuie wrote

I started Spanish at 29, was conversationally fluent within two years. As an adult it comes down to desire and usefulness of a language to really learn it.

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agentchuck t1_j4javnn wrote

It's worth noting also that people always underestimate how much active work a child goes through in learning a language. They are under constant tutelage for years by family members who correct their pronunciation and language usage. They go to school where they have to dedicate hours on spelling, grammar, etc. And they have to use the language constantly in service of learning other things. Proficiency doesn't just appear from exposure.

As an adult learning a second language you generally won't have anywhere close to the same level of language exposure or learning support.

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IHeartCannabis t1_j4iauga wrote

What about people who learn more than one language at once in infancy? And I call BS on not being able to learn a new language once you're adult (that sounds like some american redneck mentality) I was raised on English and French (speak both with no foreign accent) and i've been learning spanish for almost 3 years now (I'm 27) and am now an intermediate speaker. I've traveled with it and have been able to have long discussions about alot of different things even though it wasn't perfect.

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