Is there a critical period for learning a language?
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- Опубликовано: 2 июн 2024
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CC subtitles available in multiple languages.
Ever wondered if it's too late to learn a new language after childhood? In this video, I dive into the critical period hypothesis and the debate around how long the window for easy language learning really lasts.
Sources:
Critical period in second language acquisition: The age-attainment geometry: www.frontiersin.org/articles/...
The Critical Period Hypothesis in Second Language Acquisition: A Statistical Critique and a Reanalysis: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Wikipedia: Critical period hypothesis en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critica...
Cognitive scientists define critical period for learning language: news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-s...
⏲️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 What is the critical period hypothesis
01:01 How long is this critical period?
03:45 The ideal age to start learning a language
05:15 Factors that affect our success
7:39 Is there a language acquisition device?
9:45 Does age really matter?
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❓How old were you when you started learning your second language? Let me know in the comments!
I started studying Japanese 4 months ago. I am determined to at least get to level 5 or 4… I will turn 76 this July .🌻
Amazing! Good luck.
頑張ってね
Awesome!!
期待しているぞ。励むといい。
I am 67 years old and began studying Japanese 5 years ago. Go for it. 頑張って!
I began studying Spanish at age 68. My study became an addiction. I am 75, B1-B2 and lovin’ it! Having a blast being fluent!
Que lindo hermano mio! Dios te Bendiga!
@@eduardoantonionaranjo7972 ¡Mil gracias! Eres muy amable. ¡Un fuerte abrazo!
💙🙏🤗you are the inspiration for others
I don't fancy spoiling your fun but.. You can't teach an old dog new tricks 😅 Anyway, keep on learning and Greetings from Spain.. Cordiales saludos 👍
Yes! 74 years old and have gained proficiency in Spanish. And now I am using CI to acquire Swahili. I, too, am having a blast.
I feel like the bigger problem is that as an adult you're simply too preoccupied with other things on top of language learning. Children just have so much time for passive exposition.
No doubt that is a significant factor. I feel that most adults just don’t listen, they are too inflexible.
we need to be patient and enjoy the process .. !! easier to say
This, if I lived in my parents basement and could study languages all day I can't even imagine what I could achieve in a single year lol
@@hijackbyejack1729 As long as you still go out and use the language! :D
Really? If that were the case children would be better at learning everything better than adults. Turns out the opposite is the case and I defy you to name one other thing children are better at learning than adults. Bc they have more free time.
There is a critical period for learning a language - it is today
This is the correct answer.
I was 21 years old when I've started to study Spanish here in Brazil. I think I was 33 years old when I've started to study English, and 36 French, and 42 Italian. I'm 44 years old now. I'm very happy and proud because I can talk to many people.
How WONDERFUL !!! Its all in the determination.
It is time to learn russian
I'm 64 and have been studying English for a long time... Now I want to start with French 😊
There is no limit for learning a language. I am over 40 yo and I am learning Spanish on my own.
47 here and i try russian !! good luck for the spanish
And how well do you understand and speak it?
Felicitaciones, espero que logres avanzar mucho en este idioma, es muy bonito, muy versatil
61 started Spanish 1.5 years ago. Still struggling, and getting discouraged, but I do understand most of what I read. You have to stay motivated.
36 trying german korean and italian at once.
Not much hope for me Steve 😢started at 81 but enjoying it 😅
the process matters, the goal is nothing, sorry for dogmatism and my french
stay alive
I was 10 when we started learning English at school. It was an ordinary school and I used to be jealous of kids who went to better schools with more hours of English and native speakers as their teachers. At university, I did my best to become as fluent in English as possible though I believed that I was far and hopelessly behind those lucky ones. Life proved me wrong. Now I'm fluent in English and Portuguese, I also know some Swedish and started Arabic at the age of 43. And I agree with what Steve keeps saying - don't memorize, acquire. Books, songs, movies - they created the language environment which allowed me to acquire languages without leaving my home country.
My daughter just turned three. I speak Dutch with her and my wife speaks Mandarin with her and she has picked up Spanish in about four months by going to a daycare in Spain. It’s incredible! Being bilingual re-wires your brain to learn new languages easily.
that is the age
Learning how to learn seems more important to me. At 64, I am able to acquire more skills faster by prioritizing and knowing what works for me.
Yep😊
I am 57 years old and i use comprehension input as method of learn English...It´s very fun.Never bored
💙🙏🤗you are the inspiration for others
One thing I've noticed is, if you have a good ear for music, you have a better ability to sound native like, if you also work at improving your accent. Also, actors are pretty good at picking up accents.
Absolutely! I'm a pretty good mimic and find that I can hear the sounds or phonemes of other languages and reproduce them quite well. (Done a fair bit of amateur acting too and play a few instruments)
@@neilt4475 not american actors lol. none of them can do even a semi convincing british accent
For what it's worth, I started learning Spanish by myself in my 30's, and years later I started with Mandarin Chinese. I am more interested in new experiences with a language than tests and levels, and last year I wrote and released a Mandarin-language album and then went to China to promote it. It is on my channel for anyone interested. PS. I am a member of LingQ, have read The Way of the Linguist, and even bought the Yale in China flashcards. Thank you Steve Kaufman for all your hard work dedicated to the encouragement of language learning. I appreciate you very much 🙏
Where did you study Mandarin? How to start learning this?
@@juanwick8820 You are already in the right place. The wisdom on this channel will show you the way.
I love your stuff Steve. Keep up the good work 😊
I just did 6 months of Spanish and was able to understand and converse with people on a recent trip to Mexico… I’m 45.
🤷♂️
So encouraging Steve! Thank you! I have found a way of using LingQ that is really helping me. I watch a RUclips video in Spanish without subtitles. I then import it into LingQ and watch it again, this time reading along with the video and clicking on a few words to get the definition if I can't figure it out. This is definitely a fun way for me and I am learning more because I am really enjoying it. Thank you so much for all of your hard work in making language learning easy!
I'm watching your videos and sometimes I feel you speak in Czech language. How good I understand you. Sending regards from Czech Republic.
Your explainations about language learning are persuasive and encouraging for me. And I believe that one of the reasons of hardship for elderly learners is that they've already established their lifestyle and culture in their mother tongue. Then it's hard to immerse themselves to the new language world. Thank you.
I always enjoy your insights, especially on RUclips.
Steve, great video, as always very usefull insights!!!
As always an articulate precise and honest account. Thank you
He never gets around to the question of whether one becomes too old to learn a language and the answer in my case is probably not. I began Italian in my early 70's and after several years I can now read, write and speak it reasonably well at roughly a B-2 level. It helped a lot, but I don't think critically so, that I was fluent in Spanish and French in my 20's and got to an A-2/B-1 level in Mandarin in my 30's. When I was younger, acquiring fluency was a bit easier but it also has been quite feasible in my senior years and just as fun and rewarding.
I am English age 76 and still learning English. I also learnt French and German at school and have learned them as an adult as a hobby. Then Spanish when my son married an Argentinian. In my opinion it’s the time and emotional effort you put in. I know I will only be fluent in English but love being able to communicate in the other 3 languages even if it is only with taxi drivers for whom that language is also foreign! I understand quite a lot but speaking a foreign language is so much more difficult.
66 Started learning Spanish. So good to know not too late ! Great video and explanation of perhaps why some of us older types fall by the way side. Purpose/ motivation. I now live in Mexico so ideal to have some basic knowledge of Spanish, but wish to excel one day. Thank you for posing. Very interesting video.
You are the answer of this question before Even watching
Always I've a good taste watching your videos. I'm an English learner, and for me you are easy to understand but still worth.
I completely agree with Steve considering myself as an example because I acquired two language after my native language , and now I am in the process of learning Chinese lang in which I have found my reason to learn it so , what I have learned while learning these languages is Motivation , fully exposure and engaging yourself into the language activities as much as possible .
¡THE ABILITY OF READING IS A CRAZYNESS!
I am currently reading a lot on reddit english conversation and it's helping me a lot in a way that i am able to understand the 80% steven's talking about .
I acquired an ablility to read large texts on my own language but i imputed it into my english target language and it is working hughly , i recomend you to do that , read a lot no matter if you struggle at the beggining just primarely get the skill to read fast and understandeable so you at the momment to read in and listen in english you reach to understand better .
Another thing that helped me a lot is do not anticipate what people are going to say in the future , just let the words talk by themselves.
Thank you Steve ! I am 75 , I learnt English and Spanish at school ......and now I learn , level one ! English and Spanish. Je vais vous écouter à nouveau sans les sous-titres français. Le lycée des années 60 nous donnait moins de possibilités pédagogiques qu'aujourd'hui ! Heureuse de vous trouver sur RUclips. Je chercherai ce qu'est LingQ. Michelle.
I'm 73 years old and I started to learn English seven years ago. I can understand the majority of native speakers, and speak with certain fluently. From the start I exercised every single day and continue. I'm enjoy watching english videos and also when I have the opportunity to speak (normally for work)
It’s only too late to learn a language if you’ve already given up.
This is true for literally anything you might want to learn or do in life, just saying. I started self-learning ukulele at 55, without any musical background, and I am so pleased I did !! I had seen a TV broadcast in which they taught music to people in retirement homes, and I was so blown away that it was a real "wake-up call" for me. Now I'm 59 and I can play folk songs, pop music, island stuff, and even some classical from Renaissance I would NEVER EVER have imagined I could. 😊
Tengo 38 anos, y he estado aprendiendo espanol por siete meses y medio ahora. Me comienzo para aprender espanol en el doce de septiembre este pasado ano (2023). Como un crisitiano, mi manera prinicpal para aprender ha estado por leyendo la biblia cada dia en espanol en mi estudios biblicos personales, memoriziendo canciones de adoracion en espanol, y por asistiendo a la iglesia espanol entre los servicios de mi iglesia prinicpal cada domingo, donde el pastor es de cuba y mas de la congregacion son de cuba tambien, juntamente con algunos mexicanos, venezalonos, y nicaraguenses tambien. Yo quiero aprender espanol porque mis abuelos paternos eran de michocan en Mexico, pero yo no aprendo espanol cuando yo era un nino, entonces yo aprendo ahora. Me deseo es para ser fluido por mi cuarenta cumpleanos en septiembre 2025! Yo creo fuertemente que en el tiempo de Dios segun Su voluntad yo aprendere espanol. En mi opinion es simplemente sobre estar disciplinada cada dia, poco a poco, paso a paso, y teniendo paciencia, muchas paciencia! Bendiciones a todos en sus viajes de aprendiendo de los idiomas diferentes!
Age no issue - just need -like Steve preaches - MASSIVE input. 我学习汉语❤和❤西班牙话
Since subscribing to LingQ 24 days ago my linguistic world has expanded so much. Spanish learning has tripled, at least, in speed of learning new words, Added Chinese today and installed simplied Chinese (PinYing) Mandarin Chinerse keyboard into Win 11 and typed "horse" and "bird" into flash cards. One suggestion I have to improve LingQ is to add support for Yiddish, but not Yiddish using Hebrew characters but rather romanized Yiddish such as "A Beesser Mench" == "An educated man".
I believe children have an extremely strong desire to learn a language, as it is the only way for them to survive and/or connect with their closest and most important people - their parents. A multilingual parent of a bilingual child here.
I'm glad to hear you.
I took two years of French in high school and dabbled with language apps for years, but nothing stuck until I was 44 and decided I wanted to see if I really focused on it, could I learn a language. Turns out I sure can, and I really, really enjoy it. New lifelong hobby and I'm only a year in!
Oh, thank you so much for your words ! As a Brazilian ESL teacher, I may say that is a kind of Challenge teach people who think that the Native like accent and the early years of studying is a perfect ( and only) recipe to learn a foreigner language. 🙏🏼😌
Steve Is the best
I learned a little French in high school, but later was married with kids and a job. I didn’t have time to study. I started Ukrainian on Duolingo at 59.
You mentioned older people needing explicit explanations for grammar rules. Well Duo doesn’t offer anything like that, but after seeing how words went together, I picked up a lot. I started seeing what was a feminine suffix, and so on. There are a lot of cases in Ukrainian and I won’t say I’ve got it all straight, but I feel it does a great disservice to us when people say we’re too old to learn.
I’m finding it much easier now that I’m retired and no kids to look after. I can study uninhibited by a work schedule, whenever I want, as long as I like.
I’ve always been a learner by nature and there is evidence that by continuing to learn throughout life keeps the brain more able to do so. Use it or lose it, as they say.
My experience with foreign born adults, who learn ESL as adults, is that they do not lose their accent regardless of how long they have lived in the USA. My personal example is the same as yours, Steve, in that my father immigrated from Czechoslovakia ( in the 1920's, ) learned English through cultural immersion and night school, with fluency to the point of having a very high level job with the state of California. He managed his life here completely in English. However, his accent was so thick that people simply could not understand much of what he said. We, his children, understood everything, of course and, to our ears, Dad did not even have an accent. But our friends, after meeting and chit-chatting with Dad, would ask us later, "What did your father say? I could not understand a word he said!" Dad never tried, to my knowledge, to lose the accent and always refused to teach us any Czech even though I used to beg him to teach me. Supremely intelligent, Dad would often take to playing the part of a bumbling immigrant newcomer who understood nothing in order to get what he needed. And he always succeeded.
I consider it a joy to find that new laws in Czechia allow me, through my ancestry, to become a citizen of my father's homeland. I am about half way through the process and hope to make my first visit to Czechia later this year with a Czech passport!
Thank you, Steve, for all you do to help others in quenching their thirst/need to broaden their language abilities!
I believe that the Defense Language Aptitude Battery test is based for the most part on recognizing and applying "patterns". How well a person tests in this determines which tier of languages they can qualify to take instruction in [I believe there are currently four categories, ranging from Cat I (the easiest) to Cat IV . So, your point on recognizing patterns is well taken.
I am 68 and British, and I have just started learning French. I am loving the challenge and I am eager to get up to a good conversational level. We are never to old to learn, and it’s good to challenge the brain as we get older.
I think keys are exposure at a young age, and motivation at a later stage. And last but not least : being curious, lol. For me, curiosity is a huge trigger : I wanted to learn more about ancient Egypt, so I started learning hieroglyphs from the Middle Kingdom (= the classical period every student in egyptology starts with) by correspondance. But without any knowledge of another semitic language, it was very difficult for me to understand the grammatical explanations I got from the institute. So I started classical Arabic with a teacher, and dialectal Egyptian Arabic on cassettes by myself. In other words, I have been studying 3 languages to manage one, lol. The irony is that I have finally dropped ancient Egyptian, but now I am fully autonomous in Egyptian Arabic ! 😄This has totally changed my life. Apart from this, as a Swiss citizen and language nerd, I speak French, German, Italian, English, and quite a bit of Arpitan (franco-provençal, a kind of old French dialect) from my father's village in the Alps. I can also understand some Spanish, thanks to French, Italian and Arpitan linguistic proximity, but I have not yet digged into it. Too many wishes and only one life !!!! 😁 (I am 59 y.o.)
Вы молодец! Смотрю ваши видеоролики и хочется учить языки.
The daughter of a friend of ours didn't know any English until she moved to the US from Thailand at the age of 12. A couple of years later and she could speak fluent English without any trace of an accent.
Im 14 years old studying korean and really it is a struggle still for me. I forget when I use the knowledge I learned if I don't use it or go back and review it, but because Im in the US and not even close to Korea, I don't have anyone to talk to so whenever I learn Vocabulary and grammar, I always think will I remember any of this? when will I use it. especially when I'm studying and come across words to study I always tend to think negativity like should I really learn these words right now, how can and when will I use it because I have no one to practice with. Korean is my first ever language I studied, and Its so hard to immerse myself because I don't know how since its my first language I'm studying, and Im not sure how I can learn vocabulary and use them in sentences that Make sense. . But right now I'm like really really willing to learn it since want to study in Korea which isn't until like 3 years but it's a big motivation for me to study right now. AHh
Keep going! It’s a slow process but just stay persistent and don’t be discouraged! Korean is gaining a lot of traction so I think it will be really important in the future. My two cents without being too long winded is follow these tips: 1. Don’t give up. 2. Once you get a general basic vocabulary, read a book of interest (that you’ve already read in English). This way you can focus on the words and grammar and not get lost in the meaning. Do this while also listening to the audio book at the same time. Set a calendar date for yourself to get a tutor and stick to that date (it gives a sense of urgency and also a “ready or not, here I come” mindset to start speaking). 3. Commit to doing a lesson with a language partner however often is feasible for you ( a legit tutor is way better than a friend or family member. If you can afford it, spending the money for a tutor is worth it). For me, I commit to one lesson a week. And I’m planning for June to be a challenge where I do 15 lessons in a month. 4. Journaling is underrated. Just write about your day in your target language. One or two paragraphs is plenty. Or however frisky you’re feeling that day. Feel free to come back to this comment and ask me anything. I’d be happy to help you if I can. And if I can’t, I can help you find resources that can be of use
¡Madre mía que frikis somos!🤓 Es muy interesante todo esto. Espero que encontremos pronto las respuestas a todas estas preguntas.
I am a 68-year-old Finn. So my native language is Finnish, which belongs to the Uralic language group and is very different from the Indo-European languages spoken in Europe. In my youth, I had to learn three foreign languages at school, Swedish, English and German. I hated those lessons and I wasn't very good at any of those languages. But in any case, learning these languages at an appropriate age gave a good start to study more later. Now I can actually use these languages.
I'm not a polyglot. Learning a new language is very difficult for me and I have to practice for years before I get results. In my 20s I studied Spanish and later French, but I didn't use them. Maybe now I could start Spanish again, but I chose modern Greek instead. I have now studied Greek for three years. I can read and write Greek text well. My vocabulary is about 2000 words, but still speaking is very difficult. I can easily find words and phrases in Spanish, but in Greek I don't. I think it's because I started learning Greek when I was 65.
I'm 27 and started learning Polish 2 years ago and started getting 1-2-1 lessons on Preply a year ago. This has given me hope that I will eventually get to a B2 level one day!
In my experience,I learned English at age 24 and is my second language after Spanish ,my mother tongue.
I learned French at 30 years old ,I am fluent in both but , have an undefined accent that most people find delightful.
I would be curious to match personality traits of the big 5, especially openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness being higher.I suspect that would corollate. Then extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism would affect how much accent correction is desired by each person.
As the old saying goes "One is never too old to learn". That's all there is to it! I am 52 years old, I am still alive, kicking and, well, keeping on learning new foreign languages.
My case:
Spanish: Mother tongue, no problem but I have forgotten some of the grammar and vocabulary.
English: Studied it at school and in private lessons until the age of 18. I now speak it fluently because I came to live in an English speaking country.
French: Started learning it in evening classes, on and off over some years, after the age of 28. I could never learn it properly.
You never miss 🔥
Thank you so much
Yeah eh I can say that you can adcquire a lenguage quickly for a long time , but for me after of 50 is more slow, I'm 17 years and I can see that my english have mistakes but I adquire vocabulary whithout study almost 600 words and fast I have a level alround B1 and I don't studied ever and anything , is automatic (I haven't exposed in the lenguage for much time I see one video for day that I like and I have 1 month in that , i have a open mind too and always I was learning everything about everything , that is good for my neuroplasticity (sorry for my mistakes and good luck , you can do it🎉)
Children are around the language 24/7 and it takes them how long to be able to read a novel in their native language?
Exactly. Adults _massively_ underestimate the amount of exposure a child is getting. By the age of about 7, a child has had _way_ more quality exposure than an adult will _ever_ get (and they got it intensively), even if they did their 1-2 hours a day, for 3 decades. That sucks for us adults, but it is what it is.
I’m not too interested in the topic, but this guy is listenable
You're the biggest example of this not being the case. I always tell people about you whenever they tell me something akin to "I'm too old to learn X language"
I can confirm. He name checked you during his last live video. 👏
In my case, I was monolingual, I only spoke Spanish until I was 22. But At 22, I went to Brazil because I wanted to study there. Long story short, I needed to learn English and Portuguese. I studied hard both languages. What I did was study some grammar and read a lot of books in both languages (using audiobooks to hear as well). In the end, I didn't make it to the University but I learned both languages at a decent level, I could read fluently in both languages and I could even understand movies at the end of that year (A lot of people say my pronunciation in both languages is actually very good. But I must add I continue to improve in both languages and now I am 33). So, I think motivation is key, and reading a lot to get the grammar as you are having fun reading is more important.
I would also add that I think is waaaay easier for me to learn languages now than it was when I was younger. I am learning German now and I am having an easier time learning :)
I would like to know, is there anyone else who has encountered something similar to this?
Older and wiser😊❤ and smarter
One gets smarter and learns easier but also one is better at forgetting!
I just started a B1 ( that's intermediate) Spanish Class, and I'm the youngest in the class at 57! I'd say the oldest person is probably about 75. The other people all seem pretty motivated, and several of them speak multiple languages. So yep, don't ever think you are too old. If you can remember how to conjugate a verb, you can do it. 😂
you can reach c1 depends on your effords
I learned German and Low-Saxon at age 3, English at age 12, and Scandinavian I picked up around the age of 16, but never very well, same with Hebrew at age 50, it is hard when you get old..
Very good question Steve 🤔👏 8 languages are enough including Arabic ? Sufficient, right? Добрый вечер 😊
I started learning languages other than my natives (English/Spanish) when I was 30…I am now about to turn 34 and I’m learning Japanese (started learning from English, but now I’m just using Japanese to learn Japanese), Italian (from Spanish), Korean (from Japanese) and I’ve dabbled into Mandarin Chinese….in that order. It is definitely possible. Also, the more languages you learn, the easier it is to pick up a new one…
I started studying español at the age of 46, 8 years ago and voy bien hasta ahora.
You can learn a foreign language at sny age if you desire.I am Russian,I am 72 and I am able to study with great pleasure,my level ls B2.We are retired and have much time for learning.If l were younger ! would learn French.The main thing is practice,but l haven't got friends abroad.I don't know how to practice my knowledge.I understood you very well.Thank you
Great video (one of many, of course), not least through the visual and audio effects. The tears and whining of Chomsky are my favorite 😂
Thanks for another interesting video, Steve. :)
I saw a documentary many years ago about people who didn't learn any language before the age of six years. They had a lot of difficulty with speaking. The explanation given was that the connection between certain areas of the brain and the various parts of the mouth used for speech wasn't developed.
Level of Autism is an important factor. Autistic people recognise patterns more than other people and are able to endure the boredom of repetition much better than those who are not Autistic. The high level of Autism of Daniel Tammet enabled him to learn Icelandic in 1 week for example.
Another factor I wonder about is dialect. If somebody learns an English dialect at home before they go to school of any kind and then learns another dialectic at school will that give them more language learning skill?. Does polyglotism run in families? If a parent is good at languages will their children be?
Upto nineteen years of age, learning languages other than ones own mother tongue is easy. I could speak, read and write four languages with ease: three Indian languages like Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, and a foreign language English by the time I turned 19.
When I turned 83, I started learning another Indian language, Kannada. Now I am 85.3, and not as successful as I was when I was 19.
Sholem Alechem, Rebbe Koyfman! Hey, Steve, it has come to my gnosis that your parents were people from Ashkenazi origin from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I've been learning about the germanized Jews of the Empire on my Hebrew studies major, it's quite a fascinating milleu that produced many authors. Hasn't your background enticed you to explore Yiddish and Hebrew? No offense to German speakers, but Yiddish is the version of German that sounds cool. Zait gezunt!
imho you can start learning a new (second, third, fourth, ....th) language at any age. The level you reach can depend on many factors. Determination is one of them. Maybe the most diificult period is between 35-55 years of age, when we have so many other things to do and on our minds. Family, children, career, social obligations, etc. But even then it's doable. just keep in mind that learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint.
I learned Japanese to native-like fluency in my 20’s, living in Japan. I then lived in China in my late 40’s and had a difficult time with Mandarin, though there are a quite a few similarities between the two languages. I progressed pretty well in reading and became so so in listening, but my ‘heart’ was in Japanese I feel. The other thing is that I was working in China and didn’t have the time that I had as a student in Japan. I also felt inhibited in the sense that I felt if I became more fluent in Mandarin, it would push out my Japanese. I know that’s a myth though.
I am retired and spend 2 to 3 hours every day studying French. I enjoy the language and the culture and I have spent several months almost every year in Paris since retiring 8 years ago. I studied Spanish in high school and in college but my focus over the past ten years has been learning French. Etudier le francais est mon passe-temps.
I enjoyed this video, it is a very non dogmatic overview of language acquisition by older learners. Children are exposed to a simpler form of language, no complex vocabulary or structures, they have huge amounts of time to devote to language acquisition and they practice language daily in a relaxed and fun environment so they get massive exposure. I know a Russian Lithuanian who has lived in England as an adult for 19 years, and his English is barely intelligible. I know an Austrian who has lived here as an adult for well over 30 years, he is 70 now, and speaks near native level English. I met a German nurse who came here as an adult, her English was native level, only the inability to pronounce the th sounds gave her away. children learn naturally to native level, adults can or can come close, but it seems many don’t.
you can become fluent in a restricted field, and adequate in general conversation, but many people never quite lose intonations of first language. no matter, study at any age, it's good for mental health.
Hi sir I am form Algeria I speak Algeria accent in my country i explain more about Algeria accent it's a combine between Arabic french and special words and expressions have created from people during the life of this accent many people in Algeria couldn't speak the real Arabic language cause they use it just in especial place like a school but for me is different I learnd speak in Arabic first from school and After I developed my Arabic language when I watch many things in Arabic from the internet, and i couldn't developed my French language cause I was this language and i stayed week I learnd the English language for six years it's alright could speak a little bit but I didn't become fluent the Spanish language i started to learn since a weak but I don't care about the Alphabet of Spanish I learn and acquire from listening and speaking my goal is just to speak in Spanish
I’m curious about your comments on Chomsky’s Universal Grammar. I’d never heard it argued that it constrains L2 learning - I thought that Krashen (among others) are basically Chomskiests in terms of belonging to various linguistic schools of thought.
I would say - it depends, as always. I am a native Polish speaker. I have started my language adventure with English and German as I was approx. 10 years old. And I am still in this process - I am still learning. Now I am over 40 and I find it very challenging to learn greek... and I thing the "WHY?" is - I do not have any good reason to learn it... I have tried it for fun but I need a "real" reason, like e.g. to live/ work abroad.
I'm too old, but I'm doing it anyway.
love that spirit
Some of my students are in their 50s and 60s and, as long as they study enough, they're making decent progress.
There's a document by the FSI* that says that the average age of the students there is around 40, that they do pretty well and that age seems to limit how "native-like" you can become (accent, grammatical details etc.) much more than how well you can function in the language.
As for my personal experience, I'm 35 now, and I haven't really noticed a difference yet.
* "10 lessons from 50 years of theory and practice in government language teaching"
I love this video
I'm a Thai and i started learning English when i was a kid.(I can't remember how old i was when started.).then now i'm 15 and learning italian(now b1) and german(now a2)
*Thai is my mother tongue(native language).English is 2nd.Italian and German that I'm learning are 3rd and 4th.
I am a few months away from 70 and learning french!
As with all things, some people learn foreign languages more easily than others.
I had a bilingual early youth, French and Dutch (I’m Belgian). I learned German in school at 12 and English when I was 15, Swahili when 11. I learned Russian when I was 30, Italian when 65. I can understand but not speak Polish, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish. So, what about the ”critical period” ? Does the fact that I was bilingual from the start play a role ?
Hello Steve how's it's going? I wanna learning vocabulary the languages
If a language is completely different from anything you've known before, age is much more critical.
in my opinion, it really depends on the type of material someone is exposed to. a baby can't really get anything from a university course on Arabic, but if you submerge a baby fully into an Arabic speaking world, they're going to pick some up eventually. if you dropped an adult into a setting where all they did is passively listen for two years straight, they'd probably have an easier time trying to speak whatever language they were learning, too.
on the other hand, if you know your language learning process pretty well and know what works best for you, I can't imagine you'd make slower process than a baby. in my experience, just because something is "the most effective" way to do something doesn't mean it's the best way to do it; if you're learning a language and not having fun, you're hardly going to internalize anything since the brain works best when at play and relaxed.
My wife who is Japanese, aside from her native language, she is fluent in both Mandarin Chinese and American English. I think some people just have the ability to pick up languages better than others. I myself am fluent in American English, Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese. Also I’m thinking about picking up Italian or French which I took three years in high school…I’m in my 50s and think it is absolutely doable if you aren’t shy about making mistakes.
I speak 5 languages and I never learned English in school.
Okay, let me give you an example. I don't know the word "doable" from your text. What is possible in life sometimes when you don't know some words that are important for some reasons.
Use your second language as a hobby, why not..
EVERYTHING is doable with time and determination.
I have been living in Germany for almost 3 years and am 59 years old, I still have a lot to learn German, but I can work and talk with native speakers. It is possible to learn.
Yes! It is absolutely right that learning a foreign language is a matter of time spent with the target language.
Personally I am much better at learning languages today than I was 20 years ago when I was a teenager. I think the main challenge for most older people is actually incorporating that language into daily life when you're probably already set in your ways, hobbies, and activities.
Every day has critical periods to learn things
I've read some studies of heritage speakers vs. adult learners comparing their nativelikeness. In Spanish, not only do heritage speakers make less gender errors than L2 speakers, they can be told apart on a brain scan by their reaction to gender errors. I'm a heritage speaker of both Spanish and French, and there are some Spanish nouns (e.g. orden y origen) which I tend to put in the wrong gender because Spanish disagrees with French, but my mental representation of gender, as far as I can tell, is native because I was exposed early (to a lot more French than Spanish, but the grammars are very similar).
My grandmother onlspoke Polish no English in 20+ years. I only learned a few words. English is my native language. . I learned Latin 1st in High school then French (high and college I'm fluent in French. ..then Spanish, Greek and Italian in my 20s . Next Japanese in 60s and now Chinese at 70. It just tales Time and continued effort to build vocabulary. I read French the most. Spanish and Italian listen to Music. I can read Japanese slowly...Chinese only read pinyin, speak well, hard to understand when I hear at full speed. There are levels of language fluency in every area Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing.
44 yo here, native spanish speaker and I´m learning russian, french and chinese at this moment.
The critical age is one year to two years old, I taught my kid English as a second language at that age, and have her watch the TeleTubbies on the BBC... she picked up English in no time at all, and no, she did not confuse it with her Dutch or German. Teach kids languages at that age, not at age 12... By that time it is hard to learn a third or 4th language..
No it isn't.
I know lots of people who started their 1st foreign language at 8 and learned their 2nd foreign after University and their 3rd and 4th after 35 and they speak them well enough to get g jobs with lots of complicated language requirements. Not all parents can teach their kids and not all kids have access to languages before they are about 8 or 9. That is especially true about older generations.