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I wonder the same thing trying to learn a new language. I notice the biggest difference between me and a child is that children don't care about messing up. Me

I wonder the same thing trying to learn a new language. I notice the biggest difference between me and a child is that children don't care about messing up. Meanwhile I often have this worthless apprehension of "better not practice Spanish on these Spanish speakers, I might mess up and feel stupid." I tried to learn Spanish like I learned how to program. Now I'm living proof that you can become good enough to read books in Spanish yet amaze people with your inability understand spoken Spanish.

dahart 8y ago
I suspect adults learn languages a lot faster than kids, when we spend the same amount of time being exposed & practicing. All the polyglots say you have to be willing to mess up a lot and work to shed your fear of feeling stupid. In fact, try to seek it out because that's the primary way you get feedback & learn.
- amenod 8y ago
  And it is the same with almost everything, including programming. If you are afraid to admit you don't know something you will spend much more time before you learn it. Sure, you are playing with your reputation - but in my experience it is better to have a reputation of a fast learner than the reputation of a know-it-all.
- hermitdev 8y ago
  I'd suspect it's easier for children to learn unfamiliar spoken languages than adults (they don't have to un-learn certain patterns from a native language). I'd postulate it's probably easier for trained adults to learn new programming languages as they're more familiar with structured syntax and the semantics involved, and are more likely to have exposure/experience with a similar language. Also, concepts from one programming language carry over to another, even if they're expressed differently. I don't have any studies to back this up; it's just my gut-feel.
  - EliRivers 8y ago
    My experience is the opposite. I don't have to unlearn native patterns. I learn a different pattern, and switch to it. Because I understand grammar and the parts of speech as an adult, at a level beyond simply having copied it from people around me, I can understand foreign, completely different grammar, at an intellectual level. When I speak (and learn) Japanese, my conscious understanding of Japanese grammar simply makes it easier. The same when I speak French. I don't unlearn anything; I learn different patterns, and I simply switch to them. In fact, it's what you suggested about programming languages, but for spoken languages. In my experience, adults can learn foreign languages far faster than children can. Maybe it appears that children are better at it because they are completely immersed in the language they need to learn and have no other means of communication. If I spent 16 hours a day immersed in a foreign language, with people trying to communicate with me and no other way of communicating back, I reckon I'd pick it up pretty swiftly.
    - hermitdev 8y ago
      Interesting. I admittedly don't have much experience learning foreign languages; I did K-12 in the US and was only required to take 2 years of Spanish. I'd assumed from discussions with other students taking, for example German, that it'd be more difficult. Versus programming languages, I've learned, C, C++, C#, Java, Python and Perl (and I supposed a modicum of JS) as well as x86, x64, 68k, MIPS, z80 and Atmel AVR assembly. I've always had an easier time learning a new programming language/assembler than a foreign natural language. Maybe that's just me.
      - dahart 8y ago
        Spoken languages are a lot harder to learn than programming languages. But think about how much faster you learned JS than the time it took to learn C (or whatever your first programming language was.) Don't forget to account for the vast amount of learned information you get to leverage from your first language, even if you have to unlearn a few things or learn a few new things. Even though JS is very different from C, learning JS was much, much faster for me than learning C was, because I already knew a whole lot about the way all languages work just from learning C. I'm learning Icelandic right now, and it only took a few weeks of 30 minutes a day to cover some basic conversational skills, gather maybe 100 or so words of vocabulary, and get an introduction to the basic speech patterns & conjugation. It'll take a lot longer to be fluent, but children take years to get that far, because they're starting from scratch and don't have connections to build on. I see a ton of connections to German and English that kids wouldn't. It's also hard to compare programming to high school Spanish, since it's easy for us to spend 10 hours a day programming, but in high school we topped out at like 3 hours a week of Spanish exposure, and most of that wasn't practicing very hard. I moved to Mexico as a child (during my first grade year), and learned enough Spanish to go to school, play with the kids, etc. I feel like I'm picking up languages faster now than I did then.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Right, I remember a Quora answer to the effect of: "If children pick up languages faster, it's just an artifact of how much more likely they are to be immersed in an environment of native speakers willing to put up with them and correct their errors; if you could get a group of native Spanish speakers to do the same to you as an adult, you'd pick it up quickly too." (I've anecdotally heard stories of "gringos" picking up conversational Spanish just from working in the back of a restaurant with a Spanish-only staff.)
- kazinator 8y ago
  You cannot spend the same amount of time, because a little kid basically has 60 hours in a day.
- upvotinglurker 8y ago
  > I suspect adults learn languages a lot faster than kids, when we spend the same amount of time being exposed & practicing. In linguistics, it's pretty well accepted that kids learn languages faster than adults for neurological reasons, with considerable research support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period
  - dahart 8y ago
    Oh I'm sure that critical periods are legit, and I don't doubt that infants and very young kids are learning at a faster rate than adults. There's just a lot more to learn during first language acquisition than during second language acquisition. It's possible for a child to learn faster than an adult in general, and for it to still take longer to learn a language to basic proficiency, because there's a lot more to learn the first time. The article you linked even acknowledges that and confirms my premise from above: "Certainly, older learners of a second language rarely achieve the native-like fluency that younger learners display, despite often progressing faster than children in the initial stages." The research support on second language acquisition seems rather mixed here to me. There's certainly some evidence that kids eventually learn more, but this article presents some evidence against, and the evidence here on time to proficiency vs amount of effort isn't exactly what I'd call considerable. Most of the discussion is on whether second language learners achieve perfection, not on how long or how much effort it takes to become a basic speaker. Very little discussion on the learning environment difference between kids and adults. Kids get full immersion and years of constant feedback. Adults usually get a few classes or books, a few hours of practice a week, and are usually speaking bilingual while learning, etc. I'd like to see studies comparing apples to apples.
sangnoir 8y ago
> I notice the biggest difference between me and a child is that children don't care about messing up. A physiological difference you wouldn't have noticed are that children will be making more neural connections than adults at that stage of their development.
- albertgoeswoof 8y ago
  But they have significantly less neural connections overall, and you already have whole sets of neural connections available to reuse at a very high level - there’s no evidence yet that the neural connections children are making are stronger or more flexible than the adult ones in your brain right now. In fact given how most humans become more intelligent as they age (compare a 20 year old to a 40 year old) it’s likely that the brain continues to improve.
kzrdude 8y ago
It's a different skill but I'm learning piano as an adult. I have a digital piano and headphones, and it's great — nobody like neighbors, roomates or people outside on the street hears so I can play around and learn without problem. We can't really do the same with languages, but it's interesting! I definitely feel how I tense up if I have to practice openly.
- Bekwnn 8y ago
  I'm currently doing something similar and wanted to give 3 pieces of advice to anyone wanting to do similar: 1. Don't buy a 2 or 3 octave keyboard like I did. 2. Synthesia is great. Guitar hero for a midi keyboard. 3. musictheory.net is a great interactive way to learn some basics. My learning is mainly geared towards producing for games, so I thought I could get away with a 25 key keyboard, but I regret it a lot.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  I'm learning karate. It's entirely opposite your position in that I'm lined up with beginners of all ages, so I'm learning alongside 7/8 yo boys and girls (I'm middle aged); and often some parents watch the class. It's difficult to be in the open like that - but it's a lesson in humility. It has given me a great appreciation of my children who are also in the class (at higher grades), and been a fascinating lesson in learning and development. It's helped me in many ways - I'd recommend it.
wallflower 8y ago
> Now I'm living proof that you can become good enough to read books in Spanish yet amaze people with your inability understand spoken Spanish. Two quick hacks to try. 1) Stop reading books in Spanish silently. Read them out loud. This will force your brain to create neural pathways between understanding, comprehending, and speaking. 2) Put in your earphones and walk down the street. Play something that is like a Spanish conversation podcast and try to mimic what they are saying. Doing it in public will help conquer the 'ego' that gets in the way of making mistakes in public and eventually with other people.

dahart 8y ago

I suspect adults learn languages a lot faster than kids, when we spend the same amount of time being exposed & practicing. All the polyglots say you have to be willing to mess up a lot and work to shed your fear of feeling stupid. In fact, try to seek it out because that's the primary way you get feedback & learn.

amenod 8y ago
And it is the same with almost everything, including programming. If you are afraid to admit you don't know something you will spend much more time before you learn it. Sure, you are playing with your reputation - but in my experience it is better to have a reputation of a fast learner than the reputation of a know-it-all.
hermitdev 8y ago
I'd suspect it's easier for children to learn unfamiliar spoken languages than adults (they don't have to un-learn certain patterns from a native language). I'd postulate it's probably easier for trained adults to learn new programming languages as they're more familiar with structured syntax and the semantics involved, and are more likely to have exposure/experience with a similar language. Also, concepts from one programming language carry over to another, even if they're expressed differently. I don't have any studies to back this up; it's just my gut-feel.
- EliRivers 8y ago
  My experience is the opposite. I don't have to unlearn native patterns. I learn a different pattern, and switch to it. Because I understand grammar and the parts of speech as an adult, at a level beyond simply having copied it from people around me, I can understand foreign, completely different grammar, at an intellectual level. When I speak (and learn) Japanese, my conscious understanding of Japanese grammar simply makes it easier. The same when I speak French. I don't unlearn anything; I learn different patterns, and I simply switch to them. In fact, it's what you suggested about programming languages, but for spoken languages. In my experience, adults can learn foreign languages far faster than children can. Maybe it appears that children are better at it because they are completely immersed in the language they need to learn and have no other means of communication. If I spent 16 hours a day immersed in a foreign language, with people trying to communicate with me and no other way of communicating back, I reckon I'd pick it up pretty swiftly.
  - hermitdev 8y ago
    Interesting. I admittedly don't have much experience learning foreign languages; I did K-12 in the US and was only required to take 2 years of Spanish. I'd assumed from discussions with other students taking, for example German, that it'd be more difficult. Versus programming languages, I've learned, C, C++, C#, Java, Python and Perl (and I supposed a modicum of JS) as well as x86, x64, 68k, MIPS, z80 and Atmel AVR assembly. I've always had an easier time learning a new programming language/assembler than a foreign natural language. Maybe that's just me.
    - dahart 8y ago
      Spoken languages are a lot harder to learn than programming languages. But think about how much faster you learned JS than the time it took to learn C (or whatever your first programming language was.) Don't forget to account for the vast amount of learned information you get to leverage from your first language, even if you have to unlearn a few things or learn a few new things. Even though JS is very different from C, learning JS was much, much faster for me than learning C was, because I already knew a whole lot about the way all languages work just from learning C. I'm learning Icelandic right now, and it only took a few weeks of 30 minutes a day to cover some basic conversational skills, gather maybe 100 or so words of vocabulary, and get an introduction to the basic speech patterns & conjugation. It'll take a lot longer to be fluent, but children take years to get that far, because they're starting from scratch and don't have connections to build on. I see a ton of connections to German and English that kids wouldn't. It's also hard to compare programming to high school Spanish, since it's easy for us to spend 10 hours a day programming, but in high school we topped out at like 3 hours a week of Spanish exposure, and most of that wasn't practicing very hard. I moved to Mexico as a child (during my first grade year), and learned enough Spanish to go to school, play with the kids, etc. I feel like I'm picking up languages faster now than I did then.
SilasX 8y ago
Right, I remember a Quora answer to the effect of: "If children pick up languages faster, it's just an artifact of how much more likely they are to be immersed in an environment of native speakers willing to put up with them and correct their errors; if you could get a group of native Spanish speakers to do the same to you as an adult, you'd pick it up quickly too." (I've anecdotally heard stories of "gringos" picking up conversational Spanish just from working in the back of a restaurant with a Spanish-only staff.)
kazinator 8y ago
You cannot spend the same amount of time, because a little kid basically has 60 hours in a day.
upvotinglurker 8y ago
> I suspect adults learn languages a lot faster than kids, when we spend the same amount of time being exposed & practicing. In linguistics, it's pretty well accepted that kids learn languages faster than adults for neurological reasons, with considerable research support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period
- dahart 8y ago
  Oh I'm sure that critical periods are legit, and I don't doubt that infants and very young kids are learning at a faster rate than adults. There's just a lot more to learn during first language acquisition than during second language acquisition. It's possible for a child to learn faster than an adult in general, and for it to still take longer to learn a language to basic proficiency, because there's a lot more to learn the first time. The article you linked even acknowledges that and confirms my premise from above: "Certainly, older learners of a second language rarely achieve the native-like fluency that younger learners display, despite often progressing faster than children in the initial stages." The research support on second language acquisition seems rather mixed here to me. There's certainly some evidence that kids eventually learn more, but this article presents some evidence against, and the evidence here on time to proficiency vs amount of effort isn't exactly what I'd call considerable. Most of the discussion is on whether second language learners achieve perfection, not on how long or how much effort it takes to become a basic speaker. Very little discussion on the learning environment difference between kids and adults. Kids get full immersion and years of constant feedback. Adults usually get a few classes or books, a few hours of practice a week, and are usually speaking bilingual while learning, etc. I'd like to see studies comparing apples to apples.

sangnoir 8y ago

> I notice the biggest difference between me and a child is that children don't care about messing up. A physiological difference you wouldn't have noticed are that children will be making more neural connections than adults at that stage of their development.

albertgoeswoof 8y ago
But they have significantly less neural connections overall, and you already have whole sets of neural connections available to reuse at a very high level - there’s no evidence yet that the neural connections children are making are stronger or more flexible than the adult ones in your brain right now. In fact given how most humans become more intelligent as they age (compare a 20 year old to a 40 year old) it’s likely that the brain continues to improve.

kzrdude 8y ago

It's a different skill but I'm learning piano as an adult. I have a digital piano and headphones, and it's great — nobody like neighbors, roomates or people outside on the street hears so I can play around and learn without problem. We can't really do the same with languages, but it's interesting! I definitely feel how I tense up if I have to practice openly.

Bekwnn 8y ago
I'm currently doing something similar and wanted to give 3 pieces of advice to anyone wanting to do similar: 1. Don't buy a 2 or 3 octave keyboard like I did. 2. Synthesia is great. Guitar hero for a midi keyboard. 3. musictheory.net is a great interactive way to learn some basics. My learning is mainly geared towards producing for games, so I thought I could get away with a 25 key keyboard, but I regret it a lot.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
I'm learning karate. It's entirely opposite your position in that I'm lined up with beginners of all ages, so I'm learning alongside 7/8 yo boys and girls (I'm middle aged); and often some parents watch the class. It's difficult to be in the open like that - but it's a lesson in humility. It has given me a great appreciation of my children who are also in the class (at higher grades), and been a fascinating lesson in learning and development. It's helped me in many ways - I'd recommend it.

wallflower 8y ago

> Now I'm living proof that you can become good enough to read books in Spanish yet amaze people with your inability understand spoken Spanish. Two quick hacks to try. 1) Stop reading books in Spanish silently. Read them out loud. This will force your brain to create neural pathways between understanding, comprehending, and speaking. 2) Put in your earphones and walk down the street. Play something that is like a Spanish conversation podcast and try to mimic what they are saying. Doing it in public will help conquer the 'ego' that gets in the way of making mistakes in public and eventually with other people.