3 ms·

Seeing how the vast majority of adults does in fact speak two languages and a huge chunk of them even more (e.g. most of Africa) I'd say your initial premise (a

Seeing how the vast majority of adults does in fact speak two languages and a huge chunk of them even more (e.g. most of Africa) I'd say your initial premise (adults struggle to learn anything past one) is misguided.

ferros 6y ago
I’m not so sure. Again speaking only from my observations. Some people i know have migrated to another country in their early twenties, taken on their new host language as their core. E.g partner and kids with this new language. Yet still after 40 years they are not as comfortable as with their original language.
anonytrary 6y ago
I think he is referring to brain plasticity differences between adults and children. Also, your rebuttal does not consider the fraction of those adults who learned those languages when they were young. I would guess that adults who already know more than one language can learn another more quickly than adults who only know one language.
- throwaway5778 6y ago
  Yeah people love to go on about brain plasticity but few people actually know much about it (for instance how you can re-induce said plasticity in adults), let alone how it relates to language learning as an adult. >Also, your rebuttal does not consider the fraction of those adults who learned those languages when they were young. That still includes: -Pretty much all immigrants -All populations using a regional lingua franca (Modern Standard Arabic, Swahili, Indonesian, French, English, Russian, Portuguese) -Everyone who learned English as a requirement for their job (that's everyone in business, research, the tourism industry, the software industry and probably a few others I'm missing) -Everyone who learned another language as part of their higher education (usually English, but can also include languages like French, German or Russian) Of course the language acquisition is usually far from perfect. You probably won't get rid of your accent as an adult, and your writing may be rife with mistakes. But as a communication tool, most adults manage just fine, because communication is part of being human and humans are naturally good at communicating.
triceratops 6y ago
As an adult who speaks 3 languages, I don't think that premise is misguided. All the languages I'm fluent in today, I was already fluent in by the time I was 8. Learning a 4th language in my teens (compulsory in high school) was way harder - I can barely read that one and can't write, speak, or listen in it. Even now I grind through Duolingo lessons in that language and barely retain anything. I assume that most bi-lingual or multi-lingual adults today picked up the fundamentals of all those languages as children. They didn't learn them after growing up.
- gre 6y ago
  American high school language programs are really bad. The teachers speak English mostly and there's no real incentive or reason to learn in or out of class because there's nobody you need to communicate with.
- pashamur 6y ago
  Look at Steve Kaufmann as a counterexample - he's learned most of his languages after 40 (he was multilingual from a young age, but there is certainly a process that lets even older adults pick up languages quite straightforwardly)

ferros 6y ago

I’m not so sure. Again speaking only from my observations. Some people i know have migrated to another country in their early twenties, taken on their new host language as their core. E.g partner and kids with this new language. Yet still after 40 years they are not as comfortable as with their original language.

anonytrary 6y ago

I think he is referring to brain plasticity differences between adults and children. Also, your rebuttal does not consider the fraction of those adults who learned those languages when they were young. I would guess that adults who already know more than one language can learn another more quickly than adults who only know one language.

throwaway5778 6y ago
Yeah people love to go on about brain plasticity but few people actually know much about it (for instance how you can re-induce said plasticity in adults), let alone how it relates to language learning as an adult. >Also, your rebuttal does not consider the fraction of those adults who learned those languages when they were young. That still includes: -Pretty much all immigrants -All populations using a regional lingua franca (Modern Standard Arabic, Swahili, Indonesian, French, English, Russian, Portuguese) -Everyone who learned English as a requirement for their job (that's everyone in business, research, the tourism industry, the software industry and probably a few others I'm missing) -Everyone who learned another language as part of their higher education (usually English, but can also include languages like French, German or Russian) Of course the language acquisition is usually far from perfect. You probably won't get rid of your accent as an adult, and your writing may be rife with mistakes. But as a communication tool, most adults manage just fine, because communication is part of being human and humans are naturally good at communicating.

triceratops 6y ago

As an adult who speaks 3 languages, I don't think that premise is misguided. All the languages I'm fluent in today, I was already fluent in by the time I was 8. Learning a 4th language in my teens (compulsory in high school) was way harder - I can barely read that one and can't write, speak, or listen in it. Even now I grind through Duolingo lessons in that language and barely retain anything. I assume that most bi-lingual or multi-lingual adults today picked up the fundamentals of all those languages as children. They didn't learn them after growing up.

gre 6y ago
American high school language programs are really bad. The teachers speak English mostly and there's no real incentive or reason to learn in or out of class because there's nobody you need to communicate with.
pashamur 6y ago
Look at Steve Kaufmann as a counterexample - he's learned most of his languages after 40 (he was multilingual from a young age, but there is certainly a process that lets even older adults pick up languages quite straightforwardly)