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When do we become unable to learn a language like a native speaker? (2018)

147 points by vanusa 6y ago

wryoak 6y ago
Missing the important qualifier "like a native" in the title
czzr 6y ago
“researchers from three Boston-based universities showed children are proficient at learning a second language up until the age of 18, roughly 10 years later than earlier estimates. But the study also showed that it is best to start by age 10 if you want to achieve the grammatical fluency of a native speaker“
- Causality1 6y ago
  Friends of mine who moved to the US as teens have what I would call off-native. Their mastery is definitely native-level but their accent is a bit odd. You might wonder if their accent is just an American one you haven't heard before. A good example of this level of English proficiency is YongYea on YouTube.
  - microtherion 6y ago
    One detail the article does not discuss is the distinction between oral and written competence. I started learning English in my teens. I would judge my reading and writing proficiency to be at the higher end of the native speaker spectrum. I speak fluently as well, but have retained a distinctly non-native accent, and I sometimes have difficulties understanding spoken English (getting older does not help there either…).
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    Mila Kunis has very-very slight slavic accent, if you listen carefully.
- outworlder 6y ago
  > But the study also showed that it is best to start by age 10 if you want to achieve the grammatical fluency of a native speaker Another angle that should be considered is that, while children learn languages very quickly, they can 'unlearn' just as fast. One of my cousins spoke fluent Japanese as a young child. Then he moved to another country. A few years later he couldn't speak or understand Japanese anymore. I've since learned that this is very common.
bryan0 6y ago
should have (2018) in the title. > "There are three main ideas as to why language-learning ability declines at 18: social changes, interference from one’s primary language and continuing brain development." I wonder which is the most dominant?
- aeyes 6y ago
  Social changes probably, you just don't have the time. At 30 I took a year off, went to school to learn a new language which I never had any contact with. After one year I started to work in tech again only communicating using the language I started learning a year ago. After 2-3 years I had no communication issues at all anymore, working with dozens of people. The article focuses on native grammar skill and that is a problem I have. Every language has grammar (and vocabulary) which is rarely used. I struggle with some of the rarely used but more advanced grammar. I know that I could master it if I studied for 3-6 more months full time but I just don't see the benefit of investing that time. My time is better spent working. I have been thinking about doing it all over again for a while now. Mandarin should be an interesting challenge.
  - VRay 6y ago
    yeah, I think you're right Little kids are studying hard in a total immersion environment for 12+ hours a day, with no other language to fall back to I think an adult who puts the same incredible amount of effort into it can learn another language and get to a native level
  - emj 6y ago
    > [what's the] benefit of investing that time. Please continue studying the language, it is frustrating hearing non-native speakers say this. Your bad grammar or foreign mind will always hinder how you can interact with the community you are in. English is pretty strange in this way, I feel the cultural part is so estranged from the language, the width of the english speaking community is just too vast. You can get by with much less english than in other languages IMHO. Malay is my challange, going pretty well.
krspykrm 6y ago
IMO one of the most prominent reasons - and one that I never see mentioned - that learning a language as an adult is more difficult is that the older you are, the more socially-unacceptable it becomes to point out grammatical and vocabulary errors. When you're a child, elders correcting you is so natural it scarcely even breaks the flow of conversation: child: "Me and Tim went -" adult: "Tim and I went." child: "{pause} Tim and I went..." As an adult, you simply do not get this kind of feedback. There's no chance in hell I would interrupt another adult to make the above correction. It's simply too disrespectful. And yet it is precisely this disrespectful interruption and correction that enables children to have tight feedback loops which result in fast, effective learning.
- contexto_ 6y ago
  Along the same lines, as adults, we often take these corrections personally (perhaps as a matter of habit) and therefore avoid situations where they may occur (conversation groups for new speakers, explicitly asking native speakers to correct you etc).
- ratww 6y ago
  Interesting, my German friends do it to me sometimes and I'm very grateful for it.
  - MrsPeaches 6y ago
    Haha nice to see this isn't just me! Maybe it is a specifically German thing.
- aeyes 6y ago
  There is another reason: People understand you, interrupting with corrections hurts the conversation. I often ask for corrections but nobody ever does it. When I'm unsure how to say something I sometimes ask to get some feedback. Sometimes I only understand 70% of what a person is saying (mostly due to dialects), I rarely need to ask them to repeat it because the brain is capable of piecing it together. Another problem is that unlearning something you always did wrong is extremely hard. You need to get it right from the beginning. That's the beauty of language school, they point out your mistakes early and you can learn from the mistakes of other students in your group. If you take the time and take real classes, you'll have that tight feedback loop you need.
yelloweyes 6y ago
I don't know if this means anything but now, at 30, I have sooo many more things going through my mind than when I was a child, and I think it makes it harder to learn anything. Did I turn off the stove? Have I fed my dogs today? Oh fuck I gotta do my taxes. Can't sit down too long or my hemorrhoids will flare up. Am I really going to be hunching over a computer for the rest of my life?
lurquer 6y ago
A child spends all their time immersed in their native language... they hear nothing else. There is no other ‘competing’ language. Thus, they learn it quickly. An adult, on the other hand, can never be immersed into a new language like a child. Even if an adult is in a foreign country 24/7 without any speaking his native language, the adult will still hear his native language in his own head; that is, the adult will think and talk to himself in his native language and will always be a competitor for the external voices he hears.
- hoka-one-one 6y ago
  This is not even true, plenty of people think in think in their second language.
  - billforsternz 6y ago
    No, because we are talking about the foreign person trying to learn the new (second) language by total immersion. They obviously aren't going to start thinking in the second language until after they've learned it.
    - rjsw 6y ago
      You can start thinking in the second language before you have fully mastered it.
      - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
        Sure but what happens if you try to think of a word you haven’t learned yet?
        082349872349872 6y ago
        Circumlocution. In this case, circumcogitation. Desh walowda we fo du owbit owta we. (there's more than one way to transfer orbits)
  - 6y ago
gbronner 6y ago
My observation is that you lose the ability to sound like a native speaker if you start learning the language sometime around puberty. Haven't seen any studies on this, but it holds up well when you talk to people who came to the US at different ages.
- deleted 6y ago
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lottin 6y ago
The barriers to learning a new language like a native speaker are mostly economical rather than biological. The amount of effort that it requires is just huge and the return is very small, because you don't really gain much from speaking like a native speaker compared to speaking like a foreign speaker. The difference is mostly cosmetic.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  > The barriers to learning a new language like a native speaker are mostly economical rather than biological. Are they? The article doesn't present clear evidence either way. And yet, that would be the most useful finding of this inquiry, were it to be completed.
  - mamon 6y ago
    I spent a year in the US, despite my English being pretty bad, to a point where I struggle to pronounce some words correctly, or often ask the other person to repeat what they've just said. Despite all that I feel no need to improve my English, since I survived that year somehow. If I was to invest my time in language learning, I would probably start a completely new language instead, due to better ROI.
  - lottin 6y ago
    I don't have clear evidence either, I'm just speaking about my personal experience and that of people around me.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      I'll add my experience (and that of my entourage) in support. In a more illustrious example, von Braun felt no need to avoid speaking like a foreign speaker, despite having lines like "small motor in the winged fourth stage": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zcU85O82XE&t=25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zcU85O82XE&t=25 see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24716521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24716521 The situation would change if one were in an economic situation where one has to "pass" as having had a different background, but does that ever happen in civilised areas? (the Expanse' Skinnies would have yet more issues, as with their distinct phenotype it'd be impossible to pass: Belta, fodagut, mi showxa wit naterash. To mebi tenye delowda sekrip pash setara. To mebi tili tenye walowda kapawu unte imbobo gerowsh wit imbobo okwa ere Sirish. To mebi tili vedi fit inya unte mebi xalte wit kopeng inya. Amash: detim kasi kowl owta inya vedi to, im fosho gonya pense ere kibal!)
auganov 6y ago
Here's the quiz used to conduct this research. It's supposed to predict one's native language. Predicted English for myself even though it's not. Doesn't seem particularly tough. Not sure it's a well-designed test. http://archive.gameswithwords.org/WhichEnglish http://archive.gameswithwords.org/WhichEnglish
- deleted 6y ago
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syspec 6y ago
> It was shared 300,000 times on Facebook, made the front page of Reddit and became a trending topic on 4chan Not to take away from the study, which I think is quite valid, and interesting. But, is seeing "became a trending topic on 4chan" written like it is a metric of success along with number of likes is a bit weird.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
  Typically, it's used as a subtle metric of notoriety (without having to say so explicitly) in mainstream media.
01100011 6y ago
Doesn't it depend on the language? I've picked up quite a bit of Spanish late in life and I think it came fairly easily. Granted, it helps to be in CA where Spanish is quite pervasive. I'm now trying to pick up conversational Vietnamese and, wow, that is a whole different ball game. Tonal languages are full of subtleties that don't come easy to someone who has never paid attention to them. It feels like I'm trying to learn perfect pitch.
jarjoura 6y ago
I think its important to call out that, it's entirely possible to become a fluent speaker in any secondary language you commit to, at any age. I've seen it and know people who've put in the hard work. However, the distinction here is that, the older you get, the harder it is. A lot is stacked against an older brain, both in its ability to quickly make room for the massive amount of new knowledge required and your life's ability to make time for it. If you persevere, you can get there, but you're just going to have to understand that it's going to feel like climbing Mount Everest. If you're a kid or teenager, it will come to you much faster and maybe like taking a walk up a small SF street. Kids can learn a new language simply by watching a subtitled TV show or listening to music in that language. Adults on the other hand need structured exercises, dedicated studying time and immersion.
- titzer 6y ago
  On the other hand, an adult brain has an advantage in that it already knows another language fluently, so complex words and concepts in the new language can be explained by way of translation, analogy, and deconstruction into the native language. An adult also has the advantage of structured learning and applying the most efficient language-learning strategy: systematic study of vocabulary and grammar, etc. Adults do have a disadvantage as far as accents and fluency are concerned though. For that, you need total immersion (i.e. no relying on prior language as a crutch) and to completely reset oral posture rather than letting the oral posture of their native language influence speaking habits.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    In the very early days of learning a language, about the only native-speaker conversations one can follow are between mothers and small children. A year later, however, one is capable of participating in conversations that are much richer than those mothers are still having with the same children.
- ngokevin 6y ago
  Yeah, anyone can learn a language quickly. I'm not sure how much the old brain affects it or at what age it cuts off. But people that put in the time or are in the right environment can pick up a language in months. Polyglots do it all the time, and they aren't geniuses, they just found methods that worked for them and have fun with it. I just don't think there are popular good methods out there. The most successful is complete immersion, but that's extremely hard to be in that situation. Most people want to learn a language for fun. People first default is to rely on Duolingo but everyone I talked to don't learn anything from it even after using it for hundreds of days. I get by with Anki, but definitely helps to have native speaker nearby to help and practice.
ablekh 6y ago
> ... most of us will not be able to master grammar like a native speaker — or probably sound like one either. I disagree with the "mastering grammar" point. I think that many native speakers are less than perfect in terms of mastery of their language grammar, especially in various tricky / special cases. Native speakers' ability to use correct grammar stems from combination of language environment immersion and some formal teaching in school. However, I believe that the immersion plays lesser role in grammar mastery and larger role in fluency (due to "thinking in native language"). On the other hand, formal grammar of any language is a relatively limited set of rules, so, given appropriate determination, time and effort, it could be mastered to a native or near-native level regardless of the learner's age. In my opinion, the most difficult aspects of learning a foreign language are richness of vocabulary, idioms, fluency in embedding cultural references, and accent-free pronunciation.
- gnulinux 6y ago
  Linguistically, there is no such thing possible that a native speaker not being a master of their languages. It is by definition true that all natives speakers who do not have intellectual disability are masters of their mother tongue and are idiomatic, except for idiosyncratic (personal/creative) phrases. However, the issue is, languages live as a complex cloud of many mutually intelligible dialects and argo. The language you learn in school can really not be the language you learned from your parent; that does not mean you're an imperfect native speaker. It is just the case that over the 19th century many nation states (such as Italy, Germany etc...) had to standardize their languages so that there is a way for all citizens understand each other; like a lingua franca except easier to learn. Following this thought, it is possible for a non-native speaker to absorb the "formal" grammar of a language, however learning idiomatic speech and tiniest differences in connotation is a completely different deal. It is very plausible that a non-native speaker cannot master non-formal, "human" aspect of grammar. Languages are formalized by people, so that we can teach them to other people. The assumption is that, although English is not a universal language, human brain has certain universal concepts, such as logic, that can be understood by everyone. Then we exploit this feature of this brain, we construct human languages as formal languages, so that we can study them. Purely speaking, languages are not formal objects, they're just whatever native speakers use to communicate. We can use physics as an analogy. Surely the universe does not operate with mathematical formulas and calculations. Humans observe the nature, then build models that predict nature. And the more predictive a model is, the more useful it is. If you're designing a car Newtononian physics can be a very useful tool to understand the nature, but that doesn't mean nature, intrinsically, uses Newtonian physics to "behave". Similarly, we can observe human languages and construct imperfect models of them (grammar) after the fact. This is only good enough to explain 99% of the spoken language (good enough for all citizens to communicate).
tus88 6y ago
Never. It's a dirty myth older people can't learn - they usually just lack time.
- ngokevin 6y ago
  Agreed. Anyone can learn a language. It's not even just time, but keeping up the streak and motivation. Learn a little per day, keep up at it, and you'll progress at an N + 1 level. I think it's important people don't burn out, and find outlets in which they can practice.
k__ 6y ago
I'd like to know how much learning a second language as a child has impact on this. I'm a native German speaker and English is my second language. I was very bad in English at school and just got better in the last 5 years and I'm 35 now. On a side-note, I'm learning Spanish right now with Duolingo (as some kind of social media detox) and I like it. Every now and then I can understand more Spanish Tweets and the lack of grammatical explanations in Duolingo often helps to get "a feeling" for the language instead of really learning the principles. Wouldn't have imagined les explanation could be better.
jimkleiber 6y ago
I think the ability to learn a language is often related to how much uncertainty we can currently handle. As I get older, I feel myself and others pressuring me more to "know the answer" to things and don't believe I have as much room to be wrong as I did when I was younger. When I was learning Swahili in Tanzania in my 20s, I was wrong a lot but I guess I wasn't as worried about the consequences. In short, learning a new language can make us look stupid and as we get older, we may feel more afraid of looking stupid :-D
deleted 6y ago
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hbarka 6y ago
The same reason it’s harder to learn how to touchtype once you’re an adult. Too damn busy to get that immersion time.
russellbeattie 6y ago
I think the better question is, when does being able to think and do math quickly in a new language disappear? Lots of theories in this thread, but pretty much everyone has a mother tongue in which they think and count. There might be tons of outliers, I'm sure, but for the vast majority of multilingual speakers, your native language is the one you go back to in your head when you're trying to calculate the tip or count pennies. Yes, as odd as it seems, we use language when doing math. Are you multilingual? Have someone give you a basic math problem verbally, and then give them the answer. Which language did you use? Most everyone will switch to their native language, and then switch back. So again, when does this ability disappear? I moved to Spain when I was 30yo and learned how to live and work in Spanish, but I'll never be truly fluent. English just is how my mind works, and Spanish is really just a bunch of synonyms in my brain. It's all in one giant bucket, and just like I don't swear in front of small children and use simpler versions of words to talk to them, and use strict noun-verb-object sentences (with no phrasal verbs!!) when speaking "international English" to someone for whom English is a second language, I speak Spanish words in a certain order for Spanish speakers. This is not how truly multilingual people think. What also is interesting is how growing up in a multilingual environment changes how fast you can context switch. Someone who grew up in say rural France and had no exposure to English, might learn it amazingly well, but if they're in mixed company, you can watch their heads explode trying to swap languages. I love the blank stare they'll give you as they change brains, recall what you just said, and then are able to respond. Then of course you have the Spanglish teens of LA who don't even notice they're mixing languages in the same sentence. I think all this is to say, it's a tad more complicated than just "when" and "if".
- musicale 6y ago
  > when does being able to think and do math quickly in a new language disappear A few minutes after the final exam, usually.
- deleted 6y ago
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- arc-in-space 6y ago
  Phrasal verbs, huh. I never thought about it but I suppose English does have a gazillion of those nano-idioms. Turn up, turn down, turn on, turn off, turn to, turn in, turn out. I think I subconsciously avoid them as well when talking to someone with a limited grasp of the language•. Regarding math, I'm a English non-native and learning to 'think math' in English was something that I, at some point, simply decided to start putting an effort into, as if it was more of a separate skill. I'm not sure if it's the best indicator, but I definitely did stick with my native language for math for a while, although only for simple counting and arithmetic. I've experienced the language switch brainhalt myself, it's pretty funny. For a moment it feels like someone spoke alien to me. [•] modulating language to make it go down through google translate smoother is something that I've noticed myself and some others do on the English-Japanese barrier, from both sides. P.S. Hey sweet, clever.io paused the timer while I was busy typing all this out. Neat!
borroka 6y ago
I speak English and Spanish well, I'd say fluently (my native language is neither English nor Spanish). I studied English in high school (2 hours a week), but I first chatted with native speakers ~ 15 years ago. I have been living in the US for 10 years and I use English continuously: I read in English, I listen to the radio in English, podcasts, TV. I have a very rich vocabulary, I'd say in the top 15% of native English speakers. For the life of me, I cannot watch movies without subtitles. That does not happen with podcasts, radio, or live talks. It is not that I understand nothing, but I struggle. My hypothesis is that the movie dialogue is not "natural" or "intuitive" and I cannot predict in some way what will be said. That prediction—I hypothesize—is needed when, allow me to use this image, the language is still not "yours". I still make mistakes when writing, I forget "s" all the time when using the third person and other minor mistakes that native speakers basically never make. I just don't feel the language they way I feel my native language. I have yet to meet someone who has learned a language in their 20s and became as fluent as they are in their native language. The brain is increasingly less plastic the older we get and that is undoubtedly true for anyone who is not living in fantasy world for both motor and cognitive abilities. PS, I am sure there are some typos, despite me having read my post a few times.
- fiblye 6y ago
  I'm American and watch movies with subtitles. The audio balance is generally fucked up and there's some weird fuzziness to the sound or people suddenly start whispering only to have massive explosions and metal being torn apart 5 seconds later. (Yes, I know people say to adjust audio balance and settings but it doesn't fix the problem.) It's impossible to follow the dialogue otherwise. I'm fine with watching TV without subtitles because usually it's made with the assumption that people actually want to hear the dialogue.
  - borroka 6y ago
    I'd say the main difference for me is that I have no problem whatsoever understanding movies in my native language. I love watching movies and it is quite frustrating for me not being able to get the dialogue as clearly as I get it in my native language.
moosey 6y ago
This article, like other things I've read in books like "The Organized Mind", or the class "Learning How to Learn" is that learning for adults is usually difficult not because of reduced learning capacity, but instead individual behaviors, emotional regulation, and culture. Dr. Levetin suggests that it's mostly around how much frustration you can handle, and how much time you think you have left vs. the amount of value you'll get from what you are learning. Procrastination, a great killer of self-education, is primarily driven by low emotional intelligence/regulation. This is exactly what I get from this article again: the issue is not brain plasticity in learning, but the willingness to be frustrated, a desire to learn new things (we can't all be Paul Erdos) and the time to learn.
- zumu 6y ago
  It's more than just willingness. It's having access to the time and support structure necessary to completely learn the language from scratch. What adult can a few years sitting around speaking and listening to a language 12+ hours a day while being able to mostly ignore their native language? Children go to schools where they are taught and socialized in the target language. They are then able to come home and watch tv, movies and listen to music all in the target culture. There are some other confounding issues I'm not touching, but I think you're getting to the point. The issue isn't the brain so much as it is the greater systems involved.
dontspeak 6y ago
It disappears in the mid-teens. After that point, your brain becomes less plastic. When your brain is less plastic, learning nee things is difficult.
gexla 6y ago
Shooting from the hip here... Being a kid in a culture goes a long way in forming how you speak. Your language is an expression of your culture. So much of my personality, how I speak, words I use, etc has been formed by what I watched and listened to growing up. By the time you're 20, it's past the time to form that same experience. The difference between this speaker and someone who has learned to speak perfect English in their 20's is that the former shapes the language as it continues to evolve while the latter simply learns (though that's not to say that late learners don't shape language.)
imtringued 6y ago
The worst part about learning languages is that you don't want to miss out. The second worst part is that some languages are very difficult while others are very easy. The third worst part is that I am isolated from those who speak the new language. The fourth worst part is that the older you get the less time you have left both per day and in absolute terms. I don't think it is difficult to learn a third language. It's taking years but what many people miss is that a 10 year old child has worse conversational skills than an adult who has been learning and speaking a foreign language for 10 years.
Dryondristica 6y ago
I learnt a second language from scratch as an adult. The neural plasticity thing is definitely real but I think the effect is often overstated. Adults a) rarely spend as much focused time on language study as kids and b) are more afraid of making mistakes/less inclined to say things that they know are not 100% right. I've observed that people who care less about making mistakes (to the point where it's embarrassing to watch) end up learning much faster.
ivan1783 6y ago
My mother tongue is Russian. I learned English in school starting at 6. After that I learned German starting at around 22-23. Since 25 or so I am learning French - currently 31. The two difficulties I have is 1. time and 2. immersion. I think its correct that I will never speak like a native speaker but it will be close enough that it will take some minutes for a native speaker to figure out that I'm not a native speaker. Funny enough - I have developed an English accent in Russian because I don't use it so often any more. Actually its hard to say - Russians have trouble identifying where I'm actually from based on the accent.
InfiniteRand 6y ago
I wonder if there are some differences in how people pick up languages in places where learning a new language is a casual thing (example, India) vs a significant achievement (example, the US). It does seem possible that just believing that language is easy might change the process in which it is learned, although my impression about studies on the effects of beliefs is that is hard to make high quality studies for this.

147 points by vanusa 6y ago

Missing the important qualifier "like a native" in the title

czzr 6y ago

“researchers from three Boston-based universities showed children are proficient at learning a second language up until the age of 18, roughly 10 years later than earlier estimates. But the study also showed that it is best to start by age 10 if you want to achieve the grammatical fluency of a native speaker“

Causality1 6y ago
Friends of mine who moved to the US as teens have what I would call off-native. Their mastery is definitely native-level but their accent is a bit odd. You might wonder if their accent is just an American one you haven't heard before. A good example of this level of English proficiency is YongYea on YouTube.
- microtherion 6y ago
  One detail the article does not discuss is the distinction between oral and written competence. I started learning English in my teens. I would judge my reading and writing proficiency to be at the higher end of the native speaker spectrum. I speak fluently as well, but have retained a distinctly non-native accent, and I sometimes have difficulties understanding spoken English (getting older does not help there either…).
- deleted 6y ago
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- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  Mila Kunis has very-very slight slavic accent, if you listen carefully.
outworlder 6y ago
> But the study also showed that it is best to start by age 10 if you want to achieve the grammatical fluency of a native speaker Another angle that should be considered is that, while children learn languages very quickly, they can 'unlearn' just as fast. One of my cousins spoke fluent Japanese as a young child. Then he moved to another country. A few years later he couldn't speak or understand Japanese anymore. I've since learned that this is very common.

bryan0 6y ago

should have (2018) in the title. > "There are three main ideas as to why language-learning ability declines at 18: social changes, interference from one’s primary language and continuing brain development." I wonder which is the most dominant?

aeyes 6y ago
Social changes probably, you just don't have the time. At 30 I took a year off, went to school to learn a new language which I never had any contact with. After one year I started to work in tech again only communicating using the language I started learning a year ago. After 2-3 years I had no communication issues at all anymore, working with dozens of people. The article focuses on native grammar skill and that is a problem I have. Every language has grammar (and vocabulary) which is rarely used. I struggle with some of the rarely used but more advanced grammar. I know that I could master it if I studied for 3-6 more months full time but I just don't see the benefit of investing that time. My time is better spent working. I have been thinking about doing it all over again for a while now. Mandarin should be an interesting challenge.
- VRay 6y ago
  yeah, I think you're right Little kids are studying hard in a total immersion environment for 12+ hours a day, with no other language to fall back to I think an adult who puts the same incredible amount of effort into it can learn another language and get to a native level
- emj 6y ago
  > [what's the] benefit of investing that time. Please continue studying the language, it is frustrating hearing non-native speakers say this. Your bad grammar or foreign mind will always hinder how you can interact with the community you are in. English is pretty strange in this way, I feel the cultural part is so estranged from the language, the width of the english speaking community is just too vast. You can get by with much less english than in other languages IMHO. Malay is my challange, going pretty well.

krspykrm 6y ago

IMO one of the most prominent reasons - and one that I never see mentioned - that learning a language as an adult is more difficult is that the older you are, the more socially-unacceptable it becomes to point out grammatical and vocabulary errors. When you're a child, elders correcting you is so natural it scarcely even breaks the flow of conversation: child: "Me and Tim went -" adult: "Tim and I went." child: "{pause} Tim and I went..." As an adult, you simply do not get this kind of feedback. There's no chance in hell I would interrupt another adult to make the above correction. It's simply too disrespectful. And yet it is precisely this disrespectful interruption and correction that enables children to have tight feedback loops which result in fast, effective learning.

contexto_ 6y ago
Along the same lines, as adults, we often take these corrections personally (perhaps as a matter of habit) and therefore avoid situations where they may occur (conversation groups for new speakers, explicitly asking native speakers to correct you etc).
ratww 6y ago
Interesting, my German friends do it to me sometimes and I'm very grateful for it.
- MrsPeaches 6y ago
  Haha nice to see this isn't just me! Maybe it is a specifically German thing.
aeyes 6y ago
There is another reason: People understand you, interrupting with corrections hurts the conversation. I often ask for corrections but nobody ever does it. When I'm unsure how to say something I sometimes ask to get some feedback. Sometimes I only understand 70% of what a person is saying (mostly due to dialects), I rarely need to ask them to repeat it because the brain is capable of piecing it together. Another problem is that unlearning something you always did wrong is extremely hard. You need to get it right from the beginning. That's the beauty of language school, they point out your mistakes early and you can learn from the mistakes of other students in your group. If you take the time and take real classes, you'll have that tight feedback loop you need.

yelloweyes 6y ago

I don't know if this means anything but now, at 30, I have sooo many more things going through my mind than when I was a child, and I think it makes it harder to learn anything. Did I turn off the stove? Have I fed my dogs today? Oh fuck I gotta do my taxes. Can't sit down too long or my hemorrhoids will flare up. Am I really going to be hunching over a computer for the rest of my life?

lurquer 6y ago

A child spends all their time immersed in their native language... they hear nothing else. There is no other ‘competing’ language. Thus, they learn it quickly. An adult, on the other hand, can never be immersed into a new language like a child. Even if an adult is in a foreign country 24/7 without any speaking his native language, the adult will still hear his native language in his own head; that is, the adult will think and talk to himself in his native language and will always be a competitor for the external voices he hears.

hoka-one-one 6y ago
This is not even true, plenty of people think in think in their second language.
- billforsternz 6y ago
  No, because we are talking about the foreign person trying to learn the new (second) language by total immersion. They obviously aren't going to start thinking in the second language until after they've learned it.
  - rjsw 6y ago
    You can start thinking in the second language before you have fully mastered it.
    - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
      Sure but what happens if you try to think of a word you haven’t learned yet?
      - 082349872349872 6y ago
        Circumlocution. In this case, circumcogitation. Desh walowda we fo du owbit owta we. (there's more than one way to transfer orbits)
- 6y ago

gbronner 6y ago

My observation is that you lose the ability to sound like a native speaker if you start learning the language sometime around puberty. Haven't seen any studies on this, but it holds up well when you talk to people who came to the US at different ages.

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lottin 6y ago

The barriers to learning a new language like a native speaker are mostly economical rather than biological. The amount of effort that it requires is just huge and the return is very small, because you don't really gain much from speaking like a native speaker compared to speaking like a foreign speaker. The difference is mostly cosmetic.

wombatmobile 6y ago
> The barriers to learning a new language like a native speaker are mostly economical rather than biological. Are they? The article doesn't present clear evidence either way. And yet, that would be the most useful finding of this inquiry, were it to be completed.
- mamon 6y ago
  I spent a year in the US, despite my English being pretty bad, to a point where I struggle to pronounce some words correctly, or often ask the other person to repeat what they've just said. Despite all that I feel no need to improve my English, since I survived that year somehow. If I was to invest my time in language learning, I would probably start a completely new language instead, due to better ROI.
- lottin 6y ago
  I don't have clear evidence either, I'm just speaking about my personal experience and that of people around me.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    I'll add my experience (and that of my entourage) in support. In a more illustrious example, von Braun felt no need to avoid speaking like a foreign speaker, despite having lines like "small motor in the winged fourth stage": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zcU85O82XE&t=25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zcU85O82XE&t=25 see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24716521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24716521 The situation would change if one were in an economic situation where one has to "pass" as having had a different background, but does that ever happen in civilised areas? (the Expanse' Skinnies would have yet more issues, as with their distinct phenotype it'd be impossible to pass: Belta, fodagut, mi showxa wit naterash. To mebi tenye delowda sekrip pash setara. To mebi tili tenye walowda kapawu unte imbobo gerowsh wit imbobo okwa ere Sirish. To mebi tili vedi fit inya unte mebi xalte wit kopeng inya. Amash: detim kasi kowl owta inya vedi to, im fosho gonya pense ere kibal!)

auganov 6y ago

Here's the quiz used to conduct this research. It's supposed to predict one's native language. Predicted English for myself even though it's not. Doesn't seem particularly tough. Not sure it's a well-designed test. http://archive.gameswithwords.org/WhichEnglish http://archive.gameswithwords.org/WhichEnglish

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syspec 6y ago

> It was shared 300,000 times on Facebook, made the front page of Reddit and became a trending topic on 4chan Not to take away from the study, which I think is quite valid, and interesting. But, is seeing "became a trending topic on 4chan" written like it is a metric of success along with number of likes is a bit weird.

kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
Typically, it's used as a subtle metric of notoriety (without having to say so explicitly) in mainstream media.

01100011 6y ago

Doesn't it depend on the language? I've picked up quite a bit of Spanish late in life and I think it came fairly easily. Granted, it helps to be in CA where Spanish is quite pervasive. I'm now trying to pick up conversational Vietnamese and, wow, that is a whole different ball game. Tonal languages are full of subtleties that don't come easy to someone who has never paid attention to them. It feels like I'm trying to learn perfect pitch.

jarjoura 6y ago

I think its important to call out that, it's entirely possible to become a fluent speaker in any secondary language you commit to, at any age. I've seen it and know people who've put in the hard work. However, the distinction here is that, the older you get, the harder it is. A lot is stacked against an older brain, both in its ability to quickly make room for the massive amount of new knowledge required and your life's ability to make time for it. If you persevere, you can get there, but you're just going to have to understand that it's going to feel like climbing Mount Everest. If you're a kid or teenager, it will come to you much faster and maybe like taking a walk up a small SF street. Kids can learn a new language simply by watching a subtitled TV show or listening to music in that language. Adults on the other hand need structured exercises, dedicated studying time and immersion.

titzer 6y ago
On the other hand, an adult brain has an advantage in that it already knows another language fluently, so complex words and concepts in the new language can be explained by way of translation, analogy, and deconstruction into the native language. An adult also has the advantage of structured learning and applying the most efficient language-learning strategy: systematic study of vocabulary and grammar, etc. Adults do have a disadvantage as far as accents and fluency are concerned though. For that, you need total immersion (i.e. no relying on prior language as a crutch) and to completely reset oral posture rather than letting the oral posture of their native language influence speaking habits.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  In the very early days of learning a language, about the only native-speaker conversations one can follow are between mothers and small children. A year later, however, one is capable of participating in conversations that are much richer than those mothers are still having with the same children.
ngokevin 6y ago
Yeah, anyone can learn a language quickly. I'm not sure how much the old brain affects it or at what age it cuts off. But people that put in the time or are in the right environment can pick up a language in months. Polyglots do it all the time, and they aren't geniuses, they just found methods that worked for them and have fun with it. I just don't think there are popular good methods out there. The most successful is complete immersion, but that's extremely hard to be in that situation. Most people want to learn a language for fun. People first default is to rely on Duolingo but everyone I talked to don't learn anything from it even after using it for hundreds of days. I get by with Anki, but definitely helps to have native speaker nearby to help and practice.

ablekh 6y ago

> ... most of us will not be able to master grammar like a native speaker — or probably sound like one either. I disagree with the "mastering grammar" point. I think that many native speakers are less than perfect in terms of mastery of their language grammar, especially in various tricky / special cases. Native speakers' ability to use correct grammar stems from combination of language environment immersion and some formal teaching in school. However, I believe that the immersion plays lesser role in grammar mastery and larger role in fluency (due to "thinking in native language"). On the other hand, formal grammar of any language is a relatively limited set of rules, so, given appropriate determination, time and effort, it could be mastered to a native or near-native level regardless of the learner's age. In my opinion, the most difficult aspects of learning a foreign language are richness of vocabulary, idioms, fluency in embedding cultural references, and accent-free pronunciation.

gnulinux 6y ago
Linguistically, there is no such thing possible that a native speaker not being a master of their languages. It is by definition true that all natives speakers who do not have intellectual disability are masters of their mother tongue and are idiomatic, except for idiosyncratic (personal/creative) phrases. However, the issue is, languages live as a complex cloud of many mutually intelligible dialects and argo. The language you learn in school can really not be the language you learned from your parent; that does not mean you're an imperfect native speaker. It is just the case that over the 19th century many nation states (such as Italy, Germany etc...) had to standardize their languages so that there is a way for all citizens understand each other; like a lingua franca except easier to learn. Following this thought, it is possible for a non-native speaker to absorb the "formal" grammar of a language, however learning idiomatic speech and tiniest differences in connotation is a completely different deal. It is very plausible that a non-native speaker cannot master non-formal, "human" aspect of grammar. Languages are formalized by people, so that we can teach them to other people. The assumption is that, although English is not a universal language, human brain has certain universal concepts, such as logic, that can be understood by everyone. Then we exploit this feature of this brain, we construct human languages as formal languages, so that we can study them. Purely speaking, languages are not formal objects, they're just whatever native speakers use to communicate. We can use physics as an analogy. Surely the universe does not operate with mathematical formulas and calculations. Humans observe the nature, then build models that predict nature. And the more predictive a model is, the more useful it is. If you're designing a car Newtononian physics can be a very useful tool to understand the nature, but that doesn't mean nature, intrinsically, uses Newtonian physics to "behave". Similarly, we can observe human languages and construct imperfect models of them (grammar) after the fact. This is only good enough to explain 99% of the spoken language (good enough for all citizens to communicate).

tus88 6y ago

Never. It's a dirty myth older people can't learn - they usually just lack time.

ngokevin 6y ago
Agreed. Anyone can learn a language. It's not even just time, but keeping up the streak and motivation. Learn a little per day, keep up at it, and you'll progress at an N + 1 level. I think it's important people don't burn out, and find outlets in which they can practice.

k__ 6y ago

I'd like to know how much learning a second language as a child has impact on this. I'm a native German speaker and English is my second language. I was very bad in English at school and just got better in the last 5 years and I'm 35 now. On a side-note, I'm learning Spanish right now with Duolingo (as some kind of social media detox) and I like it. Every now and then I can understand more Spanish Tweets and the lack of grammatical explanations in Duolingo often helps to get "a feeling" for the language instead of really learning the principles. Wouldn't have imagined les explanation could be better.

jimkleiber 6y ago

I think the ability to learn a language is often related to how much uncertainty we can currently handle. As I get older, I feel myself and others pressuring me more to "know the answer" to things and don't believe I have as much room to be wrong as I did when I was younger. When I was learning Swahili in Tanzania in my 20s, I was wrong a lot but I guess I wasn't as worried about the consequences. In short, learning a new language can make us look stupid and as we get older, we may feel more afraid of looking stupid :-D

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hbarka 6y ago

The same reason it’s harder to learn how to touchtype once you’re an adult. Too damn busy to get that immersion time.

russellbeattie 6y ago

I think the better question is, when does being able to think and do math quickly in a new language disappear? Lots of theories in this thread, but pretty much everyone has a mother tongue in which they think and count. There might be tons of outliers, I'm sure, but for the vast majority of multilingual speakers, your native language is the one you go back to in your head when you're trying to calculate the tip or count pennies. Yes, as odd as it seems, we use language when doing math. Are you multilingual? Have someone give you a basic math problem verbally, and then give them the answer. Which language did you use? Most everyone will switch to their native language, and then switch back. So again, when does this ability disappear? I moved to Spain when I was 30yo and learned how to live and work in Spanish, but I'll never be truly fluent. English just is how my mind works, and Spanish is really just a bunch of synonyms in my brain. It's all in one giant bucket, and just like I don't swear in front of small children and use simpler versions of words to talk to them, and use strict noun-verb-object sentences (with no phrasal verbs!!) when speaking "international English" to someone for whom English is a second language, I speak Spanish words in a certain order for Spanish speakers. This is not how truly multilingual people think. What also is interesting is how growing up in a multilingual environment changes how fast you can context switch. Someone who grew up in say rural France and had no exposure to English, might learn it amazingly well, but if they're in mixed company, you can watch their heads explode trying to swap languages. I love the blank stare they'll give you as they change brains, recall what you just said, and then are able to respond. Then of course you have the Spanglish teens of LA who don't even notice they're mixing languages in the same sentence. I think all this is to say, it's a tad more complicated than just "when" and "if".

musicale 6y ago
> when does being able to think and do math quickly in a new language disappear A few minutes after the final exam, usually.
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arc-in-space 6y ago
Phrasal verbs, huh. I never thought about it but I suppose English does have a gazillion of those nano-idioms. Turn up, turn down, turn on, turn off, turn to, turn in, turn out. I think I subconsciously avoid them as well when talking to someone with a limited grasp of the language•. Regarding math, I'm a English non-native and learning to 'think math' in English was something that I, at some point, simply decided to start putting an effort into, as if it was more of a separate skill. I'm not sure if it's the best indicator, but I definitely did stick with my native language for math for a while, although only for simple counting and arithmetic. I've experienced the language switch brainhalt myself, it's pretty funny. For a moment it feels like someone spoke alien to me. [•] modulating language to make it go down through google translate smoother is something that I've noticed myself and some others do on the English-Japanese barrier, from both sides. P.S. Hey sweet, clever.io paused the timer while I was busy typing all this out. Neat!

borroka 6y ago

I speak English and Spanish well, I'd say fluently (my native language is neither English nor Spanish). I studied English in high school (2 hours a week), but I first chatted with native speakers ~ 15 years ago. I have been living in the US for 10 years and I use English continuously: I read in English, I listen to the radio in English, podcasts, TV. I have a very rich vocabulary, I'd say in the top 15% of native English speakers. For the life of me, I cannot watch movies without subtitles. That does not happen with podcasts, radio, or live talks. It is not that I understand nothing, but I struggle. My hypothesis is that the movie dialogue is not "natural" or "intuitive" and I cannot predict in some way what will be said. That prediction—I hypothesize—is needed when, allow me to use this image, the language is still not "yours". I still make mistakes when writing, I forget "s" all the time when using the third person and other minor mistakes that native speakers basically never make. I just don't feel the language they way I feel my native language. I have yet to meet someone who has learned a language in their 20s and became as fluent as they are in their native language. The brain is increasingly less plastic the older we get and that is undoubtedly true for anyone who is not living in fantasy world for both motor and cognitive abilities. PS, I am sure there are some typos, despite me having read my post a few times.

fiblye 6y ago
I'm American and watch movies with subtitles. The audio balance is generally fucked up and there's some weird fuzziness to the sound or people suddenly start whispering only to have massive explosions and metal being torn apart 5 seconds later. (Yes, I know people say to adjust audio balance and settings but it doesn't fix the problem.) It's impossible to follow the dialogue otherwise. I'm fine with watching TV without subtitles because usually it's made with the assumption that people actually want to hear the dialogue.
- borroka 6y ago
  I'd say the main difference for me is that I have no problem whatsoever understanding movies in my native language. I love watching movies and it is quite frustrating for me not being able to get the dialogue as clearly as I get it in my native language.

moosey 6y ago

This article, like other things I've read in books like "The Organized Mind", or the class "Learning How to Learn" is that learning for adults is usually difficult not because of reduced learning capacity, but instead individual behaviors, emotional regulation, and culture. Dr. Levetin suggests that it's mostly around how much frustration you can handle, and how much time you think you have left vs. the amount of value you'll get from what you are learning. Procrastination, a great killer of self-education, is primarily driven by low emotional intelligence/regulation. This is exactly what I get from this article again: the issue is not brain plasticity in learning, but the willingness to be frustrated, a desire to learn new things (we can't all be Paul Erdos) and the time to learn.

zumu 6y ago
It's more than just willingness. It's having access to the time and support structure necessary to completely learn the language from scratch. What adult can a few years sitting around speaking and listening to a language 12+ hours a day while being able to mostly ignore their native language? Children go to schools where they are taught and socialized in the target language. They are then able to come home and watch tv, movies and listen to music all in the target culture. There are some other confounding issues I'm not touching, but I think you're getting to the point. The issue isn't the brain so much as it is the greater systems involved.

dontspeak 6y ago

It disappears in the mid-teens. After that point, your brain becomes less plastic. When your brain is less plastic, learning nee things is difficult.

gexla 6y ago

Shooting from the hip here... Being a kid in a culture goes a long way in forming how you speak. Your language is an expression of your culture. So much of my personality, how I speak, words I use, etc has been formed by what I watched and listened to growing up. By the time you're 20, it's past the time to form that same experience. The difference between this speaker and someone who has learned to speak perfect English in their 20's is that the former shapes the language as it continues to evolve while the latter simply learns (though that's not to say that late learners don't shape language.)

imtringued 6y ago

The worst part about learning languages is that you don't want to miss out. The second worst part is that some languages are very difficult while others are very easy. The third worst part is that I am isolated from those who speak the new language. The fourth worst part is that the older you get the less time you have left both per day and in absolute terms. I don't think it is difficult to learn a third language. It's taking years but what many people miss is that a 10 year old child has worse conversational skills than an adult who has been learning and speaking a foreign language for 10 years.

Dryondristica 6y ago

I learnt a second language from scratch as an adult. The neural plasticity thing is definitely real but I think the effect is often overstated. Adults a) rarely spend as much focused time on language study as kids and b) are more afraid of making mistakes/less inclined to say things that they know are not 100% right. I've observed that people who care less about making mistakes (to the point where it's embarrassing to watch) end up learning much faster.

ivan1783 6y ago

My mother tongue is Russian. I learned English in school starting at 6. After that I learned German starting at around 22-23. Since 25 or so I am learning French - currently 31. The two difficulties I have is 1. time and 2. immersion. I think its correct that I will never speak like a native speaker but it will be close enough that it will take some minutes for a native speaker to figure out that I'm not a native speaker. Funny enough - I have developed an English accent in Russian because I don't use it so often any more. Actually its hard to say - Russians have trouble identifying where I'm actually from based on the accent.

InfiniteRand 6y ago

I wonder if there are some differences in how people pick up languages in places where learning a new language is a casual thing (example, India) vs a significant achievement (example, the US). It does seem possible that just believing that language is easy might change the process in which it is learned, although my impression about studies on the effects of beliefs is that is hard to make high quality studies for this.