5 ms·

This illustrates that we teach languages "wrong" or rather that we don't take advantage of the innate part of the brain that children use to learn their primary

by air7 6y ago

This illustrates that we teach languages "wrong" or rather that we don't take advantage of the innate part of the brain that children use to learn their primary language. My pet theory is that it isn't a decline of brain ability but rather a psychological shift: Adults expect results, get frustrated more quickly, can't tolerate speaking "silly" for long etc.

TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
Yes. I think learning rules is mostly helpful to bootstrap you enough to be able to pick things up naturally, and to enable you to use dictionaries and analyse your mistakes.
svara 6y ago
> My pet theory is that it isn't a decline of brain ability but rather a psychological shift: Adults expect results, get frustrated more quickly, can't tolerate speaking "silly" for long etc. Totally agree. An adult working full time on acquiring a language can learn to use a foreign language at an adult level within maybe a year or so. It's just that nobody does that, because there are other things to do... Children literally need decades to reach an adult level of competence in their native language, despite 24/7 immersion. Language learning techniques for adults (studying abstract grammar, cramming vocabulary) are very effective and kids don't learn the way. There is one major disadvantage that adults have though, and that's at acquiring correct pronunciation. I think I've never met a person in my life who didn't learn a language from a very young age and who didn't sound slightly off to a native speaker. There might be the rare exceptional talent who can do that, but to a first approximation it's not possible as an adult anymore.
- yorwba 6y ago
  > An adult working full time on acquiring a language can learn to use a foreign language at an adult level within maybe a year or so. It's just that nobody does that, because there are other things to do... ... > There is one major disadvantage that adults have though, and that's at acquiring correct pronunciation. I think I've never met a person in my life who didn't learn a language from a very young age and who didn't sound slightly off to a native speaker. I think an adult working full-time on their pronunciation would get within the native range of variation fairly quickly. Even native speakers only adjust their accent very slowly after moving to a new area, but accent coaches can speed up that process a lot. It's just that it involves a lot of tedious practice consciously controlling your tongue when you'd rather just speak freely and have your subconscious take care of tongue movement. So most people who do that are actors or public speakers, for whom pronunciation matters a great deal. The average language learner has better things to do...
  - svara 6y ago
    > I think an adult working full-time on their pronunciation would get within the native range of variation fairly quickly. I'd be interested in learning more about how to do that! I don't think I've ever seen it in real life. Consider for example what it would sound like if you made a wild grammatical mistake in your native language, or completely misused some word. You wouldn't sound like a foreign speaker, but sloppy, tired, or maybe like you were making some sort of joke. I wouldn't even know where to start in order to get to that level in a second language.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      I think the biggest thing is just having someone explain the tongue positions and differences - otherwise, most people do notice that there is something different between how they speak and how natives speak, but can't put their fingers on it. For example, in my native language we don't have the 'th' sounds from English. Most learners approximate the voiceless 'th' with 'f' ('fing', 'frow') and the voiced 'th' with 'z' ('zis fing', 'zat fing'), because they don't even know what to do to pronounce the real sound. Even worse, many consonants and vowels have variations between languages even when they are recognized as the same consonant. R is a famous case, but for example, the Slavic and Latin 't' sound is harder than the English or German 't' - I pronounce my native t with my tongue closer to my teeth than when I'm speaking English. However, one someone points out the specific differences and helps you practice the right tongue movements, it's generally easy to replicate if you're pacient and try for a while. There may be exceptions, like learning to roll your R sounds, to vary pitch or learning click sounds (haven't tried any of these myself, so maybe they're not that hard either).
      - egypturnash 6y ago
        It’s also entirely possible to never figure out the proper tongue positions when you are learning your native language. Instead of an “accent” you then have a “speech impediment”. I grew up with a couple, I had some special instruction in high school to correct the fact that I said my R’s with the same mouth positions used for W’s; I also had a persistent issue with saying “tr” as a mushy kind of “ch” on one side of my mouth that I only finally corrected in, like, my mid-forties. And yeah, once I looked up how to properly pronounce that “tr” it didn’t take too long to fix it.
- marton78 6y ago
  Lex Fridman is really good, he came to the States when he was 15 I believe and sounds totally native.
soupson 6y ago
>Adults expect results, get frustrated more quickly, can't tolerate speaking "silly" for long etc This is why, whenever I discuss language learning with people, I said, "Fluency is overrated. Learn as much as you can, at your own pace, for as long as you enjoy doing it." There are cognitive benefits to language learning beyond being able to speak fluently.

by air7 6y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago

Yes. I think learning rules is mostly helpful to bootstrap you enough to be able to pick things up naturally, and to enable you to use dictionaries and analyse your mistakes.

svara 6y ago

> My pet theory is that it isn't a decline of brain ability but rather a psychological shift: Adults expect results, get frustrated more quickly, can't tolerate speaking "silly" for long etc. Totally agree. An adult working full time on acquiring a language can learn to use a foreign language at an adult level within maybe a year or so. It's just that nobody does that, because there are other things to do... Children literally need decades to reach an adult level of competence in their native language, despite 24/7 immersion. Language learning techniques for adults (studying abstract grammar, cramming vocabulary) are very effective and kids don't learn the way. There is one major disadvantage that adults have though, and that's at acquiring correct pronunciation. I think I've never met a person in my life who didn't learn a language from a very young age and who didn't sound slightly off to a native speaker. There might be the rare exceptional talent who can do that, but to a first approximation it's not possible as an adult anymore.

yorwba 6y ago
> An adult working full time on acquiring a language can learn to use a foreign language at an adult level within maybe a year or so. It's just that nobody does that, because there are other things to do... ... > There is one major disadvantage that adults have though, and that's at acquiring correct pronunciation. I think I've never met a person in my life who didn't learn a language from a very young age and who didn't sound slightly off to a native speaker. I think an adult working full-time on their pronunciation would get within the native range of variation fairly quickly. Even native speakers only adjust their accent very slowly after moving to a new area, but accent coaches can speed up that process a lot. It's just that it involves a lot of tedious practice consciously controlling your tongue when you'd rather just speak freely and have your subconscious take care of tongue movement. So most people who do that are actors or public speakers, for whom pronunciation matters a great deal. The average language learner has better things to do...
- svara 6y ago
  > I think an adult working full-time on their pronunciation would get within the native range of variation fairly quickly. I'd be interested in learning more about how to do that! I don't think I've ever seen it in real life. Consider for example what it would sound like if you made a wild grammatical mistake in your native language, or completely misused some word. You wouldn't sound like a foreign speaker, but sloppy, tired, or maybe like you were making some sort of joke. I wouldn't even know where to start in order to get to that level in a second language.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    I think the biggest thing is just having someone explain the tongue positions and differences - otherwise, most people do notice that there is something different between how they speak and how natives speak, but can't put their fingers on it. For example, in my native language we don't have the 'th' sounds from English. Most learners approximate the voiceless 'th' with 'f' ('fing', 'frow') and the voiced 'th' with 'z' ('zis fing', 'zat fing'), because they don't even know what to do to pronounce the real sound. Even worse, many consonants and vowels have variations between languages even when they are recognized as the same consonant. R is a famous case, but for example, the Slavic and Latin 't' sound is harder than the English or German 't' - I pronounce my native t with my tongue closer to my teeth than when I'm speaking English. However, one someone points out the specific differences and helps you practice the right tongue movements, it's generally easy to replicate if you're pacient and try for a while. There may be exceptions, like learning to roll your R sounds, to vary pitch or learning click sounds (haven't tried any of these myself, so maybe they're not that hard either).
    - egypturnash 6y ago
      It’s also entirely possible to never figure out the proper tongue positions when you are learning your native language. Instead of an “accent” you then have a “speech impediment”. I grew up with a couple, I had some special instruction in high school to correct the fact that I said my R’s with the same mouth positions used for W’s; I also had a persistent issue with saying “tr” as a mushy kind of “ch” on one side of my mouth that I only finally corrected in, like, my mid-forties. And yeah, once I looked up how to properly pronounce that “tr” it didn’t take too long to fix it.
marton78 6y ago
Lex Fridman is really good, he came to the States when he was 15 I believe and sounds totally native.

soupson 6y ago

>Adults expect results, get frustrated more quickly, can't tolerate speaking "silly" for long etc This is why, whenever I discuss language learning with people, I said, "Fluency is overrated. Learn as much as you can, at your own pace, for as long as you enjoy doing it." There are cognitive benefits to language learning beyond being able to speak fluently.