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> Up to age 12 or so you can learn a second language accent-free, but at that age an important developmental milestone cements phonemes in place. Seems... dubi

> Up to age 12 or so you can learn a second language accent-free, but at that age an important developmental milestone cements phonemes in place. Seems... dubious? What about people who immigrate later (like in high school) and actually pick up the sounds and accents flawlessly? I've seen folks like that and I'm pretty sure they weren't in high school at age 12.

iopq 3y ago
Anecdotally, I know a Serbian who went to study to the US for a year in high school and has a perfect Californian accent.
- dataflow 3y ago
  There you go!
- criddell 3y ago
  > perfect Californian accent Oh man, I hope they sound like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCer2e0t8r8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCer2e0t8r8
  - iopq 3y ago
    Nah, he totally, like, sounds like a Valley girl
Tor3 3y ago
It's very very rare. Though it's not a cut-off at age 12, it just gets more and more rare (and takes longer) from around ten and older. Not sure if it's so much about the vocal tract, it's more about the brain's ability to hear sounds (my wife can't hear the difference between a number of sounds despite having lived in my country for many years and speaking the language well). In all my life I've only met two 100% accent-free speakers who learned my language as adults, and a third one who was almost there. Everyone else has something I can detect. But children.. a five-year old Japanese girl could repeat everything I said with perfect pronunciation and intonation, first try. Slightly exceptional girl perhaps, she learned the language in a very short time.
- dataflow 3y ago
  > Though it's not a cut-off at age 12, it just gets more and more rare (and takes longer) from around ten and older. I mean, nobody is disputing "it gets harder as you become older". I totally believe that. Lots of things gradually become harder as you grow older, and language doesn't seem particularly different in that regard. The question is whether that's because your body "cements phonemes in place" around age 12, or whether there's something else at play that's likely gradual and not such a sharp boundary. The fact that it's rare might be just due to the (a) effort required to learn something new being higher in general, or the (b) perceived RoI being lower, or a ton of other factors that don't boil down to "your phonemes are cemented in place"... right? Anecdotally I know in at least one particular case that I observed and inquired about, that person (who's also very smart and hard-working in general) told me they made a very deliberate effort over a handful of years to improve their accent after immigrating, and that's how they sounded like a native now. I totally believe that many people are just unwilling to invest the effort required (which certainly increases with age). I'm just finding it hard to believe there's some biological force preventing you from doing it past age 12, given I've seen otherwise. > it's more about the brain's ability to hear sounds (my wife can't hear the difference between a number of sounds despite having lived in my country for many years and speaking the language well). That might be true for some sounds for some people, but I also have a hard time believing it's such a general thing to the extent you're painting it here. It seems more likely to me the explanation is something else, like maybe nobody has managed to give her a good enough explanation as to how they're different sounds. (Maybe not the best example, but I had a hard time distinguishing ch and s in German until someone explained to me how they're each pronounced. Now I can hear them much better, and pronounce them not-too-awfully too.)
  - Tor3 3y ago
    The sounds my wife can't separate are sounds which aren't separate in her native language - the mapping is trivial. It's the same with others from her country, it just varies between individuals (but strongly correlated with age, and to what exposure they've had to other languages when younger). And believe me, it's not about putting in the effort. But to distinguish certain sounds my wife has to watch my lips - this is particularly noticeable if I dictate and she writes. As for training - she received two years of training (30 hours a week) with expert teachers who knew a lot of tricks for how to hear and (not the least) pronounce sounds. Tricks that I didn't know about. But I've also seen this with American and some English adults trying to learn Norwegian - a great many of them can't hear the difference between vowels which, to me, are totally different. Can't hear the difference between the words "har" and "her", for example (NB: Norwegian sounds. Not English vowels). It seems to take a couple of years of daily ear training (or rather, brain training). As always, there are exceptions. But those exceptions are truly standing out. (Added: As soon as there's context or visibility the problem is much reduced - but it's still there, as soon as there's only audio and their language level isn't good enough to "select" the right words from context).
bobmaxup 3y ago
To be fair, they did qualify the statement with "or so".
- dataflow 3y ago
  This isn't 12 vs. 12.5 I'm disputing, it's like 12 vs. >= 16.
resonious 3y ago
To take your point farther, I've met plenty of people who've learned their second language as an adult and can speak nearly accent free. As far as I can tell, the only difference between those with and without an accent is conscious effort. The whole idea that there's a window that closes when you're a kid has seemed a little weird to me. Adults learn new vocab and grammar all the time. Learning another language is the same, just a little more extreme. I wonder if there's some actual scientific evidence for the language learning window, and not just some developmental psychology observations.
- mariuolo 3y ago
  Perhaps their native languages were phoneme-rich and could map those to their L2?
- otikik 3y ago
  > people who've learned their second language as an adult and can speak nearly accent free Perhaps it's just a capacity that some people have, similar to perfect pitch hearing. Possible, but rare.
  - Jorge1o1 3y ago
    Funny that you mention perfect-pitch because in a similar vein it seems like one of those things that can be taught but the window closes very early in childhood. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735612463948 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/030573561246394...
    - tough 3y ago
      I was gonna bring this relation of also being a skill needing to be developed in early age, but you beat me to it. good thing there's already a drug for that https://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-pitch-you-could-pop-a-pill-for-that https://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-pitch-... science is never fixed is it
- yodsanklai 3y ago
radicalbyte 3y ago
It's bullshit. I can speak Dutch without an English accent and I learned the language in my 20s, having 0 exposure to it in my youth. There are to main sounds which are in Dutch but not English ([ui] and the hard [G]) and one which isn't in some English dialects (the rolling [R]). However you can absolutely learn them as an adult. It just requires serious training (years of hard practice, same as with sports). You literally have to build up the facial muscles. One thing I will admit: I choose not to pronounce the [ui] sound properly due to a combination of being lazy, identifying as an Dutch-as-second-language speaker and because for some absolutely irrational it sounds really childish to my years. That latter point played a surprising role in my lack of ability with the French language. It feels theatrical in the way that certain queer people choose to project their speak and I do not want to project as being something I am not (or be confused as someone making crude n-phobic caricatures which would be 1000x worse because it could make someone else feel insulted). Honestly it's probably a tick I have from being raised to be a polite British gentleman :)
- darkerside 3y ago
  I've noticed that some people speak foreign languages with what I consider to be quite poor accents, but they enunciate strongly. If they are smiling, it almost comes off to me like they are making fun of the language or just pretending they can speak it well. To the point I've laughed along with them before realizing my mistake and cringing. And then I wonder which of us is more fluent? The one who with the better accent or the one who can more confidently project their thoughts in that language regardless of "skill"? (Probably the latter)
- 4gotunameagain 3y ago
  Yea but you are talking about two languages that as you correctly pointed out only a few phonemes are different, with very similar phonology, stress, etc. They are very closely related.
  - vik0 3y ago
    I feel like we're so deep in the thread - where after people have time and time again disproven the original comments message about how being 12 years old is some magic cut-off point to language learning - there are now people who just keep adding different requirements, leading this conversation nowhere and making the new point unfalsifiable and - by extension - unscientific; whereas the original comment had an allure of having a modicum of scientific rigor behind it (which, in the end, was disproven)
darkwater 3y ago
My anecdotal example: Italian living in Catalonia (for a few years now, but moved as an adult), I speak both Catalan and Spanish with no Italian accent and what's even "worse", I speak Italian with Spanish accent ^^; I know these languages are all very similar, so that helped a lot for sure, but the 12 years rule is definitely not absolute.
linuxftw 3y ago
Indeed. Sounds like another 'replication crisis' paper in action.

iopq 3y ago

Anecdotally, I know a Serbian who went to study to the US for a year in high school and has a perfect Californian accent.

dataflow 3y ago
There you go!
criddell 3y ago
> perfect Californian accent Oh man, I hope they sound like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCer2e0t8r8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCer2e0t8r8
- iopq 3y ago
  Nah, he totally, like, sounds like a Valley girl

Tor3 3y ago

It's very very rare. Though it's not a cut-off at age 12, it just gets more and more rare (and takes longer) from around ten and older. Not sure if it's so much about the vocal tract, it's more about the brain's ability to hear sounds (my wife can't hear the difference between a number of sounds despite having lived in my country for many years and speaking the language well). In all my life I've only met two 100% accent-free speakers who learned my language as adults, and a third one who was almost there. Everyone else has something I can detect. But children.. a five-year old Japanese girl could repeat everything I said with perfect pronunciation and intonation, first try. Slightly exceptional girl perhaps, she learned the language in a very short time.

dataflow 3y ago
> Though it's not a cut-off at age 12, it just gets more and more rare (and takes longer) from around ten and older. I mean, nobody is disputing "it gets harder as you become older". I totally believe that. Lots of things gradually become harder as you grow older, and language doesn't seem particularly different in that regard. The question is whether that's because your body "cements phonemes in place" around age 12, or whether there's something else at play that's likely gradual and not such a sharp boundary. The fact that it's rare might be just due to the (a) effort required to learn something new being higher in general, or the (b) perceived RoI being lower, or a ton of other factors that don't boil down to "your phonemes are cemented in place"... right? Anecdotally I know in at least one particular case that I observed and inquired about, that person (who's also very smart and hard-working in general) told me they made a very deliberate effort over a handful of years to improve their accent after immigrating, and that's how they sounded like a native now. I totally believe that many people are just unwilling to invest the effort required (which certainly increases with age). I'm just finding it hard to believe there's some biological force preventing you from doing it past age 12, given I've seen otherwise. > it's more about the brain's ability to hear sounds (my wife can't hear the difference between a number of sounds despite having lived in my country for many years and speaking the language well). That might be true for some sounds for some people, but I also have a hard time believing it's such a general thing to the extent you're painting it here. It seems more likely to me the explanation is something else, like maybe nobody has managed to give her a good enough explanation as to how they're different sounds. (Maybe not the best example, but I had a hard time distinguishing ch and s in German until someone explained to me how they're each pronounced. Now I can hear them much better, and pronounce them not-too-awfully too.)
- Tor3 3y ago
  The sounds my wife can't separate are sounds which aren't separate in her native language - the mapping is trivial. It's the same with others from her country, it just varies between individuals (but strongly correlated with age, and to what exposure they've had to other languages when younger). And believe me, it's not about putting in the effort. But to distinguish certain sounds my wife has to watch my lips - this is particularly noticeable if I dictate and she writes. As for training - she received two years of training (30 hours a week) with expert teachers who knew a lot of tricks for how to hear and (not the least) pronounce sounds. Tricks that I didn't know about. But I've also seen this with American and some English adults trying to learn Norwegian - a great many of them can't hear the difference between vowels which, to me, are totally different. Can't hear the difference between the words "har" and "her", for example (NB: Norwegian sounds. Not English vowels). It seems to take a couple of years of daily ear training (or rather, brain training). As always, there are exceptions. But those exceptions are truly standing out. (Added: As soon as there's context or visibility the problem is much reduced - but it's still there, as soon as there's only audio and their language level isn't good enough to "select" the right words from context).

bobmaxup 3y ago

To be fair, they did qualify the statement with "or so".

dataflow 3y ago
This isn't 12 vs. 12.5 I'm disputing, it's like 12 vs. >= 16.

resonious 3y ago

To take your point farther, I've met plenty of people who've learned their second language as an adult and can speak nearly accent free. As far as I can tell, the only difference between those with and without an accent is conscious effort. The whole idea that there's a window that closes when you're a kid has seemed a little weird to me. Adults learn new vocab and grammar all the time. Learning another language is the same, just a little more extreme. I wonder if there's some actual scientific evidence for the language learning window, and not just some developmental psychology observations.

mariuolo 3y ago
Perhaps their native languages were phoneme-rich and could map those to their L2?
otikik 3y ago
> people who've learned their second language as an adult and can speak nearly accent free Perhaps it's just a capacity that some people have, similar to perfect pitch hearing. Possible, but rare.
- Jorge1o1 3y ago
  Funny that you mention perfect-pitch because in a similar vein it seems like one of those things that can be taught but the window closes very early in childhood. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735612463948 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/030573561246394...
  - tough 3y ago
    I was gonna bring this relation of also being a skill needing to be developed in early age, but you beat me to it. good thing there's already a drug for that https://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-pitch-you-could-pop-a-pill-for-that https://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-pitch-... science is never fixed is it
yodsanklai 3y ago

radicalbyte 3y ago

It's bullshit. I can speak Dutch without an English accent and I learned the language in my 20s, having 0 exposure to it in my youth. There are to main sounds which are in Dutch but not English ([ui] and the hard [G]) and one which isn't in some English dialects (the rolling [R]). However you can absolutely learn them as an adult. It just requires serious training (years of hard practice, same as with sports). You literally have to build up the facial muscles. One thing I will admit: I choose not to pronounce the [ui] sound properly due to a combination of being lazy, identifying as an Dutch-as-second-language speaker and because for some absolutely irrational it sounds really childish to my years. That latter point played a surprising role in my lack of ability with the French language. It feels theatrical in the way that certain queer people choose to project their speak and I do not want to project as being something I am not (or be confused as someone making crude n-phobic caricatures which would be 1000x worse because it could make someone else feel insulted). Honestly it's probably a tick I have from being raised to be a polite British gentleman :)

darkerside 3y ago
I've noticed that some people speak foreign languages with what I consider to be quite poor accents, but they enunciate strongly. If they are smiling, it almost comes off to me like they are making fun of the language or just pretending they can speak it well. To the point I've laughed along with them before realizing my mistake and cringing. And then I wonder which of us is more fluent? The one who with the better accent or the one who can more confidently project their thoughts in that language regardless of "skill"? (Probably the latter)
4gotunameagain 3y ago
Yea but you are talking about two languages that as you correctly pointed out only a few phonemes are different, with very similar phonology, stress, etc. They are very closely related.
- vik0 3y ago
  I feel like we're so deep in the thread - where after people have time and time again disproven the original comments message about how being 12 years old is some magic cut-off point to language learning - there are now people who just keep adding different requirements, leading this conversation nowhere and making the new point unfalsifiable and - by extension - unscientific; whereas the original comment had an allure of having a modicum of scientific rigor behind it (which, in the end, was disproven)

darkwater 3y ago

My anecdotal example: Italian living in Catalonia (for a few years now, but moved as an adult), I speak both Catalan and Spanish with no Italian accent and what's even "worse", I speak Italian with Spanish accent ^^; I know these languages are all very similar, so that helped a lot for sure, but the 12 years rule is definitely not absolute.

linuxftw 3y ago

Indeed. Sounds like another 'replication crisis' paper in action.