4 ms·

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, t

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
> 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. I've seen some instances of this, for instance Russians learning French. My guess is that it's possible if the native language phonemes are a superset of the second language.
- nlpparty 3y ago
  Russian doesn't have the guttural 'r' of French.
megablast 3y ago
It’s not accent free, you learn the accent when you learn the language.
poulsbohemian 3y ago
>As far as I can tell, the only difference between those with and without an accent is conscious effort. In my completely unscientific sampling, I'm going to agree with you. This holds true too for native speakers who make no effort to improve their grammar and vocabulary. If one wants to be a better speaker, writer, and communicator, they will be by effort.
- zadokshi 3y ago
  Yes, this is the real answer. The claims being made are not as articulate as they should be. You could perhaps say “before 12 a person can pick up an accent for ‘free’” but after twelve its certainly possible to pick up correct accent but it requires conscious effort, which many people are not interested in after they get their spoken L2 to the “good enough” point.
idontwantthis 3y ago
Yeah I don’t think this true at all. I spent six years in a foreign country with very different phonemes and, while I didn’t develop a very big vocabulary, I was complimented on my clear pronunciation for what I could say.

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

> 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. I've seen some instances of this, for instance Russians learning French. My guess is that it's possible if the native language phonemes are a superset of the second language.

nlpparty 3y ago
Russian doesn't have the guttural 'r' of French.

megablast 3y ago

It’s not accent free, you learn the accent when you learn the language.

poulsbohemian 3y ago

>As far as I can tell, the only difference between those with and without an accent is conscious effort. In my completely unscientific sampling, I'm going to agree with you. This holds true too for native speakers who make no effort to improve their grammar and vocabulary. If one wants to be a better speaker, writer, and communicator, they will be by effort.

zadokshi 3y ago
Yes, this is the real answer. The claims being made are not as articulate as they should be. You could perhaps say “before 12 a person can pick up an accent for ‘free’” but after twelve its certainly possible to pick up correct accent but it requires conscious effort, which many people are not interested in after they get their spoken L2 to the “good enough” point.

idontwantthis 3y ago

Yeah I don’t think this true at all. I spent six years in a foreign country with very different phonemes and, while I didn’t develop a very big vocabulary, I was complimented on my clear pronunciation for what I could say.