6 ms·

I speak three languages, more or less. Much of what this guy says is either obvious or wrong. There's not much in-between. The big irritant is his absurd cla

I speak three languages, more or less. Much of what this guy says is either obvious or wrong. There's not much in-between. The big irritant is his absurd claims about adult learning capabilities. When I was in my teens, I learned Cantonese as a native English speaker. In my 40s, I learned Italian. Cantonese -- an extremely difficult language for English speakers -- was far easier to learn. In truth I think there is one overriding rule to successfully learning a foreign language. No matter how many classes you take or Rosetta Stone CDs you buy, will never really learn a language unless you are forced to speak it ALL THE TIME. If you want to learn German, move to Germany. When foreign PhD students come to the US, I tell them that if they want to be effective researchers in computer science, they must know English well. And step one for doing that, as PhD students in the US, is to get roommates who do not speak their native language.

brickcap 13y ago
I think you are absolutely right about "being forced to speak it" part but moving to a different country may not always be a practical solution. Some people, myself included, learn foreign language for fun and moving to a different country would just make it an expensive hobby. One thing I have discovered is there are fun ways to learn a new language even if you are on your own. I am learning french and I love watching movies so every now I then I watch a french movie first with subtitles and then without. Most of the times I miss the words but I am getting familiar with sounds and every time I pick up french for dummies I get more confident. But you are right. One must spend time with the language one is learning.
mattmanser 13y ago
The big irritant is his absurd claims about adult learning capabilities. When I... You = personal experience of one. Him = personal experience of one + research + more research + claims he's looked for counter studies Benny 1 - Sean 0
- hackerboos 13y ago
  I'd like to see this research. Does he have a paper published?
  - icebraining 13y ago
    It's not his research, he just mentions it: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0013648 http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...
- gbog 13y ago
  I don't know, nowadays it seems that if you look hard enough you can find published papers demonstrating any point, and it seems even easier to find paper "proving" something against common sense and experience. Here it is the case: My Chinese wife is a perfect French speaker but she still can't hear or pronounce the difference between "gato" and "cado". I work in Chinese, in a 100% immersion, and tones are still not natural to me. And our bi-cultural kid, at 3, has better tones than me, and has no problem with d and t, or g and k. I won't look hard for papers but I would be surprised if none has ever "proven" that babies hear and execute the full palette of sounds, and learning a language specializes (by narrowing) this skill, removing parts not used in the context to differenciate meanings.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    >if you look hard enough you can find published papers demonstrating any point Don't be willing to make an argument against all science while trying to win one discussion. Just give your anecdote and let people take it as they will.
  - troydj 13y ago
    Part of the confusion, I think, is that people unnecessarily require "perfect pronunciation, hearing, and intonation" in their definition of "fluency". You mentioned that your wife is fluent in French, but does not have native-like French "hearing". Perhaps she also speaks with a non-native accent. That doesn't detract from her fluency. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, would be considered to be fluent in English even though he speaks with a heavy accent. Babies and pre-pubescent children do indeed have a distinct advantage when it comes to learning sounds, tones, and pronunciation for a language [1][2]. It's also been observed that children are more likely to sound native (in language 2) if they move to another country and learn that second language prior to puberty (see again, Nagle [2]). So, gbog, if your child speaks/hears French, Chinese, and English regularly before hitting puberty, he/she will likely sound native in all three languages. But this advantage doesn't nullify the claim that adult learners can still become fluent in a foreign language. It just means that adult learners might never sound exactly like a native speaker, even though motivated learners can achieve near-native pronunciation in their target language [3]. [1] Babies are born with the ability to hear/distinguish between the sounds of all world languages, but this ability starts to diminish around the age of 10 months (pp 39-40, The Bilingual Edge, King and Mackey, http://www.amazon.com/The-Bilingual-Edge-Second-Language/dp/0061246565 http://www.amazon.com/The-Bilingual-Edge-Second-Language/dp/...). [2] "Critical period research clearly demonstrates that the probability of a near-native L2 phonology rapidly diminishes as we age", Charles Nagle, "A Reexamination of Ultimate Attainment in L2 Phonology: Length of Immersion, Motivation, and Phonological Short-Term Memory", http://www.lingref.com/cpp/slrf/2011/paper2913.pdf http://www.lingref.com/cpp/slrf/2011/paper2913.pdf [3] "The results of this study highlight the fact that learners appear to be able to achieve near-native pronunciation without significant formal instruction in pronunciation which perhaps also evidences the role of implicit learning in L2 phonology...", Nagle, http://www.lingref.com/cpp/slrf/2011/paper2913.pdf http://www.lingref.com/cpp/slrf/2011/paper2913.pdf
- xiaoma 13y ago
  Bullshit. Even a cursory review of the research shows profound differences in child and adult learners. This is ground so well covered that it's assumed knowledge. Have a look at (Harvard linguist) Steven Pinker's book The Language Instinct. It gives a great overview. Or if a book on linguistics isn't your thing, then read the recent studies on critical period hypothesis for SLA, such as Mayberry and Lock, 2003.
baldfat 13y ago
I think you are right on with my take on the article. I can read multiple of dead languages BUT I can never speak any other language but English. I can read (non-modern) Hebrew, Classical/Konie Greek, Aramaic, Latin and somewhat (not dead) German. Thank you Theology Studies the Nerds great subject to learning language and history. I now work with 250 students in Head Start (3-5 years old) and about 20% speak mainly Spanish and I can speak to any 5 or 6 year old in Spanish fairly well, but adults I sound like a 5 year old. I try to talk with the staff where 50% speak fluent Spanish and well they always go back to English and I never progress. :(
- laichzeit0 13y ago
  It gets worse. I'm bilingual since childhood. I mostly speak English. People can very obviously tell that the second language is not my native tongue. This is after 30 years of using it. It comes down to how much of your day is spent conversing in a language, I'd guess that if it's less than 20% it's a dead giveaway. Speaking to adults is completely different than speaking to children. The Pareto principle he cites is actually deceiving. Yes learning 20% of the vocab gives you 80% of the commonly used words. Now try and go to 90%. If I remember you have to double effort. So e.g. if 80% is 1500 words, 90% is 3000, 95% is 6000, 97% is 12000, etc. It's diminishing returns. The problem is to have adults conversations all the time you probably need a vocabulary of around 6000 words, depending on the context of the conversation. Ever hear what a foreigner sounds like when they speak broken English or English with a strong accent? That's exactly what you sound like when you're talking to someone else in their language. Like some complete retard. Mess up one single thing or say something unidiomatic and the show's over. If they feel their English is better they'll switch immediately, but just keep going and hopefully they'll switch back.
  - yread 13y ago
    And even after you've mastered 10s of thousands of words (you can estimate it for english here http://testyourvocab.com/ http://testyourvocab.com/ ) you're still going to be struggling with cultural references to children's shows which were popular 30 years ago or politics from 5 years ago.
mrfusion 13y ago
I agree about the idea of being forced to speak it. I think a cool idea would be some kind of RPG or MMORGP where you are forced to speak the language you are learning to accomplish tasks in the game.
- bernatfp 13y ago
  Incidentally, I have a friend who learned English as a third language exactly this way, playing WoW. He obtained the CAE this way.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  Perhaps if you want to learn profanities? I've been on a few foreign language servers with text-based messaging (Enemy Territory) and all requests for help with slang terms has always met with attempts to deceive me: Me: "slt, ksk c'est 'putain de merde' svp?" Pierre: "In English that means 'airstrike'" TLM: "MDR" ... or something along those lines.
  - antimagic 13y ago
    I'm loving the mixture of sms speak and vouvoying...
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      Should I tutoyer when I'm being made fun of by strangers in the chatbox of an FPS. Language is so complex. Actually it's probably because we drop "s'il vous plait" in to speech in our family (or sometimes asante sana or danke schon) so I'd think of that first before parsing it as a vous form. Good spotting.
Mvandenbergh 13y ago
I've never even seen any claims that there is a significant difference in language learning ability between teenagers and adults. There is strong evidence that very young children (younger than three years) can pick up the phonetic aspects of languages in a way that adults simply can't and people often simplify that to "young children are better at languages". Given that this guy's key message seems to be about the importance of actually using the language (over taking classes or reading textbooks) I'm not sure that you actually disagree with him.
caio1982 13y ago
Slightly offtopic: I live in a city in Brazil whose heritage is basically german so I know a lot of people trying to learn german here. A particular friend of mine used to work for an IT german company and went to Germany a couple of times and he said every time he tried to speak their language they'd frown at him or feel like "conversation's not flowing" and switch to english. Other friends living in Germany (Stuttgart, Munich, Berlin) and also in Switzerland (Zurich) said the same happens to them with some frequency. I never heard about it happening with other languages or in other countries, so why is that? Any germans out there care to comment on this? Edit: just to make it clear, this is purely out of linguistic curiosity
- islon 13y ago
  I think this was his personal experience, or maybe his german level is too basic to be useful. I’m a brazilian living in Germany and people here are very open and forgiving about your german even if you are still learning and make a lot of mistakes, they really like their language and prefer it over english if it’s possible, at least that’s my experience.
- levosmetalo 13y ago
  Depends on who you are, and how good they know you. Germany is a country that historically had a lot of low skilled poorly educated immigrants working in professions that require almost no skills. Those people never really integrated (not always their fault). When unknown person approach a German with broken/half-broken/non-perfect German skills, that German has immidiate prejudice about your social status and education level. If your friend is from Brasil, I guess skin colour also plays a role here. Happened to me numerous times. You will get much better treatment speaking English, since that level the playing fields and then they consider you as an equal. Also happened to me numerous times. So yes, the only way to actually speak German in Germany and not be intimidated is to speak it with people that you already knows and you can consider friends.
- kjs3 13y ago
  > I never heard about it happening with other languages or in other countries Same thing happened to me all the time in Japan (to be fair, my Japanese is essentially non-existent except for a handful of phrases) and France (significantly more proficient, but still not a proficient speaker). The Japanese in particular seemed put off by butchering their language.
melling 13y ago
Long time HN reader here. I've got several iOS language apps in the App Store. Here's my Spanish app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?m... I'd appreciate it if a few people could download it and provide feedback. The store is getting quite crowded so I'm looking for ideas to find a niche. I've got versions for several other languages, which I outsourced the translations. At this point, I'm not sure where to make further investment.
- mason55 13y ago
  Good offline mode is the biggest thing missing from the current apps IMO. DuoLingo's was mediocre but on the latest update they completely broke it. Memrise lets you download a lesson but most of the mnemonics, which are the big draw, don't actually download, so it loses a lot of its functionality and just turns into flashcards. I do most of my studying on my commutes which are all on the subways.
  - melling 13y ago
    My apps don't require an online mode. I'd like to use iCloud sync at some point so you can move between devices and keep your favorites, scores, etc.
fidotron 13y ago
I think it's simpler than that: something about the Latin languages makes them unusually hard to pick up for fluent English speakers. This strikes me as one of the main reasons Latin stayed being taught in the English speaking world for so long. Once you've got one the rest seem to follow, but that first one seems to be brutal. Compare that with the Asian languages, and I know more people that claim to have picked up substantial bits of Japanese through importing videogames than is remotely reasonable, and have had a sort of light experience of it myself. The very alienness of it prevents attempts to link it back to your previous context, when constantly trying to do so is, in my experience, a perpetual tarpit.

brickcap 13y ago

I think you are absolutely right about "being forced to speak it" part but moving to a different country may not always be a practical solution. Some people, myself included, learn foreign language for fun and moving to a different country would just make it an expensive hobby. One thing I have discovered is there are fun ways to learn a new language even if you are on your own. I am learning french and I love watching movies so every now I then I watch a french movie first with subtitles and then without. Most of the times I miss the words but I am getting familiar with sounds and every time I pick up french for dummies I get more confident. But you are right. One must spend time with the language one is learning.

mattmanser 13y ago

The big irritant is his absurd claims about adult learning capabilities. When I... You = personal experience of one. Him = personal experience of one + research + more research + claims he's looked for counter studies Benny 1 - Sean 0

hackerboos 13y ago
I'd like to see this research. Does he have a paper published?
- icebraining 13y ago
  It's not his research, he just mentions it: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0013648 http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...
gbog 13y ago
I don't know, nowadays it seems that if you look hard enough you can find published papers demonstrating any point, and it seems even easier to find paper "proving" something against common sense and experience. Here it is the case: My Chinese wife is a perfect French speaker but she still can't hear or pronounce the difference between "gato" and "cado". I work in Chinese, in a 100% immersion, and tones are still not natural to me. And our bi-cultural kid, at 3, has better tones than me, and has no problem with d and t, or g and k. I won't look hard for papers but I would be surprised if none has ever "proven" that babies hear and execute the full palette of sounds, and learning a language specializes (by narrowing) this skill, removing parts not used in the context to differenciate meanings.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >if you look hard enough you can find published papers demonstrating any point Don't be willing to make an argument against all science while trying to win one discussion. Just give your anecdote and let people take it as they will.
- troydj 13y ago
  Part of the confusion, I think, is that people unnecessarily require "perfect pronunciation, hearing, and intonation" in their definition of "fluency". You mentioned that your wife is fluent in French, but does not have native-like French "hearing". Perhaps she also speaks with a non-native accent. That doesn't detract from her fluency. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, would be considered to be fluent in English even though he speaks with a heavy accent. Babies and pre-pubescent children do indeed have a distinct advantage when it comes to learning sounds, tones, and pronunciation for a language [1][2]. It's also been observed that children are more likely to sound native (in language 2) if they move to another country and learn that second language prior to puberty (see again, Nagle [2]). So, gbog, if your child speaks/hears French, Chinese, and English regularly before hitting puberty, he/she will likely sound native in all three languages. But this advantage doesn't nullify the claim that adult learners can still become fluent in a foreign language. It just means that adult learners might never sound exactly like a native speaker, even though motivated learners can achieve near-native pronunciation in their target language [3]. [1] Babies are born with the ability to hear/distinguish between the sounds of all world languages, but this ability starts to diminish around the age of 10 months (pp 39-40, The Bilingual Edge, King and Mackey, http://www.amazon.com/The-Bilingual-Edge-Second-Language/dp/0061246565 http://www.amazon.com/The-Bilingual-Edge-Second-Language/dp/...). [2] "Critical period research clearly demonstrates that the probability of a near-native L2 phonology rapidly diminishes as we age", Charles Nagle, "A Reexamination of Ultimate Attainment in L2 Phonology: Length of Immersion, Motivation, and Phonological Short-Term Memory", http://www.lingref.com/cpp/slrf/2011/paper2913.pdf http://www.lingref.com/cpp/slrf/2011/paper2913.pdf [3] "The results of this study highlight the fact that learners appear to be able to achieve near-native pronunciation without significant formal instruction in pronunciation which perhaps also evidences the role of implicit learning in L2 phonology...", Nagle, http://www.lingref.com/cpp/slrf/2011/paper2913.pdf http://www.lingref.com/cpp/slrf/2011/paper2913.pdf
xiaoma 13y ago
Bullshit. Even a cursory review of the research shows profound differences in child and adult learners. This is ground so well covered that it's assumed knowledge. Have a look at (Harvard linguist) Steven Pinker's book The Language Instinct. It gives a great overview. Or if a book on linguistics isn't your thing, then read the recent studies on critical period hypothesis for SLA, such as Mayberry and Lock, 2003.

baldfat 13y ago

I think you are right on with my take on the article. I can read multiple of dead languages BUT I can never speak any other language but English. I can read (non-modern) Hebrew, Classical/Konie Greek, Aramaic, Latin and somewhat (not dead) German. Thank you Theology Studies the Nerds great subject to learning language and history. I now work with 250 students in Head Start (3-5 years old) and about 20% speak mainly Spanish and I can speak to any 5 or 6 year old in Spanish fairly well, but adults I sound like a 5 year old. I try to talk with the staff where 50% speak fluent Spanish and well they always go back to English and I never progress. :(

laichzeit0 13y ago
It gets worse. I'm bilingual since childhood. I mostly speak English. People can very obviously tell that the second language is not my native tongue. This is after 30 years of using it. It comes down to how much of your day is spent conversing in a language, I'd guess that if it's less than 20% it's a dead giveaway. Speaking to adults is completely different than speaking to children. The Pareto principle he cites is actually deceiving. Yes learning 20% of the vocab gives you 80% of the commonly used words. Now try and go to 90%. If I remember you have to double effort. So e.g. if 80% is 1500 words, 90% is 3000, 95% is 6000, 97% is 12000, etc. It's diminishing returns. The problem is to have adults conversations all the time you probably need a vocabulary of around 6000 words, depending on the context of the conversation. Ever hear what a foreigner sounds like when they speak broken English or English with a strong accent? That's exactly what you sound like when you're talking to someone else in their language. Like some complete retard. Mess up one single thing or say something unidiomatic and the show's over. If they feel their English is better they'll switch immediately, but just keep going and hopefully they'll switch back.
- yread 13y ago
  And even after you've mastered 10s of thousands of words (you can estimate it for english here http://testyourvocab.com/ http://testyourvocab.com/ ) you're still going to be struggling with cultural references to children's shows which were popular 30 years ago or politics from 5 years ago.

mrfusion 13y ago

I agree about the idea of being forced to speak it. I think a cool idea would be some kind of RPG or MMORGP where you are forced to speak the language you are learning to accomplish tasks in the game.

bernatfp 13y ago
Incidentally, I have a friend who learned English as a third language exactly this way, playing WoW. He obtained the CAE this way.
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
Perhaps if you want to learn profanities? I've been on a few foreign language servers with text-based messaging (Enemy Territory) and all requests for help with slang terms has always met with attempts to deceive me: Me: "slt, ksk c'est 'putain de merde' svp?" Pierre: "In English that means 'airstrike'" TLM: "MDR" ... or something along those lines.
- antimagic 13y ago
  I'm loving the mixture of sms speak and vouvoying...
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    Should I tutoyer when I'm being made fun of by strangers in the chatbox of an FPS. Language is so complex. Actually it's probably because we drop "s'il vous plait" in to speech in our family (or sometimes asante sana or danke schon) so I'd think of that first before parsing it as a vous form. Good spotting.

Mvandenbergh 13y ago

I've never even seen any claims that there is a significant difference in language learning ability between teenagers and adults. There is strong evidence that very young children (younger than three years) can pick up the phonetic aspects of languages in a way that adults simply can't and people often simplify that to "young children are better at languages". Given that this guy's key message seems to be about the importance of actually using the language (over taking classes or reading textbooks) I'm not sure that you actually disagree with him.

caio1982 13y ago

Slightly offtopic: I live in a city in Brazil whose heritage is basically german so I know a lot of people trying to learn german here. A particular friend of mine used to work for an IT german company and went to Germany a couple of times and he said every time he tried to speak their language they'd frown at him or feel like "conversation's not flowing" and switch to english. Other friends living in Germany (Stuttgart, Munich, Berlin) and also in Switzerland (Zurich) said the same happens to them with some frequency. I never heard about it happening with other languages or in other countries, so why is that? Any germans out there care to comment on this? Edit: just to make it clear, this is purely out of linguistic curiosity

islon 13y ago
I think this was his personal experience, or maybe his german level is too basic to be useful. I’m a brazilian living in Germany and people here are very open and forgiving about your german even if you are still learning and make a lot of mistakes, they really like their language and prefer it over english if it’s possible, at least that’s my experience.
levosmetalo 13y ago
Depends on who you are, and how good they know you. Germany is a country that historically had a lot of low skilled poorly educated immigrants working in professions that require almost no skills. Those people never really integrated (not always their fault). When unknown person approach a German with broken/half-broken/non-perfect German skills, that German has immidiate prejudice about your social status and education level. If your friend is from Brasil, I guess skin colour also plays a role here. Happened to me numerous times. You will get much better treatment speaking English, since that level the playing fields and then they consider you as an equal. Also happened to me numerous times. So yes, the only way to actually speak German in Germany and not be intimidated is to speak it with people that you already knows and you can consider friends.
kjs3 13y ago
> I never heard about it happening with other languages or in other countries Same thing happened to me all the time in Japan (to be fair, my Japanese is essentially non-existent except for a handful of phrases) and France (significantly more proficient, but still not a proficient speaker). The Japanese in particular seemed put off by butchering their language.

melling 13y ago

Long time HN reader here. I've got several iOS language apps in the App Store. Here's my Spanish app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?m... I'd appreciate it if a few people could download it and provide feedback. The store is getting quite crowded so I'm looking for ideas to find a niche. I've got versions for several other languages, which I outsourced the translations. At this point, I'm not sure where to make further investment.

mason55 13y ago
Good offline mode is the biggest thing missing from the current apps IMO. DuoLingo's was mediocre but on the latest update they completely broke it. Memrise lets you download a lesson but most of the mnemonics, which are the big draw, don't actually download, so it loses a lot of its functionality and just turns into flashcards. I do most of my studying on my commutes which are all on the subways.
- melling 13y ago
  My apps don't require an online mode. I'd like to use iCloud sync at some point so you can move between devices and keep your favorites, scores, etc.

fidotron 13y ago

I think it's simpler than that: something about the Latin languages makes them unusually hard to pick up for fluent English speakers. This strikes me as one of the main reasons Latin stayed being taught in the English speaking world for so long. Once you've got one the rest seem to follow, but that first one seems to be brutal. Compare that with the Asian languages, and I know more people that claim to have picked up substantial bits of Japanese through importing videogames than is remotely reasonable, and have had a sort of light experience of it myself. The very alienness of it prevents attempts to link it back to your previous context, when constantly trying to do so is, in my experience, a perpetual tarpit.