I’m from Vietnam. I’ve been in the UK for 10 years now. When I met my English husband 13 years ago at 19 I knew 0 English. We communicated using machine translation. So that’s when I started learning English. Fast forward to present day after immersion, living in an English speaking country, formal study, etc. and I’d say my writing and listening (understanding) are good, but my speaking and reading are still bad. I kind of gave up on trying to become fluent at this point.
Anyone who can learn one language, can learn an other.
But they will have to be willing and available.
What do you define as fluency? you literally wrote this in English!
are you talking accent reduction? it’s irrelevant to fluency for the most part. that’s a cultural mark of power, that’s it. if you want to give up some of your identity to blend in better you’d probably work at it more. i bet you have more integrity than that.
what are the issues with reading? there can be many reasons to struggle with reading in any language, not just foreign ones.
anyway, if there’s a “too old for language” or “just some people cant”, you, at 32, writing on an english forum, you aint it chief. you’re doing fine the way you are 👑 just keep living with English in your life as much as you want it to be, enjoy learning new things when it’s enjoyable, and go easy on yourself when it’s not
It’s important to keep in mind that the difficulty of learning a language is based on the languages you already speak. Finnish is a good example of this, as while Finnish children are able to learn it quickly due to its regularity, English speakers may struggle with how different it is (especially with some almost entirely unfamiliar concepts, such as the partitive case, which has no direct English equivalent)
Or if your native language is similar to the one you’re trying to learn. If you speak Danish, learning Norwegian is super easy, learning Swedish is easy.
If you’re Italian, speaking Spanish is easy, writing French is easy (even though actually speaking it is harder than Spanish given the strongly different pronunciation).
I’m glad to have been raised somewhere trilingual.
In any case, if your reading and speaking is bad, you should practice that part. Get a few books you think you’d enjoy! If you are unsure about a word’s pronunciation while you are reading, you can look it up online, or just ask your husband.
Some people are barely fluent in their native language
are you talking about a disability or are you making an extremely ill informed statement on linguistics
They are stating an observation.
No, pretty much everybody is able to acquire another language unless they have a neurological disorder that makes them unable to acquire any language at all.
You don’t need to be young or be a child to acquire a language either. The critical period hypothesis is a causation-correlation fallacy at best. It points out many issues directly related to traditional language learning methods and not acquisition of another language at an older age; the issues it points out are the resultant bad pronunciation, spelling errors, grammatical errors upon trying to output etc.
These do not result from “improper age” or “an inability to learn another language”, they result from how society as a whole has accepted “formal study” and “language courses” as the best ways to acquire a language, which they are definitely not.
Language acquisition is achieved first and foremost by comprehensible input in the target language. Hundreds and thousands of hours of comprehensible input. This can consist of any type of content a person enjoys watching, as long as it’s language dense, easy to understand at the start and slowly harder going forward. A good figure to aim for is 10,000 hours of this.
Production of language, or output, is not beneficial to the learner, especially at the first few thousands of hours where it can permanently damage the learner’s ability. The reason for early outputting being so detrimental to language acquisition is that as the learner doesn’t yet completely know how the target language sounds, and they don’t understand grammar rules intuitively yet because of the lack of input, anything they force out will in all likelihood be incorrect and they will unconsciously reinforce the incorrect grammar and pronunciation they just outputted.
So the best way to get to fluency is by doing as much input as possible and as much no output as possible. This is also usually called immersion learning.
You did mention immersion in your text, but considering that you live in an English speaking country you most definitely were forced to output early to at least survive, which damaged your speaking skills. The reason your reading may be bad is that you may not be reading enough English. If you’re talking about language courses when you say “formal study“ and not skimming through a grammar textbook just for an easier time with immersion, which you most likely are, that may have harmed your perception of how English sounds too due to toxic input (the incorrect speech/writing of other learners).
Tatsumoto‘s website is pretty useful for more information and resources on input-based learning. It is primarily for Japanese but as language acquisition doesn‘t differ from one language to another it doesn‘t matter and you can just skip the Kanji-specific parts. I would just think twice about joining their community though as they are pieces of shit, but the website is really well made for a complete language acquisition guide that only uses Libre tooling.
Edit: The amount of misinformation in this thread is just sad. I reached basic English fluency at around 14 and I’m currently doing Japanese immersion, with the comprehension rate of my immersion content being around 90%. And I’m not 9 months old, as you can also probably tell.
most people dont understand languages. it’s sad and i dont understand why they don’t understand. thanks for some sanity in here.
Really interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.
TBH that sounds like saying anybody can become “fluent” in calculus if they just apply themselves. In my experience that’s just not the case. People have different aptitudes. You might be right that with sufficient motivation and unlimited time, anyone without a neurological disorder could theoretically learn a language, but in a real-life context where people have a lot of other concerns and responsibilities going on, I think it’s much more reasonable to say “probably but it depends.”
The problem with your first point is that in the case of language acquisition, there is no “aptitude” for it. The process of language acquisition is more or less the exact same in every person, the only exceptions being people with literal neurological disorders. And you don’t really need unlimited time for this process. It takes around 1.5 years of immersion at 18 hours per day to reach 10,000 hours, 3 years at 9 hours per day, and 6 years at 4.5 hours per day. The trick for reaching the 10,000 hours is just actively consuming compelling TL content whenever you’re free and would normally consume native language content (active immersion), and then listening to them once again while on your way to work or brushing your teeth or something (passive immersion). As an example for compelling content, what drew me to learn English in the first place was mostly popsci and video game content that I was really interested in and that were simply not available in Turkish. I would also recommend having smaller weekly goals instead of one gigantic goal that you are likely to stress over (like the 10,000 hours).
And the concerns you list are mainly time & motivation related, but the OP is asking if some people are literally worse at/incapable of acquiring a foreign language, which is not the case at all.
The guide I mentioned in my comment covers more topics than I could ever fit in a comment, including different types of immersion (passive and active), different types of active immersion (intensive and free flow), SRS, software, other helpful websites, techniques and much more so I would just recommend giving it a read if one decides on diving into language acquisition.
I mean, this is a valid point, but framed negatively.
Depends on how you take it. When you say anyone who doesn’t have a neurological disorder can do something it puts a negative light on people who haven’t done it. Not being multilingual is a common negative statement about Americans, for example, always comparing them with Europeans. But most Americans don’t live close to multiple places where different languages are prevalent, as in Europe, so their only reason to learn other languages is purely academic. Similar to the average person’s motivation to learn calculus. I think I framed it pretty realistically - certainly with more brevity.
No, it simply doesn’t. If one doesn’t want to learn a language, they simply shouldn’t (and this includes wanting to want to learn a language). This is a personal issue, and it should not be an excuse for spreading any kind of misinformation about the topic.
Like with any other ability, like painting or playing an instrument, learning a language is something that some people can do better than others.
And while starting to learn a language as a baby or toddler has it’s advantages (Our kids basically grew up bilingual), I started learning English in school when I was 11, and I still managed to learn it. Yes, native speakers will still tell me that I have an accent, but I’m good enough that they cannot place it, just that it is not native. With only 2-3 weeks a year in the UK, it is probably the closest I can get. Written English is another matter, anyway. I’ve probably read way more English books than the average native speaker…
So what I’m gathering from this thread is that since I’m 42, I probably shouldn’t even try learning a new language? That’s reductive but more or less the energy I’m getting.
This thread is just bullshit.
I’m 57 and learning German. I also have long covid brain and I’m in the menopause. I’m still managing to pick stuff up but I keep forgetting it when I actually have to speak German.
i have no clue where the fuck people get this idea, it’s clearly nonsense since people pick up accents just from living in a different country for a year or two
It’s also bullshit. My parents (both 50+) are both learning English right now. Of course they’ll never be close to native speakers. But they are absolutely able to communicate to get around, well beyond the basics too.
It doesn’t get easier. But it also doesn’t get impossible. Motivation is a big step towards it.
My in laws learned English in their seventies!
Chiming in with more context, my PhD was in neuroscience and I worked in a language lab. As others have stated, there is a critical window for learning a language. The biology behind it is fascinating.
As early as about 9 months of age, your brain begins to decide what speech sounds are important to you. For example, in Japanese the difference between /r/ and /l/ sounds doesn’t matter, but in English it does. Before 9 months, most babies can tell the difference between the two sounds, but babies living in Japanese-speaking environments (without any English) LOSE this ability after 9ish months!
Language is more than just speech sounds, though. Imagine all these nuances of language - there are critical moments where your brain just decides to accept or reject them, and it’s coded somewhere in your DNA.
Conversely, Japanese people learn to tell the difference between an “o” vowel held for shorter or longer periods, a skill that I find incredibly difficult even though I lived in Japan for 7 years.
i’ve never understood this, i’m slightly older than 9 months and i’ve been perfectly able to pick up new sounds, and people learn new languages all the time…
Perfectly? In a language system different than your own. English to French/Spanish doesn’t require these sounds. English to like Thai or Chinese has a lot.
People learn new languages because you can get the ability back with training (hooray neurplasticity) but it is more difficult and takes longer.
that’s moving the goalposts, the previous poster claims that you simply cannot tell the difference between sounds that don’t exist in your native language, which is fucking obviously false and they should be ashamed of posting something like that
oh my god… relax. they’re called allophones, it’s when two different sounds are treated as the same phoneme in a language. so like whether you make a click sound with your K or not, it’s still a K right? well in some languages it would be a totally different phoneme. but to you, whether you can hear the difference or not is irrelevant to you because it either way it just means K. that’s what they’re talking about.
it can be very hard to hear the difference if you never grew up with it, especially in the course of conversation. just try and understand the difference between 살 and 쌀, it sucks.
can you chill with the “you should be ashamed” and try more of “i should generously try to understand what they mean and ask questions to get there instead of raging at any perceived weakness”
Have you tried learning Japanese / English after learning the other? I studied Japanese and learned how to pronounce the /r/ in Japanese correctly.
For some people, the difficulty is less in production, and more in interpretation for someone who is native Japanese speaking and later learned English.
English to Vietnamese or Vietnamese to English is harder than, say English to Spanish or Arabic because the sounds are so very different - I am sure I simply can’t hear some of the different sounds in tonal languages, and had a friend who moved here from Taiwan when she was so young she learned better in English than Taiwanese but still she could not hear the difference between ear and year.
I don’t think it’s impossible but do think it’s unusual. My dad was bilingual English and Spanish and I wish my parents had done the “one speaks English one speaks Spanish” language immersion but we only spoke English at home.
The thing about language is that you kinda have to start from a young age. The older you start, the more difficult its gonna get.
I was born in Mainland China, I immigrated to the US before I turned 10. It was difficult at first, but now I speak fluent English (American English) with no noticeable accents according to my classmates in highschool.
I wouldn’t say to “give up”, but like… have realistic expectations.
I’m never gonna learn french or german to nearly as good as a native speaker, not in this lifetime at least. If I hadn’t immigrated that eaely, I’d never have the same proficiency. My brother who’s just a few years older than me is horrible in English. But honestly, he’s an abusive piece of shit that I feel better at the fact that I have better English proficiency than him (sorry to bring up my family drama, I’m going though a lot in life and kinda wanna vent a bit)
Anyways, good luck, its gonna be tough. Try your best 😉
Some people just can’t, but that’s fine, you’re still just as valuable a person as anyone who can ! ^^
I learnt to speak French by living there for a year or so but I still cannot read it at all beyond short sentences because how a word sounds is different than how it looks.
As for English, I think both learning English and English speakers learning other languages is extra hard because English is such a hodge podge of random bits of other syntaxes and structures. Its a mess of a language in lots of respects making it hard to learn and hard for native speakers to get past the messiness and learn a better structured language.
For near-native fluency, there is an age cap at around 10 years. It’s much harder for adults, as their critical learning period is closed: https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501
However there is evidence that psychedelics can open up critical periods for social learning (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3) and ongoing research about other critical periods, language learning being one of them.
It might be scientifically accurate but I think the notion of an age cap is misguided. Just because it’s harder doesn’t mean it’s impossible, and the idea of an “age cap” just makes it seem like you shouldn’t even try (might just be my interpretation).
Also it’s just super helpful to learn something even though you’re not perfect.
I’ve started learning English at 10, put in a lot of work over the years, and it got to near-native in my late 20ies (certified by my language-nerd native-english-speaker wife). At 20 I had trouble booking hostel rooms over the phone.
In my 40ies now and I feel like most of the skills that make “me” today, including playing instruments, programming languages, all kinds of crafts, I learned way past ten and many of them past 20. Started learning Spanish at around 35, nowhere near native but decently conversational. About to start the next course in Catalan soon.
So, this is the one thing where I think people just should ignore the science (which is usually not my stance at all) and get cracking, you can teach an old dog new tricks, and it’s always helpful and fun.
“Dump 100 average 10-year-olds in Spain and most will be able to reach near-native fluency without much effort. Dump 100 average 35-year-olds in Spain and most won’t reach near-native fluency without struggling a great deal.”
is NOT saying
“Having an accent is bad; only perfect pronunciation is good enough.”
“You need flawless grammar to be able to communicate.”
“Hard = impossible”
“There is no point in learning a language if you struggle.”
“35-year-olds shouldn’t even try.”
I got a bunch of downvotes for my comment. I guess you’re not the only one reading “it’s much harder” = “there is no point”. I did not say that. The article I linked did not say that. On the contrary, the article talks about hos the critical period seems to be longer than they previously thought.
I work in a bilingual workplace that offers language training to everyone. My colleagues are dedicated professionals and take learning seriously. However, some succeed more than others. There seems to be a lot of variation in language learning ability, even among smart hard-working people. Don’t feel bad if you’re struggling.
My advice is to focus your effort on the hard parts. If producing accurate sounds (phonemes) is difficult, try recording yourself and repeating the tough ones.
For reading, you might have a mismatch between the level of the material and your current ability. When i was beginning to learn my second language, i started with young adult books. Next easiest is a book that has been translated into the language you’re learning, preferably from your native language. Sometimes i would buy the same book in both languages and compare. Reading on your phone is also nice because you can usually click a word to see the definition.
For speaking, the best thing to do is talk, talk, talk. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and don’t always talk to the same person.
Good luck! Don’t get discouraged! I’ve been learning my second language for 42 years and i am still getting better.
