If you learn any language as an adult, chances are you're never going to become as fluent as a native speaker, no matter how long you live in a second language environment. I say that as someone who has done it myself, and seen a lot of friends and family going through the same process.
Children are a different story. They can learn a language and start speaking just like native speakers, local accent and all, within months. It's absolutely amazing to see. My niece went to Australia when she was 5. She could speak Portuguese, our native language, as a native, obviously, and was very afraid to learn English. A few months later she was fluent in English and had the local accent from basically day 1 :D. I never absorbed the accent myself (moved to Australia as a 23 yo, over 20 years ago). She is 11 now and she now mostly speaks English, and it takes effort for her to answer to us in Portuguese when we try to get her to do so.
Her dad, my brother, studied for years (even before moving) to try to speak somewhat fluent and correct English... but even now, more than 5 years later, he struggles. His wife barely speaks anything.
When I was new in the country, I could see that the younger the person, the faster and the easier it was to learn. No child I've seen ever had any difficulty learning a new language from scratch... they really are amazing at it!
I have been learning Swedish as I've moved to Sweden years ago, and I am in the same position as my brother is in Australia: I can only speak basic Swedish and I make mistakes and have to think a lot to say things coherently, specially without having to translate from English first - I've spoken English so long that it's my main language now... but I still understand Portuguese with less effort than English (and after just a few weeks speaking mostly Portuguese, as I do on some of my vacations, I become much better at speaking it again and words stop coming in English first, but that depends on the topic as well - if it's a topic I only ever speak about in English, like work, I find it horrible to speak about that in Portuguese!).
To think some people are able to learn 50 language (as mentioned in the post) blows my mind. I don't think I will ever speak my third language properly, let alone learn another dozen languages in the future :D
But this is another observation I've made over the years: a minority of people are very talented at languages and can indeed learn much more easily than others... though as far as I know, only children can learn within months and with perfect pronunciation.
Sorry to be a curmudgeon but I get tired of all these claims about how well young children speak second languages.
A young child saying "Vanilla ice cream please!" often sounds more like "Ganiwa ishe! cweam! pweese!".
A typical 4-year-old speaking English substitutes many sounds for another because they developmentally aren't able to make the right sounds yet. Their intonation is also all over the place.
If an adult had their accent it would be barely intelligible (and in fact many small children are hard to understand by people who don't spend a lot of time with them).
It is amazing to watch how fast small children grow and develop but we also (rightfully) grade them on a curve. It is when we compare them to adults that somehow we forget the curve being applied.
Just a thought from someone who speaks English and a smattering of Spanish.
If the child can correctly express the idea/intent they want and be understood then arguably they have learned that part of the language. Sure it might not sound how an adult would be likewise they probably don’t in their native language either right?
I doubt anyone is saying that kids learn to speak the language perfectly but clearly there is a pattern where by they are able to understand and express themselves faster than adults - even if they sound childish still.
The person you're responding to said that children are graded on a curve. Your response is that children should be graded on a curve. Fine, but only being understood by your mother when near an ice cream shop is not the goal for adults learning a second language.
I would actually argue that if a child and an adult spent the same amount of time engaged in language learning and were graded on the same metrics the adult would get farther. I don't think there's a magical cutoff where we suddenly can't learn languages anymore.
Rather, I think it is partly because we grade them on a curve that children are said to be amazing linguists
Children have many other advantages that also help them:
* More free time
* Fewer internal distractions (Did I lock the door? What am I making for dinner? etc.)
* Not being afraid to make mistakes
I've observed my kiddo when he was a toddler and I think there might be an inflection point when they are very young and don't speak so well, when they might be able to learn any language with ease, precisely because they don't recognize let alone speak even their own so well. I recall my kid was watching TV and all and at some point while eating he pointed to a drawing on a cocoa box and said "monkey!" in English, and indeed it was a monkey. Must have picked it up from cartoons or something.
But then there's a point of no return when they learn enough native language from which point on any attempt at a foreign one becomes deliberate practice that requires effort. And this point of no return follows very early from the point when they start to speak.
My example above was of a 5 year old. At that age, she already spoke her own language fluently so that anyone understood her well (of course, they still have a smaller vocabulary at this age as they haven't been able to talk about all sorts of topics yet). Do you think a normal 5yo normally still speaks blurry?? Or a 6yo? At this age, and even up to perhaps 12yo, as far as I can tell, they're able to absorb another language quite easily, and it only becomes harder around age 14 or so... though of course I haven't run an experiment or anything. I expect your learning curve becomes worse gradually between the ages of 14 and 30, maybe very slowly up to mid 40's.
If a non-native English speaking 5 year old said "I goed to school today" people would say they are native level. (Even though they used the non-word "goed" as the past tense of "to go" instead of "went")
If a non-native English speaking 15 year old said "I goed to school today" people wouldn't say, "wow, they are a native speaker" nor would they say "wow, they are natively speaking like a 5-year-old" - they would say they still needed practice.
That's my point - speaking like a 5 year old as an adult wouldn't be considered native by anyone but a 5 year old. As you get older the standard is higher: speaking like a 10 year old is much harder than speaking like a 5 year old.
So for a 10 year old just learning a new language it may take longer than the 5 year old to get to their age level. That doesn't necessarily mean the 10 year old is worse at learning languages though since they have so much more to learn to be considered "native".
My children went to kindergarten (barnehage) in Norway when they were about three and a half and speaking English well. Well with a year they were indistinguishable from the native children.
Children are a different story. They can learn a language and start speaking just like native speakers, local accent and all, within months. It's absolutely amazing to see. My niece went to Australia when she was 5. She could speak Portuguese, our native language, as a native, obviously, and was very afraid to learn English. A few months later she was fluent in English and had the local accent from basically day 1 :D. I never absorbed the accent myself (moved to Australia as a 23 yo, over 20 years ago). She is 11 now and she now mostly speaks English, and it takes effort for her to answer to us in Portuguese when we try to get her to do so. Her dad, my brother, studied for years (even before moving) to try to speak somewhat fluent and correct English... but even now, more than 5 years later, he struggles. His wife barely speaks anything.
When I was new in the country, I could see that the younger the person, the faster and the easier it was to learn. No child I've seen ever had any difficulty learning a new language from scratch... they really are amazing at it!
I have been learning Swedish as I've moved to Sweden years ago, and I am in the same position as my brother is in Australia: I can only speak basic Swedish and I make mistakes and have to think a lot to say things coherently, specially without having to translate from English first - I've spoken English so long that it's my main language now... but I still understand Portuguese with less effort than English (and after just a few weeks speaking mostly Portuguese, as I do on some of my vacations, I become much better at speaking it again and words stop coming in English first, but that depends on the topic as well - if it's a topic I only ever speak about in English, like work, I find it horrible to speak about that in Portuguese!).
To think some people are able to learn 50 language (as mentioned in the post) blows my mind. I don't think I will ever speak my third language properly, let alone learn another dozen languages in the future :D
But this is another observation I've made over the years: a minority of people are very talented at languages and can indeed learn much more easily than others... though as far as I know, only children can learn within months and with perfect pronunciation.