Can we Acquire a Language Naturally as Adults? 

I don't think you can compare language acquisition for adults and kids. Kids don't already speak any language (OK, other than baby talk, which I don't see offered on Lingq!). That's very different than adults who are trying to learn a second language.

RE: correction, no I don't want (nor see much value in) a Czech bookstore clerk correcting me. I DO want lots of correction from those I interact with more often. I appreciate correction. It definitely makes me remember.

活到老，学到老。

@@timx2023 what actually makes it inherently different besides the superstition that isn't really backed up by research?

Any update?

@@MK-ow3rh Since writing that post, I understand a little better when listening to spoken Spanish content, understand more while reading in Spanish, and feel more confident speaking when I need to. Far from perfect, but I’m still enjoying what I’m doing and have noticed improvement. Overall I feel more familiar with the language than ever. I am spending free time I have with the language, but can’t do hours and hours daily. When I start feeling like I’m overdoing it, I take a break.

@@totesmagotes3688 great. Imo, one can hold concentration max 2 hours... And thats on a good day. Its good to let osmosis work and dont be nervous to take plenty of breaks for you efforts as well. I pushed Spanish for 4 years, finished in 2012. I surprised myself recently that I could understand a documentary from Mexico without much effort. That's an 11 year gap and while I need to relearn how to speak it, my comprehension is even better today without further study. Also, be careful with listening. Some accents are easier then others, so don't get discouraged if you don't understand sometimes.

i think i really needed to hear “trust the process” part 😭 i’m a beginner learning korean and i’ve definitely understand like 5% more from nothing lol but sometimes i think about it and wonder if all this constant learning will actually make me known the language, but trust the process is what i need to remember cuz i see little progress every day. i just need some patience lol

Another check in, how are things going now?

When it comes to teachers training. They are taught to correct the student immediately after making a mistake. There argument is: „If the students says it ones wrong, he will have the habit making the same mistake." Yeah but in general being corrected every 30 seconds because of a slightly wrong word order, wrong word, wrong ending or article usage may rob the student's confidence. But that's how many people language acquisition works.

This is exactly what is happening to me and I'm now not enjoying trying to learn German

@@juliegrune1375 shocking cos you have a German surname, was it by marriage?

@@rasheedololade5439 yes my hubby (18 years together) is German. Now we have moved to Germany and I'm attending night school to learn German. The Grammer is tough but I love speaking to people except that being over corrected is not the help its meant to be. It just makes me lose confidence

@@juliegrune1375 I understand, very tough at A1 ... I think anything involved learning has to do with deep interest, i was super interested in driving a car, I learnt to drive a stick as my first driving experience in less than 20 mins and everytime i am on the road, people ask, how long have you been driving and i reply then, less than 2 mths and the response is always like WTF or wow 😳

Also you can watch videos about phonetic Mandarin, how to pronounce that couple of words more deeply. I did multiple things to improve my pronunciation and one of them was search videos about IPA (internacional phonectics and i forgot what is means the A), but you now, i'm still learning.

活到老，学到老。

@@daydreamintheflowers6702 A - alphabet

From my experience, for most immigrants to the US, if they don't learn English in the first 2 years, they end up figuring out how to avoid learning English and survive like that for the rest of their life.

​@@daydreamintheflowers6702 Alphabet

Yep. I'm teaching English to my niece with "fixes" (Its a cartoon) and she will be very grateful after some years,😁 She is just 4years old.

Exactly

TV as well

Yes, but their understanding of the language will usually be different than those raised in the country where the language is spoken

we aren't kids

Nice input, I agree 100%. Kids put on a really great effort to learn a language, and yes, their first language takes a quite long time to embed as they have no other reference to compare with, or no other previous experience that can help them to relate things. Let's remember that relating, matching or comparing things enforces memory. I also have another thought in terms of learning, not only a language, but any other activity. It's widely said that it's easier to learn something when you're young. I believe it holds true, but up to some extent and because of a reason: Youngsters are likely to put way more time and effort in learning something new, just because they DO have more time available than adults. For example, let's say that you and your kid start taking piano lessons twice a week with the same amount of classroom time. You both like it; therefore, you both are making an effort to learn. However, your kid will learn faster because: 1) He/she will have more time to practice at home. 2) He/she will have much more time to think about it whilst not in practice or classroom. I believe that point 2 is a quite interesting element in learning. That sort of 'offline thinking' or 'mental time' that you dedicate to the activity will also add up to the overall learning process. So, the more time you dedicate to an activity, regardless of the format (classroom, home practice or just thinking or talking about it), the faster you will acquire it. As an adult, you have too many other things to worry and think about; therefore, point 2 is quite out of the equation.

Basically was going to say the same thing. Children don't always pick up a second language from parents even if they speak a lot in that language. I am friends with a mum who speaks a lot of her second language to her child. They don't speak back, why? Because they've learned that if they only respond in their native language the mum reacts so they see no need to put in the effort to speak in that language. They have now started speaking the second language with me because I don't respond to them unless they speak. They are 6 and they have been hearing the language since they were born. I think this shows how even in children will to learn is important. Also children take years and years to be able to pronounce everything correctly in a language, can grow up to speak with grammar mistakes, because grammar changing is a natural part of language, etc. Children and adults both have strengths and weaknesses to the language learning process.

@@mavsworld1733 That's a really good point. I've raised three bilingual children in Japan. The eldest always understood what I said in English, but would respond to me in Japanese more often than not, since I understand Japanese. It wasn't until her monolingual grandmother came to visit that she changed. She couldn't communicate with her grandmother in Japanese, so she gradually started putting more deliberate effort into expressing herself in English. After her grandmother left, I could see the deliberate (if still awkward) effort she was putting into responding to me in English, and a month later she was communicating with me exclusively in English, even when it was something she could obviously have spit out far more easily in Japanese.

i agree, and more, the children go to school EVERY DAY, it is wrong to say that they ONLY learn "naturally"

True. Kids are utterly enthusiastic and curious about learning and they have an open mind. The same can't always be said about adults. If anything, you need to be like a child to learn.

I need important my listening How to Improve listening?

Top man!! Good luck in your journey!

If you read make sure you listen to it as well But listen without reading after you have read a few times and understand. This is when your brain has to work hard at recognising the words so comprehensible input is important for listening

I like being corrected from time to time. I also ask people to do it.

How about consistency?

@@Justin-uo8hk Yes, consistency and perseverance are the same for me, but I learned that as a dictionary meaning, continuity should perhaps be expressed with perseverance.

@@Justin-uo8hk Thank you so much for your interest.

All of these factors are primarily influenced by how much you love your immersion shows and books. So spend time to find great TL entertainment.

@@TopDogIK What is TL?

I also suggest you try LingQ for Romanian. You can start with the mini-stories and then import content of interest to use on LingQ. Good luck. I enjoyed visiting Romania and learning Romanian, much of which I have (temporarily) forgotten.

@@Thelinguist Thank you for the suggestion! Will try ☺️

How is it going?

Comprehensible input is honestly infinitely more valuable than duolingo. All duolingo teaches is how to translate

@@tommys234 I have since abandoned the evil owl, and moved to comprehensible input, and in comparison Duolingo is dreadful. I now think Duolingo is a poor way to learn. As you say, it teaches translation not understanding. And the voice actors are dreadful, they put on weird voices. Plus the phrases are often strange. The most damning criticism of Duolingo is that it is s very slow and inefficient way to learn.

I'm not surprised as someone who was born the US I met so many people from Mexico and they been living here for 20 to 30 years and still can't speak English

Here in the Phoenix area its very common to find Mexicans who have lived here 30 or 40 years and they have only rudimentary english skills.

My father (49) wants to learn French as well, but he believes he can’t cuz of his age. Hopefully ur method and seeing other adults successfully learn languages can motivate him. Thanks for sharing! :)

You are a genius

It's so sad (even distressing) that adults pick up the habit of losing confidence and motivation when they find out they're wrong about something.

Absolutely. Look at the ALG Thai program for examples.

@@coryjorgensen622 cool 💙

Not really. You can try to approximate it by replicating the conditions in which infants learn their native language, but there's nothing you can do about maturational differences or the experiential knowledge you've gained. You can't go back to a time when you didn't understand simple things like gravity and when you lacked basic cognitive functions like predictive abilities, nor can you form the same kind of bond you had with your parents in early childhood. And since you're literate, you also can't go back to what your brain was like pre speech/print integration, even if you're learning a language with a script you don't understand. So anyway, you can try to approximate it, but it's impossible for an adult to fully replicate the exact process of first language acquisition.

And might I add, who is going to talk to you like a child? No body, not even a child. Further more, the idea that friends or strangers really want to help you learn is a lie. Most people just want to communicate, if you can't speak their language they will switch to yours immediately. Most people are not teachers, therefore they do not want to teach you, and never ask your family.

@@bofbob1 appreciate the scientific breakdown - you're not wrong 😉 But approximate we must!! Otherwise we'd be sending people into space without _any_ idea what zero gravity is like. Can they _actually_ experience it on Earth? Of course not, but the approximation still goes a long way! And so can simulating "natural" language acquisition by injecting the carefree love for learning in our grown-up study. Being literate does _not_ mean dictionaries and other boring texts are the only way to language 🤪

What is your mother tongue?

It goes up and down. I'm 65 and kick started my French after 50 years. Listen and read every day. 75% listening to 25% reading. You have to be disciplined. I use flash cards (making them is lots of work) you tube videos, children's cartoons with sub subtitles, teaching videos, newspapers, books. Plenty of variety. Plus I try to speak and I never apologise for my bad French.

Honestly, I had a flatmate from Colombia: Before that she was living with Spanish-speaking people and working as a nanny. She could bearly communicate in English. After moving in with me and our 3 other English-Speakers, she was speaking competent English with ease in less than 4-6 months. I'm sure the ideal is total immersion: Eg you are hungry at breakfast and would like to eat that Croissant: You WILL learn how to say what you want in the target language when other language is not available and you learn to say the right thing and the others then try to get you to say it the right way so they FEEL better hearing you!

Your English is VERY good already! I would have assumed you were already at a B1 level based on this comment!

Your English is getting close to perfect if that comment is any indication! I certainly wouldn’t have instantly recognized you as an L2 speaker. :)

By the way I would guesstimate that unless Google Translate or something was involved, that’s well into B level territory and probably B2. :)

As tough as it sounds, that kind of treatment is absolut necessary when learning Chinese. I really wish I had a teacher like that because your tones need to be hammered into you for quite some time before you get them right most of the time

@Ragnar Bluechip there's constructive criticism, and then purposefully making someone feel as small as possible. She didn't correct me, all she did was punch down the way she knew it would hurt me the most. I'm not disagreeing, but within context, I wouldn't wish it upon anyone, let alone a student

@@jasonjohnson6938 Thanks for clarifying. I agree, if someone corrects you in a nasty way it's unlikely to be helpful

Maybe you've answered your own question: some students are more open to correction than others, and you have to adjust your teaching to their level of openness. Or find a way to open the students up to correction? Being closed to correction (losing confidence and motivation because of it) is such a handicap.

Tip: Use they/them or the formal one if you want to express gender neutrality.

another corollary: it's a waste of time to teach anybody who isn't prepared to learn or who doesn't value the subject being offered

You are in the intermediate plateau where you feel you are putting in a lot of time and not progressing. You just have to keep going, and consume material of interest to you.

Hey Pat (Sorry I'm not the Steve you're looking for), I have this same problem with German. I have been studying the language for almost 15 years as an American, and I can understand what I am hearing when I listen to German speakers, but formulating my own thoughts into coherent German sentences is always a struggle. My theory is that I am not in an environment where I get to regularly converse in German. So one part of my brain is getting all the stimulus it needs to remember and recall German words, phrases, and sentences, but because I don't speak it nearly as much as I listen to it, that part of my brain is too weak to be used reliably in spontaneous conversation.

@@WingZeroGWO Ah dont worry haha I appreciate the comment man. Yeah I know that if I was to say live in the country of my target language I would undoubtedly become able to speak well but I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense!

It all depends on practice. First, having immense amount of input is extremely beneficial for eventual speaking. In Japanese that would be around 3000 hours of reading & listening input, with focus on it being as comprehensible as can be (which is not always possible, so sometimes it is great to exchange fun for comprehension). The more diverse (and natural like news, podcasts, books etc.) that input is, the better. I heard quite a few people who picked up speaking incredibly quickly after that despite never speaking before. But it still will be difficult in the beginning once you push yourself into that speaking creation. After that, once you really push yourself into situations where you must speak, you should be able to relatively "easily" pick up the speaking skill too. But as Steven Kiley says, it is a skill on its own that takes time for the brain to develop properly. So doing it is the way. But having the massive comprehensible input foundation makes the process so much easier and faster. You can do it even at home, speaking your thoughts out loud or roleplaying a conversation with a character from an Anime or the like. What you also can do is to first start actively writing as that is a bit easier than speaking since you have more time to lay down your thoughts and all. Naturally, being in the country and conversing with natives is by far the most effective way. But that also depends on how actively you are inputting the comprehensible language too. Since there are plenty of people that were living in the country and still barely knew anything despite interacting with people and living there for years. Because they did not actively try acquiring language through comprehensible input and just passively absorbed it, which is not enough, especially if you are a beginner. Passive input is great for getting used to the sounds and structure, but active (as comprehensible yet fun as possible) input is the key. That is then enhanced by active writing and speaking once the foundation of said varied active input is there. Just my two cents on this from what I learnt from listening to interviews of people like Steve, Stephen Krashen, Matt vs Japan etc.

You can’t learn a language if you don’t speak it. You need to be implementing the four components of what makes learning a language which is reading, writing, listening and speaking. So try to do all of those everyday like Pimsleur is good for speaking. LingQ is good for reading and listening. Also podcasts and finding communities such a reddit in your target language helps too.

Learn the script, then start in with the mini-stories at LingQ. Ukrainian is free at LingQ.

I am definitely no Dr. Krashen but “Direct Method” pedagogy is kind of his thing. I’m trying the most unstructured approach possible right now, aka the “literally just start going to XYZish community social events as the only non-native speaker there and do it a LOT” method. Don’t know if it is fastest, but it’s gotta be up there and it’s certainly been the most rewarding. :)

Also, look into the Middlebury College language retreats or something similar for inspiration- one of the main models for all things direct method since! :)

In Europe, some countries learn 3 or 4 languages at school, eg Luxembourg or Switzerland: The Swiss have: German, French and Italian and of course English necessity. Now if I were to research, I'd work out what they're doing that enables learning multiple language EARLY ON IN LIFE. I believe Aboriginals in Australia were linguistic maestros knowing about 24 languages due to different tribes mingling/meeting and then they used "Songlines" as part of their geography/migration. Is the research dead? Well not by RESULTS where kids spend time at school or as adults learning and not progressing: It seems from that perspective very much an "open field". With that said, I'm not a fan of academia's approach and more a fan of practical results. YMMV. On the topic of kids learning: I remember finding learning my native tongue excruciating: I could not learn to spell despite my my mother's tears and dramas to spell "D-I-D"! Looking at parents and how exhausted they are by their children it makes one wonder what is happening in those early years where kids do end up picking up langugues despite these obvious and very real challenges! "Birds have wings with which to fly, and Humans have tongues with which to speak."

Dunno. There's a pretty strong imbalance between supply and demand when it comes to jobs in academia, so that may be what you're seeing. Language acquisition as a field of study is doing quite well, never better really. How that translates into jobs... dunno. Thing is that the topic is increasingly segregated across different disciplines, so while there are plenty of researchers in language acquisition, I honestly don't know how many there are in the specific area of instructed SLA, which seems to be what you're in. So maybe worth looking into other fields as well? Maybe also worth remembering that academia will be hit by the retirement wave like everyone else. So you should expect quite a few job openings in the upcoming decade. It might be slightly delayed compared to the private sectors just because of the tendency of old academic farts to cling to their jobs long past retirement, but they can only hold on for so long... I mean, we all die some day... If I were to go back into language acquisition research today, I'd probably go into neurolinguistics or evolutionary biology. That's where the meat of it is IMHO. In instructed SLA, I'd take a good whack at taking down dual process theory, which is the feet of clay of most theoretical giants in instructed SLA, at least among the ones I've looked into. As I see it, the entire field is plagued by either/or thinking, as if there was something magical about the number two. I'd be really curious to see what a "non-binary" (in quotes because I can't help but think of gender when I use that term, even though that's not at all what I'm talking about here! ^^) theory of instructed SLA would look like.

That's the point, children learn easily cuz their brains are being constructed and new networks are being made along the rapid development.

@@Eric-rv8ce agreed, kids has amazing brain the kids can learn lauguanges easily but never too late to learn any languanges.😊

@@ariohandoyo5973 yes for sure 😉 we're gonna improve certainly

Nobody likes Spanish speakers. Duh. Speak English.

So proud of you.

You're right, learning languages require a lot efforts, however, this process must be enjoyable. The brain of the an adult works different, but i do not believe that the process must be like " no pain no gain" 😂. By the way, i am from brazil and i am improving my english a lot with the Steve's tips.

@MacasGamer hmm i can't enjoy the learning process not that I dont like studying. I just keep studying to improve my english. And I don't know how you can enjoy the process. Do you happen to watch like series??

This will answer your question: Steve, you are MISSING an IMPORTANT ASPECT in your reasoning WHY children acquire a second language faster than adults. It's NONE of what you stated. An adult can match the hours spent with a language and be just as uninhibited, etc. Children will always outperform an adult everything else being equal. I am surprised you cannot see the major difference between adults and children. Obviously children aren't fully developed physically, but that's irrelevant. What is RELEVANT is that children don't have a FULLY DEVELOPED First Language. Adults HAVE a fully developed first language. Guess what ? Fully developed first language DOMINATES consciousness not allowing a second language develop same as first. First language simply gets in the way. Languages COMPETE for your attention and the stronger one wins. And there ARE ways for adults to match the abilities of children. Purposely deny yourself ANY use of your native language, creating linguistic vacuum (so to speak) I mean never using your first language for a few months. It is psychologically arduous (for adults), and You will CRAVE a replacement language. You will crave and absorb a second language like a child. I speak from experience.

Not really. And adults have some advantages, too.

@@TopDogIK Takes one google search to find thousands of results proving my point.

@@hydraavux8636 I just mean in aggregate the difference is not so huge, if you factor in all the advantages adults have over babies -- they can read, make flashcards, watch youtube videos about the language, and so on.

I’d actually disagree (outside of accent)

completely? Do you believe humans like butterflies change to some extremely different things when become adult or what? There're enough examples of successful child-style acquisition of second+ language without rules and classrooms. I can't even imagine how the disproval of that fact should look like.

@@tamarimosh The science of this has been settled for 40 years. The only outstanding questions revolve around why the adult brain is so different from a child's. There are a variety of competing theories.

This will make things more clear: Steve, you are MISSING an IMPORTANT ASPECT in your reasoning WHY children acquire a second language faster than adults. It's NONE of what you stated. An adult can match the hours spent with a language and be just as uninhibited, etc. Children will always outperform an adult everything else being equal. !!! I am surprised you cannot see the major difference between adults and children. Obviously children aren't fully developed physically, but that's irrelevant. What is RELEVANT is that children don't have a FULLY DEVELOPED First Language. Adults HAVE a fully developed first language. Guess what ? Fully developed first language DOMINATES consciousness not allowing a second language develop same as first. First language simply gets in the way. Languages COMPETE for your attention and the stronger one wins. And there ARE ways for adults to match the abilities of children. Purposely deny yourself ANY use of your native language, creating linguistic vacuum (so to speak) I mean never using your first language for a few months. It is psychologically arduous (for adults), and You will CRAVE a replacement language. You will crave and absorb a second language like a child. I speak from experience.