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.
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…
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 early, I’d never have the same proficiency in English. 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 😉
The older you are when you begin trying to learn a foreign language the harder it is. Like almost everything, actually.
While there is a point where yes it’s gonna be hard no matter what, I’m learning a new language in my 30s and finding it relatively easy. As an adult you already have a large vocabulary and know what more complex words mean, you just need to learn their translation.
May I ask which language you’re learning? I’m curious about Japanese and Arabic (Egyptian Dialect). But both seem really tough to learn.
Speaking Japanese honestly isn’t too hard. Reading/writing Japanese is more difficult but is easier as you realize the complex Kanji are just combinations of simpler kanji and how those relate to meaning. Most of the sounds are also in English.
I’m fluent in English and Spanish, et je suis en train d’apprendre le français
Though I will note that of course, learning a language that’s in the same “family” of languages as your mother tongue will always be easier, regardless of age. The jump to Japanese or Arabic from English is far greater.
Dutch is my native language so not sure how close that is to Japanese, ha. But I understand what you mean.
Same. I started learning French from English, and my experiences from software development have made learning a new language easier. I also took Spanish almost 20 years ago, and while I don’t speak it, I have a better understanding of how languages are structured so learning congregations is easier since I understand the concept better. Perhaps the specific words I’m learning don’t stick in memory as easy as a child, but learning a new language is like 30% vocab and 70% sentence structure and congregation. The hard part is the “logic”, if you will.
I think when people are learning some new skill, eventually they reach a proficiency where they stop actively working on improving. Instead, they’ll transition from “improving the skill” to “applying the skill”.
Practice does not make “perfect”. Practice makes permanent.
That’s a really good point a lot of people miss. There are a lot of right answers in this post, different people, different results; age; etc. But if you don’t level up the challenge and make sure you are meeting those challenges correctly then you will stagnate. True for everything
I see it ALL the time, across MANY domains.
Language, music, golf, programming, driving, competitive gaming, etc etc.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing; it’s WAY more effort to push for improvement. Once you’ve gotten to the point where your skills are serving your needs, is that what you want to invest your finite energy into? Maybe not. God knows I’m not actively trying to improve on every skill I have. Very few. Most of my things (music, games, sport) are just to have fun. If you’re having fun you’re probably not really improving, and that’s ok.
But when people lament that they’ve hit a wall on a skill, in my experience it’s this effect, MUCH more than any other.
I think if OP reflected on their already MASSIVE achievement of becoming functional in another language, they’d likely conclude that their skills rapidly increased up until the point that they had a functional level of the skill, and then hit a plateau once they subconsciously began expending less active effort on improvement.
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.
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.
Some people just can’t, but that’s fine, you’re still just as valuable a person as anyone who can ! ^^
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.
This doesn’t answer your question, but I’m curious. You say your writing is good but your reading is bad. In my experience reading and writing are so intrinsically linked, and reading is the easier of the two. If it’s possible can you explain the difference for you? I just find it really interesting!
When I write I visualise the words-sentences in my head and just type it down. I know the meaning of what I’m writing so it’s very mechanical and “automatic”. Like writing hieroglyphs and knowing their meaning but not how they’re pronounced. When I read there’s obviously that voice in my head trying to pronounce what I’m reading, but since nothing is phonetic it’s tough. When I write I don’t have that voice bothering me.
I don’t know if its possible, but when reading instead of focusing on the pronunciation of a word (because its not needed at that time when you’re just reading), I skip right to determining the meaning or the concept the word describes. The only time this gives me difficulty is when the author of what I’m reading is trying to do word play or make something rhyme. Since I don’t “hear” it, I don’t get those meanings. This is rare though. Other then that, this gives me the most comprehension when I’m reading in my non-native language.
but my speaking and reading are still bad.
Wow. For most people, reading is the easiest part, writing is more difficult, speaking is hard and understanding speech is the hardest.
I find English pronunciation very irregular (not phonetic). So reading is hard. Speaking too, because when I construct a sentence in English I “write” it in my head (visually-mentally), then “read” it (vocalise what I visualise); but since my reading is bad in the first place…
Tbf, you’re not wrong about the inconsistency of English, it’s because we stole words, phrases, entire dialects from so many sources. And sometimes we kept the original pronunciation, other times we rudely imposed our phonetic expectations of the time and place when we stole them. Also the “correct” pronunciation for many words is different in different English-speaking countries.
On the plus side for you, that means most people are pretty lenient about what we consider “fluent,” and make allowances for accent. Unless they’re a racist asshole in the first place. When you mispronounce a word because you’re following phonetic rules but that word breaks them, most of us can recognize that version because we did the same thing when learning to read.
I find English pronunciation very irregular (not phonetic). So reading is hard.
Most people, when learning to read, don’t care about pronunciation at all. Like why would they? Here is the word. Who cares how it is pronounced if you see it clearly and know its meaning?
When English-speaking kids are taught to read, and to spell, it’s very much an out-loud process, using phonics, and methodically covers the various pronunciation of all the letters’ sounds. “Sound it out” is the first step in decoding written words. Then of course there’s using context clues to figure out what word you’ve heard before could be spelled using those letters’ possible sounds. And it’s not until later, once all the common rules and exceptions of pronunciation are automatic, that you start “reading to learn” and attempt words you’ve never heard before.
Do you not hear the words in your head while reading?
Sometimes I do. But it doesn’t help me or stop me from understanding the word. Completely irrelevant parallel process. Especially in English. In my native language we have a strict bijection between letters and sounds, so pronunciation is trivial.
I don’t have any empirical evidence for you on this topic, but in my opinion yes, I think some people are - especially with oral language adaptation. And I think I’m one of them too.
I’ve tried learning French on and off for most of my life. Did it in school for several years, got a French tutor who helped me scrape by with a C in it, spent a few years with it on Duo Lingo (I know I know, that so is far from perfect), spent time watching French news. And after all that I’d say my French language skills aren’t even closer to a conversational level. I especially struggle with the oral side of the language, even though multiple teachers have told me I have a good jack for pronunciation.
I haven’t lived there, so maybe that would push my over the edge? But I don’t know. I think I’m in the same boat as you.
The language your are learning also factors in. I’ve also tried learning Spanish and have found that easier. Meanwhile, I tried learning Mandarin and was completely lost. And English is often described as being ready to learn at as basic level but difficult to master. It’s such a relatively unstructured language with so many weird exceptions.
But with all that said, don’t give up! It might just take longer for the oral part to lock in. And your written English is excellent.
I believe language learning like most anything varies quite a bit individual to individual. Much of it might come down to interest. I am horrible with language. When graduating college a friend and I exchanged transcripts and his comment was. Wow. Actually you get pretty good grades (im looking at him like did you expect me to do poorly?), oh, except in spanish. When english was a subject in school it was my worst subject. Now my brother on the other hand totally geeks out on spanish and latin culture. He says he does not speak that well but in the right scenario (low light setting) it can take awhile for someone to realize he is white. I think they realize there is something wierd about his accent but figure he is from somewhere they are not or was diluted by being in the us or such.
Everyone’s brain is wired differently.
