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Aiming for native level in your acquired language
Thread poster: Guofei_LIN
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 15:25
French to English
learning by doing May 7, 2018

While children spend several years listening and not speaking, it's more because they haven't figured out how to make the right noises, they do start speaking as soon as they possibly can.

I'm a great believer in learning by doing, so I would encourage you to find people you can speak with rather than simply passively absorbing the language. Also, you remember words that you use more easily than words that you only hear.

I'm not one to pour cold water on your project
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While children spend several years listening and not speaking, it's more because they haven't figured out how to make the right noises, they do start speaking as soon as they possibly can.

I'm a great believer in learning by doing, so I would encourage you to find people you can speak with rather than simply passively absorbing the language. Also, you remember words that you use more easily than words that you only hear.

I'm not one to pour cold water on your project however my experience with my children went like this:
I only ever spoke in English with them, and made them speak in English with me. We mixed socially with other English speakers here in Paris, and they only ever watched films and TV and read books in English at home. We went frequently to stay with my parents in the UK, and my brother-in-law in Ontario. I taught them both to read and write in English before they learned to do so in French. I don't see what more I could have done to teach them English short of living in an English-speaking country. However living in France, it was French that won out, they are both far more proficient in French.
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Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
 
Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 15:25
German to English
Active vs. Passive May 7, 2018

Because you brought up Gladwell, I think it's worth pointing out that he may not have had any idea what he was talking about. Ericsson (et al.) finally published a book for a general audience last year or the year before (Peak), and it makes the difference between more or less clocking hours and genuine "deliberate practice" very clear.

Concentration and concrete, testable forms of practice and goals are important. Immediate, specific, verifiable and guided feedback is essential. J
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Because you brought up Gladwell, I think it's worth pointing out that he may not have had any idea what he was talking about. Ericsson (et al.) finally published a book for a general audience last year or the year before (Peak), and it makes the difference between more or less clocking hours and genuine "deliberate practice" very clear.

Concentration and concrete, testable forms of practice and goals are important. Immediate, specific, verifiable and guided feedback is essential. Jam sessions (the Beatles example) are not practice in this sense: They aren't a problem and they do develop a certain set of skills, but they're not continually pushing anyone closer to the limit of perfection. The only practice that counts towards the 10,000 hours is the time spent actively drilling and developing and refining key skills and techniques. 100,000 hours of Netflix and books would improve someone's language skills (albeit with massively diminishing returns), but it wouldn't get them much closer to seeming like a native speaker.

The only way for me to develop and sustain the necessary kind of motivation was to put myself in a situation where I practically, professionally and socially or emotionally (for lack of a better word) needed to become near-native in German. I needed to want to get a degree and work in Germany and I needed to feel ashamed when I couldn't seamlessly pronounce what I wanted from the baker (I developed an unfortunate or fortunate taste for Kirschrührkuchen). Good intentions would not have gotten me very far, but I am also a fairly weak-willed person. Exactly like Kay and Tom and others have said, I very deliberately and, when necessary, aggressively surrounded myself with German for as close to 24 hours a day as I could.

I worked my way through a couple of German grammar books analogous to the Murphey's books for English (which are wonderful if you haven't worked your way through them) and read a lot, while developing a list of vocabulary words with a system for entering new words and reviewing the old ones, etc.
On the the other hand, I actually have the feeling that passive practice (particularly reading and vocabulary notebooks) probably does more to reinforce weaknesses in the active use of a language (particularly in terms of pronunciation and awkward grammar) than help develop fluency. The only way to sound fluent is to keep trying to speak and write fluently and have someone to keep snapping your fingers with a ruler when something isn't right - and to develop personal techniques and strategies that keep you on the right track and out of trouble.

When I talk, people often mistake me for a German - until they are told or realize I'm not and then wonder how they ever could have mistaken me for a German. Positive signals (not just the absence of mistakes) are important. I speak consistently and fairly clearly in keeping with a specific dialect of German and don't make the pronunciation mistakes typical of native speakers of English. My German was pretty miserable when I came here and I learned 90% of my German from my wife and her family, and I think that was a big advantage.
Making the right (native) mistakes can be very helpful, and eliminating the wrong (non-native) mistakes is key. People generally very quickly make a subconscious decision about who you are and will accordingly hear or overhear a lot of actual mistakes you make or avoid.

I don't know much about the science of language acquisition, but my understanding is that only very young children have a real and substantial biological advantage. What adolescents have going for them is a tendency to become obsessed with whatever interests them at the moment and a pathological need to fit in - two psychological shortcomings that happen to be very productive for language learners of all ages.

And my kids aren't old enough to know for sure, but like Kay, in spite of bilingual daycare and schools and my best efforts and a heap of cousins, aunts and uncles who can't speak any German, I can't imagine that my kids' English will be as good as their German when they grow up. Unless you grow up on a military basis or in a diplomatic district or in an extremely tight-knit informal expat community, the country we live in as a child is just going to end up defining our everyday life (and language).


[Edited at 2018-05-07 10:27 GMT]
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Björn Vrooman
Dan Lucas
TonyTK
Guofei_LIN
 
Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 15:25
German to English
P.S.: source-language proficiency and translation May 7, 2018

Obviously, living in your source-language country and language can also be a problem for your work as a translator. When you are tired and in a long-winded kind of mood, you may end up being capable of writing things like "[military] basis" when you mean "[military] base" without immediately noticing.

On the other hand, depending on the kinds of texts you translate, having an absurdly broad knowledge of your source language(s) and culture(s) may be just enough to get by in terms of
... See more
Obviously, living in your source-language country and language can also be a problem for your work as a translator. When you are tired and in a long-winded kind of mood, you may end up being capable of writing things like "[military] basis" when you mean "[military] base" without immediately noticing.

On the other hand, depending on the kinds of texts you translate, having an absurdly broad knowledge of your source language(s) and culture(s) may be just enough to get by in terms of allusions, obscure phrases, plays on words, shades of meaning, etc. It's not always a zero-sum game, but it's never all that far from it.
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Björn Vrooman
 
Guofei_LIN
Guofei_LIN  Identity Verified
Australia
Local time: 00:25
Chinese
TOPIC STARTER
Children vs adults May 8, 2018

Kay Denney wrote:
While children spend several years listening and not speaking, it's more because they haven't figured out how to make the right noises, they do start speaking as soon as they possibly can.

I'm a great believer in learning by doing, so I would encourage you to find people you can speak with rather than simply passively absorbing the language. Also, you remember words that you use more easily than words that you only hear.


Hi Kay Denney, actually I'm also a believer in learning by doing with regards to many things in life. With language learning, however, I decide to postpone that to the next stage (Stage 4) of my language acquisition efforts.

There seems to be many different theories regarding language acquisition and one particular theory I read about warned against trying to use the language too early. If I remember correctly, one example cited was that it is observed that many Japanese people (I might be wrong, if so, I hope nobody takes offence) cannot correctly pronounce 'r' and 'l' when learning English. At first teachers tried different methods to correct their pronunciation without much success until somebody tested the students to see if they could distinguish 'r' and 'l' when they heard these sounds, and it turned out that the students could not tell if an 'r' or an 'l' was used in a word. The test proved that the problem does not lie in the students' inability to pronounce the sounds (the output part), but lie in the fact that they are unable to hear the difference in the first place (the input part). The solution therefore lies in more listening practice.

There is a popular chain mail passage on internet that goes like this:

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."

I think there is a message to be learned from this chain mail passage as far as language acquisition is concerned: adults can read this message because they already know the correct form of these words and they only need to focus on what is being said, ignoring the rest. We adult language learners, when carrying on a conversation with other people, might fall into this pitfall of focusing on the content but failing to let the form stick. I spend a lot of time focusing on the form.

And finally, the language used in daily conversation is different from the language used in books or magazines (such as The Economist), so I guess there is no getting around of learning from reading, even for native speakers.


 
Guofei_LIN
Guofei_LIN  Identity Verified
Australia
Local time: 00:25
Chinese
TOPIC STARTER
10,000 hour rule May 8, 2018

Michael Wetzel wrote:

Because you brought up Gladwell, I think it's worth pointing out that he may not have had any idea what he was talking about. Ericsson (et al.) finally published a book for a general audience last year or the year before (Peak), and it makes the difference between more or less clocking hours and genuine "deliberate practice" very clear.

Concentration and concrete, testable forms of practice and goals are important. Immediate, specific, verifiable and guided feedback is essential. Jam sessions (the Beatles example) are not practice in this sense: They aren't a problem and they do develop a certain set of skills, but they're not continually pushing anyone closer to the limit of perfection. The only practice that counts towards the 10,000 hours is the time spent actively drilling and developing and refining key skills and techniques. 100,000 hours of Netflix and books would improve someone's language skills (albeit with massively diminishing returns), but it wouldn't get them much closer to seeming like a native speaker.

The only way for me to develop and sustain the necessary kind of motivation was to put myself in a situation where I practically, professionally and socially or emotionally (for lack of a better word) needed to become near-native in German. I needed to want to get a degree and work in Germany and I needed to feel ashamed when I couldn't seamlessly pronounce what I wanted from the baker (I developed an unfortunate or fortunate taste for Kirschrührkuchen). Good intentions would not have gotten me very far, but I am also a fairly weak-willed person. Exactly like Kay and Tom and others have said, I very deliberately and, when necessary, aggressively surrounded myself with German for as close to 24 hours a day as I could.

I worked my way through a couple of German grammar books analogous to the Murphey's books for English (which are wonderful if you haven't worked your way through them) and read a lot, while developing a list of vocabulary words with a system for entering new words and reviewing the old ones, etc.
On the the other hand, I actually have the feeling that passive practice (particularly reading and vocabulary notebooks) probably does more to reinforce weaknesses in the active use of a language (particularly in terms of pronunciation and awkward grammar) than help develop fluency. The only way to sound fluent is to keep trying to speak and write fluently and have someone to keep snapping your fingers with a ruler when something isn't right - and to develop personal techniques and strategies that keep you on the right track and out of trouble.

When I talk, people often mistake me for a German - until they are told or realize I'm not and then wonder how they ever could have mistaken me for a German. Positive signals (not just the absence of mistakes) are important. I speak consistently and fairly clearly in keeping with a specific dialect of German and don't make the pronunciation mistakes typical of native speakers of English. My German was pretty miserable when I came here and I learned 90% of my German from my wife and her family, and I think that was a big advantage.
Making the right (native) mistakes can be very helpful, and eliminating the wrong (non-native) mistakes is key. People generally very quickly make a subconscious decision about who you are and will accordingly hear or overhear a lot of actual mistakes you make or avoid.

I don't know much about the science of language acquisition, but my understanding is that only very young children have a real and substantial biological advantage. What adolescents have going for them is a tendency to become obsessed with whatever interests them at the moment and a pathological need to fit in - two psychological shortcomings that happen to be very productive for language learners of all ages.

And my kids aren't old enough to know for sure, but like Kay, in spite of bilingual daycare and schools and my best efforts and a heap of cousins, aunts and uncles who can't speak any German, I can't imagine that my kids' English will be as good as their German when they grow up. Unless you grow up on a military basis or in a diplomatic district or in an extremely tight-knit informal expat community, the country we live in as a child is just going to end up defining our everyday life (and language).


[Edited at 2018-05-07 10:27 GMT]


Hi Michael Westzel, I haven't found any success stories of language learners applying Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule in language learning and I'm not treating it as gospel. I agree that "deliberate practice" is the key. I'm using this 10,000 hour rule to remind myself that active engagement which is calculated in hours counts more than passive immersion calculated in years, so when someone told me they have lived in an English-speaking country for 5 years, I will be able to tell them I have been living in English for 6,357 hours and 34 minutes (only hours spent on "deliberate practice" is counted, not the days spent in indulging in reverie), I can even tell them that compared with yesterday, I'm another 4 hours and 32 minutes nearer to my goal. That's how I use the 10,000 hour rule.

I've set a goal to motivate myself: here in Australia there is a translators' certification system which offers advanced translator certification and I'm aiming to obtain certification at advanced level translating from my native language into English.

I've never heard of Murphy's books for English, thanks for that information, I'll check them out. I have a system of acquiring vocabulary and I think it is working very well, so I'm fine there.

Never mind the science of language acquisition, I talked to a professor who specialises in studying this science and according to her, nobody has found a clue yet.


 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 15:25
French to English
Keep us posted! May 8, 2018

I'd be delighted to know whether you manage to get certified!

 
Daniel Burke
Daniel Burke  Identity Verified
Australia
Local time: 22:25
Japanese to English
Be Systematic May 16, 2020

I'm on this road now myself.

I think some concrete, discrete goals are good to have. For example, I think it is a good idea to think about developing a more native-like accent as a separate task to developing good writing skills, which you should also separate from building a college education level vocabulary.

Right now I'm focusing on building vocab. I attended graduate school in Japanese and functioned well enough within my specialty area, but in terms of raw numbe
... See more
I'm on this road now myself.

I think some concrete, discrete goals are good to have. For example, I think it is a good idea to think about developing a more native-like accent as a separate task to developing good writing skills, which you should also separate from building a college education level vocabulary.

Right now I'm focusing on building vocab. I attended graduate school in Japanese and functioned well enough within my specialty area, but in terms of raw numbers I believe my vocabulary is around middle school level. Even if my vocab leans heavily towards academic language, and so seems high level, the base has giant gaps. The names of various fairly everyday objects is a great example. Or words that appear in subjects that you do not specialize in.

So, to finally deal with this once and for all I've gone back to using Anki. I think an SRS is a good option if you can reliably put in that 30 minutes every day. It helps you be systematic in tracking down and erasing stubborn gaps in your vocab. There are so many words you might only see quite rarely in your target language, so even with regular contact you can easily hit a wall. I already know the English name for an oar, or a crossbow, or a jetty, so unless I specifically add these words to Anki and regularly see them / read them out I just won't really acquire them even when seen "in the wild" every other year.
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Guofei_LIN
Guofei_LIN  Identity Verified
Australia
Local time: 00:25
Chinese
TOPIC STARTER
Update Jun 9, 2020

I use a paper dictionary (Concise Oxford English Dictionary) as a tool for building my vocabulary. I use a highlighter to highlight the words that I think I should know, and review all the highlighted words on a page each time I come to that page. I also highlight such words in the novels that I read and review the highlighted words from time to time.

As far as passive vocabulary is concerned, I think I have already overshot my original goal of a college-level vocabulary, so I'm now
... See more
I use a paper dictionary (Concise Oxford English Dictionary) as a tool for building my vocabulary. I use a highlighter to highlight the words that I think I should know, and review all the highlighted words on a page each time I come to that page. I also highlight such words in the novels that I read and review the highlighted words from time to time.

As far as passive vocabulary is concerned, I think I have already overshot my original goal of a college-level vocabulary, so I'm now focusing on turning these into my active vocabulary and also am raising the bar a bit to reach that of a writer who can wield a large vocabulary to enrich his writing.

I'm currently at a stage in which I can recognize many obscure words in my reading, but often commit catachresis or even malapropism when I speak or write. I remember I was at that stage once in my native language when I was young.
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Francesca Demoro
Daniel Burke
 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:25
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Agreed Jun 9, 2020

Michael Wetzel wrote:
When I talk, people often mistake me for a German - until they are told or realize I'm not and then wonder how they ever could have mistaken me for a German. Positive signals (not just the absence of mistakes) are important.

I used to get the same response when talking to people on the phone in Japan, something I used to do quite often. They would hear what they wanted or expected to hear.

"Thank you, and finally your name please."
"Lucas."
"Furukawa-san, understood, thank you."
"Er, no, not Furukawa. Lu... ka... su. I'm not Japanese."

(There would usually be a short pause, where I could almost hear the other person mentally correcting their entire set of assumptions about the conversation they had just had with me.)

So at least in some contexts, my Japanese was functionally indistinguishable from that of native speakers.

Nevertheless, I would not try to translate into Japanese, because the range isn't there. For me personally, "perfecting" my Japanese is neither a realistic goal, nor something I would have the time to attempt. I'd sooner take on productive work, or learn new skills, or enjoy my hobbies. (If Japanese were my hobby, I'd probably view things differently.)

I do admire the quality of the English of some of the people on here, and can see that they would probably out-perform the average native speaker. The difficulty those people face is that for anything more than "good enough" translation into English, they're not competing with the average native speaker, but with native speakers who write with (hopefully) unusual proficiency.

Skill in writing, or sensitivity to writing is, I think, independent of language in a way. I don't write in Japanese, but (for example) when my Japanese assistants or junior colleagues wrote things in Japanese, such as letters or emails, I would usually check them. I would very quickly find any errors or infelicities, and point them out.

Unless you grow up on a military basis or in a diplomatic district or in an extremely tight-knit informal expat community, the country we live in as a child is just going to end up defining our everyday life (and language).

Ultimately the environment is the dominant factor. This was my conclusion also, having observed my children in their early years in Japan.

Regards,
Dan

[Edited at 2020-06-09 07:50 GMT]


Daniel Burke
Christopher Schröder
 
tincodd
tincodd
Australia
Local time: 22:25
English to Mandarin Chinese
+ ...
Both languages are equally important Mar 28, 2021

Tom in London wrote:

The only way to become completely fluent, without mistakes, in a language not your own is to live permanently and continuously, for at least 5 years, in the country where that language is spoken and written, and where you never speak your native language.



I believe that it is an effective (maybe also efficient) way to become at least as fluent as a native speaker by doing this, but it is also very possible that you could lose your own language to some extent if you never speak your native language for a long period of time. I have been living in Australia for 11 years. Generally, I speak my mother language at home and speak English at work. I was not a language professional, so I did not spend time on developing any of the languages. What I can see now is that I can speak more and better English than before (but far from being native of course), yet I realise that I keep forgetting something with my mother language, e.g. how to write some characters, meanings of some old idioms, etc.. I totally agree with some of the above threads that people improve by practice. If you do more, you will learn and improve more. If you do less or nothing, you will stop improving and even have you skills degenerated.

Translating and interpreting are message transfers with two different languages. Of course, it is very important to keep on improving the language not your own. However, it is also essential to keep your own language at a certain standard in order to be professional as a translator or interpreter. Both languages are equally important.

If you aim for native level in your acquired language without the fact that you are a language professional, then it is worth considering the method suggested by Tom. Though I think it is a great regret to lose your native language.


Guofei_LIN
 
Riley Jin
Riley Jin
Australia
Local time: 23:55
Very useful Mar 29, 2021

I am also here for advice. Thanks for sharing.

 
DI PEI
DI PEI
Australia
Local time: 22:25
Mandarin Chinese
I think the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself completely in the language Mar 15, 2022

I think the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself completely in the language and start to try and get used to the way of thinking about speaking in that language. But I also think that as a second language learner, it's not just about perfect grammar, after all, languages are evolving and are only tools for communication, as long as you don't make very low-level mistakes!

 
William Yang
William Yang
China
Local time: 22:25
Member (2021)
English to Chinese
+ ...
We are talking about learning a foreign language, Mar 15, 2022

As a native Chinese who never study overseas, I have some suggestions which may offer some food for thought for my fellow Chinese who do not plan to pursue foreign academic experience.
Don't be mislead, you should overcome the difficulty relating with listening and speaking but those tasks are not the most important things which have been proved over and over again. By the way, you don’t need to repeat hundreds of times to make yourself sound like an American.
We should focus on re
... See more
As a native Chinese who never study overseas, I have some suggestions which may offer some food for thought for my fellow Chinese who do not plan to pursue foreign academic experience.
Don't be mislead, you should overcome the difficulty relating with listening and speaking but those tasks are not the most important things which have been proved over and over again. By the way, you don’t need to repeat hundreds of times to make yourself sound like an American.
We should focus on reading comprehension and writing skills.
The suggestions are old-fashioned and will be obsolete soon, as the Internet offers more opportunities, needless to say the joint venturing international schooling partnering with world-known universities and again it proves we don't need to finance heavily for your academics overseas. I have witnessed a lot of Chinese invested millions of different currencies overseas by reaping nearly nothing but poor English. Last but not the least, Chinese university faculties are bettering day by day.

[Edited at 2022-03-15 11:30 GMT]
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Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:25
Member (2008)
Italian to English
No accent Mar 15, 2022

Guofei_LIN wrote:

.........I'd like to hear the perspective of someone who has made this journey ..... but to achieve the level that is infinitely close to that of a native speaker, and to do so as an adult learner, is a challenge of a different league.



Think about everything, big and small, that has happened in the past 20 years of your own life.

Now imagine that you did it in another country, in another language,

I spent more than 20 years living permanently in Italy, working, taking my university degree, and doing everything else you can do in 20 years (and without speaking English to anyone).

My Italian friends are complimentary about my Italian and they tell me I do not speak it with a foreign accent.

So I think I am in a position to say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to reach "native level" in my acquired language. No matter how comfortable you are in an acquired language, it will always catch you out.


Christopher Schröder
TonyTK
P.L.F. Persio
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Google is not Gospel Mar 15, 2022

finnword1 wrote:

Try "good advices given" in Google search. I got 4,580 hits.


Yes, but it’s wrong.

FWIW I don’t aspire to native proficiency in any foreign language, what’s the point? I am a foreigner even in my own country, so why pretend to be any different? Enjoy it, revel in it. Being different is cool.


Kay Denney
P.L.F. Persio
Baran Keki
expressisverbis
 
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