Just out of curiosity, how many monolinguals are there here? I ask because I've been mildly discouraged by the discovery that Khatzumoto of AJATT fame was by no means monolingual when he started his Japanese-learning experiment. Indeed he spoke three languages as a child (he admits to having let two of those three languages slip away). I've always been under the impression (and some quick web searches have confirmed I'm not alone in being under the impression) that bilinguals (or multilinguals) learn additional languages much more quickly than monolinguals are able to learn their second language. Research hasn't quite figured out why yet, as far as I can tell. But I can hazard a guess it has a lot to do with brain wiring.
Any thoughts?

You mean people who grew up bilingual, right, not stumbling through school instruction? Count me in as mono.

I'm not so sure that being multilingual helps for foreign language acq. if the target L is not related to the ones you grew up with. I had some Chinese-American classmates who spoke Mandarin/Cantonese at home and sucked at Japanese, for instance; and the polyglot boasters I've met usually speak only Romance languages.

Can you point to any studies? I'd like to learn some more about this.

Well.. I get along in four languages with japanese included and the other three being finnish (my native language), english, and swedish. Currently I am studying german which feels quite easy because I can understand quite a bit just knowing english and swedish and lots of grammar makes sense immediately because it's often close to the other two language. I think most of the time this is the secret behind the multilinguals advantage in learning new languages.
On the other hand, when I started studying japanese, because it's an isolate language, nothing made sense quite in the same way and the only advantage was the number of twisted english loanwords (i.e. the katakana english).
So in this respect I think we multilinguals are in the same boat with english speaking monolinguals.
It might be that, having previous experiense in language studies, I was less inclined to make some basic mistakes like for example, I hear, some people keep thinking in their own language and then translate that into the target language without really trying to start thinking in the language as soon as possible, etc..
But I think those are minor things that can be learnt to avoid pretty quickly..

Edit: Here I assumed the polylingual to mean anyone who can really use more than one language..

I've been thinking about this as well. I have passable french, and basic conversational Cantonese, both of which I've learned as an adult. (I had to take french in school, but we all know how useless that is).

It's seems to me the advantage of learning a third language, compared to a second language, is you already know how to think outside your native language. I thought exclusively in English for 40 years. Once my French reached a point where I could watch French TV (with the assistance of French subtitles) or meet with friends and speak french for several hours, I discovered my brain could easily remain in French - I could think to myself in french, curse to myself in french, even write a grocery list in french. My abilities had reached a point where I was no longer translating english-french, but going solo french. That feeling was a very powerful discovery for me. It gives a real sense of confidence that you can succeed in a second language, and you have now learned to shut off your native language, which for monolinguals is very difficult to do.

That said, my Japanese level is not at the point yet where I can think completely in japanese, but when speaking japanese with friends it's much easier now for me to turn off my english, hence avoiding translation whenever possible - and I think it's that ability which allows another language to progress quickly. My Japanese is now improving much faster, and much more naturally, than my french or cantonese ever did at this level of study.

40 years! Outs!
I was pretty young when I started learning English and I started to read stuff and watch movies in English solo pretty soon so i never noticed having that problem. Thinking in English when using it just always felt natural!

My fast conclusion is that it seems to have something to do with how much you expose yourself to the target language. The more you flood yourself with it, the more natural it becomes to think in it.

Today I use English daily and often study in it so quite often I find myself in a situation that only an English term for something pops in my mind and I end up asking people what it is in my native language! Which can get quite unnerving at times, I might add..

I even had it happen with Japanese in a local sushi place here in Finnland. I couldn't think of what "Ocha" was in any other language than Japanese.. Fortunately the waitress guessed what it ment and I got my sencha..

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Apart from the "brain wiring" factors that may exist, in some circumstances the advantages in knowing more than one language are more direct and simple.

For example, there are 100 times more resources, books, sites, etc in English than there are in Italian (and often they are of a higher quality).
So, while studying Japanese, I was greatly helped by my knowledge of English.

While I was in Japan, I noticed a few things.

When I stayed in a hotel, and it had CNNJ (which is mostly in English if you want it) or the BBC, the more I listened to it, the worse my Japanese became.

If the hotel (usually tiny business hotels, because they're cheap) only had JP TV, then my Japanese either stayed at level or improved a little.

I'm thinking that a lot of that is due to just being surrounded by it constantly, and more importantly, not letting yourself slip too easily into English mode. As the trip went on, I tried to avoid using English as much as possible, and it helped.

The other thing I noticed, which amused me to no end, was that when I got back to the States, I would sometimes say "どうもありがとうござました" (really fast) to store clerks when I finished paying. I even caught myself saying "すみません～" to someone I almost bumped into at the parking lot. It really does become a habit after a while.

My background in languages is about 5-6 years of French in school (which I promptly forgot, except to confuse it with the German I have trouble remembering), 1 semester of Russian in HS (of which I only remember how to say "I don't speak Russian" and recognize cyrillic), 4 semesters of German in undergrad (which still makes my mom's side of the family in Germany cry-- I really should study more German sometime), and then after a long break, 6 semesters of Japanese in grad school and beyond. Japanese is SO different, and so difficult, that I'm becoming obsessed with it. XD

But even though my mom is German, I didn't grow up in a bilingual house. Sometimes I think she should have just spoken German to me all the time anyway, but I think she was always trying to improve her English.

rich_f Wrote:The other thing I noticed, which amused me to no end, was that when I got back to the States, I would sometimes say "どうもありがとうござました" (really fast) to store clerks when I finished paying. I even caught myself saying "すみません～" to someone I almost bumped into at the parking lot. It really does become a habit after a while.

I believe that's one symptom of "returning home culture-shock".
Well.. Perhaps I shouldn't be talking. I almost spoke Japanese in the Finnish customs and even now though having been here for almost a year since leaving Japan and I still say "頂きます" before every meal..

Another small thing that doesn't really have a good equivalent in any other language and that I'm really missing is: "宜しくお願いします"..

alantin Wrote:

rich_f Wrote:The other thing I noticed, which amused me to no end, was that when I got back to the States, I would sometimes say "どうもありがとうござました" (really fast) to store clerks when I finished paying. I even caught myself saying "すみません～" to someone I almost bumped into at the parking lot. It really does become a habit after a while.

I believe that's one symptom of "returning home culture-shock".
Well.. Perhaps I shouldn't be talking. I almost spoke Japanese in the Finnish customs and even now though having been here for almost a year since leaving Japan and I still say "頂きます" before every meal..

Another small thing that doesn't really have a good equivalent in any other language and that I'm really missing is: "宜しくお願いします"..

Hmm, is it 戴きます 【いただきます】(exp) expression of gratitude before meals, (P)

or

頂く 【いただく】 (v5k) (hum) to receive, to take food or drink, to be crowned with, to wear, to live under (a ruler), to install (a president), to accept, to buy, to take, (P)

Only reason I ask is I put a sentence with it in my SRS and would like to have it right.

I remember reading somewhere on my internet travels that the reason monolinguals struggle more to learn a second language is because your native language words and the concepts are so strongly linked in your brain. If you see a picture of a giraffe, then your brain automatically associates it with the word. To learn another language you have to break those bonds to allow other words in. Once you've done a second language, other languages don't have that trouble as the bond is already broken.

I'll see if I can find the research again...

sounds interesting, Mighty_Matt. Would love to hear more.

While I'm by no means an expert, I have taken a few linguistics courses recently at university so I can at least tell you a bit about current linguistic theory regarding language acquisition (and anybody with more experience in the field, please correct any mistakes I make.)

The current accepted theory has to do with something called "universal grammar". Basically, when you learn your first language you will then adapt any languages you learn after this by using your universal grammar (that of your first language). Young children learn languages quickly, so before a certain age they can actually acquire more than one universal grammar.

Essentially, people who acquire more than one universal grammar can then use both when learning new languages, which makes the process much easier. After a certain age unfortunately, most people can't get that second language to be at the same level as the first.

Hopefully that makes sense, though again I'm no expert. I'll admit I dropped linguistics after 200 level because I needed to focus on my intensive japanese course.

That sounds a lot like Chompskyian ideas. I think linguistics now are split on that idea. Not sure, but most of my linguistics professors gave off the impression that they don't really believe in some kind of universal grammar.

I guess that knowing more languages helps to make more connenctions, especially when the languages have some things in common.

I'm bylingual, and I find that there are different things that are similar between those languages and Japanese. For example in English the word "so" shares (apparently by coincidence) common reading and meaning with Japanese.

My other language (Romanian) has "si" pronounced "し" and means "and", so it is also (coincidentally) related to the "し" particle used to "and" verbs together in Japanese.

Just that kind of little thing helps comprehension sink in quicker in those cases.

Another thing is that if you've got practice learning languages then you already have experience in how to go about doing it. I did not 'learn' my two languages per se, so I don't know how best to learn a third.

In the book How to Learn any Language, the author says that (from a monolingual perspective) once you learn one additional language, everything else becomes easier than it would be otherwise, no matter how unrelated the languages you are studying.

Japanese is the first and only foreign language I've learned to high proficiency (had no experience with anything other than English until 7th grade), but I took half a year to get pretty good at Spanish and found afterwards that Japanese had become quite a bit easier than it had been before.

Sutebun's right, Universal Grammar was Noam Chomsky's idea originally. I suppose it's hard to prove. And I can see why any of Chomsky's linguistic ideas would fall out of favor, given his politics.

What's the major counter-theory?

Nukemarine Wrote:Hmm, is it 戴きます 【いただきます】(exp) expression of gratitude before meals, (P)

or

頂く 【いただく】 (v5k) (hum) to receive, to take food or drink, to be crowned with, to wear, to live under (a ruler), to install (a president), to accept, to buy, to take, (P)

Only reason I ask is I put a sentence with it in my SRS and would like to have it right.

I think 頂きます is more common, though both are correct.

Well, I think for monolinguals L1 interference (your native language) is really strong in your brain, both mentally and possibly physically, connection wise. Lots of monolinguals start out trying for a one for one, word to word type learning of vocabulary. Also, translation from the L1 when producing seems logical when using a new language but quickly becomes unnatural and unusable.

Other factors include:

Not knowing what's most useful to learn initially - some words, phrases and functional language are much more useful and common for a beginner to learn. It seems common sense, but most learners try to learn any new word they come across, regardless of value.

Trying to learn something perfectly before moving on to the next thing - I've had many classes sidetracked by overly worried students demanding more and more time for practice, questions and explication. You can't learn anything completely in one day.

Overlooking the skill aspect of language learning and concentrating too heavily on the knowledge aspect - Skill and knowledge are separate, and must be practised, even if you go AJATT, eventually. Input is cool, but you do have to practice letting it all out in stressful situations sometimes. Input and output must both be practised. Feel free to wait a long time before outputting, but when you are ready be as motivated as you were to watch fifteen animes in a row when practising input.

Most of these things are just things taught by experience, so I suppose that is the main advantage for prior language learners. Not being afraid to fail, to make mistakes is also a big issue.

I grew up in a house where two languages were spoken equally. While my speaking in the 2nd language is not so good, I am able to think in that language (Icelandic) without first translating from my native language (English).

I think it's important to be able to associate words from different languages with unspoken meanings, concepts or feelings instead of linking the word to your native language's equivalent. For phrases I think this becomes even more important.

When I think of this I'm reminded of some Japanese learners in my class who insist on having an English translation for everything, such that they can look at both and see how one is derived from the other. There are cases however where we can describe the meaning and nuance of a Japanese phrase but struggle to form a coherent English sentence which could drop in as its replacement.

宜しくお願いします、戴きます、どうもすみません are a few phrases which I find quite awkward to think of in English.

In those cases, I try to just use the word in a way which does not require a single thought in English.

Since I have childhood experience of thinking in another language I can imagine that if you were to grow up knowing only one language, that this de-coupling would be more difficult.

Stehr describes this well in this post. Sometimes a 奴 is just a 奴!

I think that being good at learning languages has nothing to do with being monolingual or bilingual to begin with. I think that people who really enjoy studying languages and have a passion for it are more likely to become bilingual. Of the few who actually can become bilingual of their own efforts and have interests in other languages will very likely become multilingual.

stehr Wrote:I think that being good at learning languages has nothing to do with being monolingual or bilingual to begin with.

Are you saying that you think that people who grow up speaking two or more languages will not tend to be better at learning new languages? I appreciate your point about motivation being very important but do you really think that a person's linguistic history will not have an influence on his/her language learning ability?

styrmis Wrote:Sometimes a 奴 is just a 奴!

I think that a list of words that are not just themselves would be extremely short. ねこ is exactly a cat but I can't think of many other words where you can say the same thing.

wrightak Wrote:

styrmis Wrote:Sometimes a 奴 is just a 奴!

I think that a list of words that are not just themselves would be extremely short. ねこ is exactly a cat but I can't think of many other words where you can say the same thing.

Do you mean the words that have a different nuance when translated?
Apart from simple object/animal names, I think that most of the Japanese verbs, adjectives, adverbs and expressions do not have single perfectly equivalent words in English or in any other language. It's the reason why monolingual dictionaries are better than the bilingual ones, right?

Sorry, not making sentences very well. I meant that a list of words which can be directly translated would be very short. I agree completely.

Yeah, wrightak, after re-reading your previous post I can see that we were saying the same thing .