yudantaiteki Wrote:

Rooboy Wrote:To get back on topic - surely it's about exposure? (i think there's a 50 page thread on this somewhere).

There's more to it than just exposure (and actually AJATT isn't really mimicking child language acquisition because for child language acquisition you're obviously not using SRS or any sort of translations or dictionaries, and most children learn to speak before they start learning to read.) Child language acquisition defies complete explanation -- there has been a lot of energy and a lot of research in the field over the past century and they've really only scratched the surface. Most of the certain things that can be said are very broad statements (like the fact that a child must hear language to be able to learn to speak it) or statements about what *can't* be true about language acquisition (e.g. it's not true that mothers help their children learn by speaking in simple language).

Sorry - should have put the "" mark (or similar) in regards to the 50 page thread reference.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

Quote:If you took a 12 year old kid and put him in a new language environment where he had no exposure to his original language I'm pretty sure you would not be able to tell the difference between him and a native speaker when they are 24.

This is what the core debate is; the critical period hypothesis would say that there would be a difference (although 12 is right on the cusp so it's a bit hard to say for that case).

The critical period is for learning first languages, not second languages. Although, after age 12, kids can generally read and write and they learn languages by actually studying them (I know, I teach English as a second language for a living). It is possible to pick up more of a language after 12, if you are put in the environment (it's how I learnt Norwegian when I was in Norway; I didn't study anything from books, however, I did have English TV programmes (with Norwegian subs) and English-speaking colleagues at my disposal).

However, I don't think that without actually studying (as opposed to not doing anything, no school, just waiting for the language to come to you naturally by listening to people) you can never become fluent, not even after age 12.

Even our own native languages are learnt by studying after some point. It's why English-speaking people are still taught English at school. I remember in my Dutch lessons I also had to learn grammar rules and lists of words and their definitions (I'm a native Dutch speaker).

You can speak and listen to your native language well enough already without any study. "Speech" class focuses on "Performance Speech" - that is, either persuasive or dramatic speech. Being able to speak this way is a skill that requires study and practice just like anything else.

The other two language skills are taught in school: Reading and writing. You cannot learn these without instruction. They do not teach vocabulary (at least initially) in US schools. In 4th thru 8th grade at my school district, vocabulary was taught. Usually in conjunction with something else, but sometimes on its own. For example, names of US states are taught in "Geography" class.

As for if you should be able to recall the story: If you wrote the kanji correctly, you pass regardless of other factors. It won't hurt to review the story, but I don't think it's necessary. If you failed to write the kanji correctly, it's a good idea to review your story and revise if necessary.

Koos83 Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:

Quote:If you took a 12 year old kid and put him in a new language environment where he had no exposure to his original language I'm pretty sure you would not be able to tell the difference between him and a native speaker when they are 24.

This is what the core debate is; the critical period hypothesis would say that there would be a difference (although 12 is right on the cusp so it's a bit hard to say for that case).

The critical period is for learning first languages, not second languages.

The core of the critical period hypothesis is for a first language, but there are a lot of linguists who maintain that it affects second language learning as well. This is more controversial than the first language critical period, but still not in the realm of serious controversy within the field (the general idea, not the specifics).

Quote:However, I don't think that without actually studying (as opposed to not doing anything, no school, just waiting for the language to come to you naturally by listening to people) you can never become fluent, not even after age 12.

AFAIK the majority of linguistic researchers would agree with that. Now, there are major controversies in language pedagogy over whether and how much second language teaching should be made to mimic first language acquisition. But I don't think anyone seriously argues that an adult (with a few rare exceptions) would be able to immerse themselves in a language environment and acquire a second language as a child -- that is, be able to speak indistinguishably from a native speaker, with no active effort, studying, dictionaries, SRS, etc. If this is possible, it happens so rarely that mentioning it is of little use for second language learners.

You can find examples of immigrants to the US who learned some English through pure immersion with little to no studying, and you can find some who actually have a fairly good functional command of the language. But I don't think you can find more than a handful (if any at all) who speak completely unaccented English with native-level grammar.

Quote:Even our own native languages are learnt by studying after some point. It's why English-speaking people are still taught English at school. I remember in my Dutch lessons I also had to learn grammar rules and lists of words and their definitions (I'm a native Dutch speaker).

Right; language acquisition doesn't give a child automatic control over the full range of the vocabulary of their language, formal/archaic grammar structures, or features of the "standard" or "educated" dialect of their language that differ from what they picked up in their local dialect. This issue is obscured because of the widespread misconception that regional dialects are inherently inferior to the educated dialect, or grammatically deficient in some way. People confuse not being able to express something using the educated dialect with not being able to express it at all. There's also the usual confusion between speech and writing; it's common to talk about "language" as including both, when there is a huge difference between the two in terms of cognition and acquisition.