It is definitely possibly, even as an older adult. The main problem though is that it takes potentially tens of thousands of hours to get that natural native accent so that the average language learner would never be able to reach it. Anyone who spends 8+ hours a day learning a specific language for years will no doubt be able to reach it, no matter what age, assuming of course that they actually try to mimic a native accent
The whole idea of children being somehow more capable of learning a new language than adults is utter bullsh!t. The reason why very few people outside of children learn several languages is that children got heaps and bounds of time to use on languages which is opposite to what adults have. A language major in college who practices outside of school will be able to reach the language level of an 18+ year old native in 3 years which is clearly much faster than any kid can achieve
You’re not saying anything that I’m not agreeing with. I’m saying that after thousands of hours the language is no longer a NEW language. I’m making a semantic argument.
I grew up with these kids - everyone does in the states, and I suspect they do in urban parts of the UK. After a year they might communicate very effectively, barring some non-linguistic social issues that impede good communication. It takes a long time, and not 2000 hours in a year, to catch up with all the intricacies of “nativeness” that other kids have picked up over the 13+ years they have been hearing and using English 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Also to remember, these kids go home and speak their native language with their families. There are regions of the US where people, even born here and having gone to public schools in English, normally speak with a Spanish accent. I have met people from northern parts of the North East who have a similar experience coming from the Quebecois/Acadian heritage.
As it happens, no language learner spends 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at it. You seem to overestimate the amount of time native speakers and indeed, language learners actually spend on a language.
A friend of mine in Copenhagen said that he gave up learning danish because nobody would really talk to him in danish because his pronunciation was not good and they would just reply in english. That might have just been the case in his area of the city though.
I can’t see any reason for what you’re stating and certainly there doesn’t seem to be any evidence for it. This is just your own preconception with an arbitrary age limit attached.
The fact that you haven’t “met anyone…” hardly means anything.
There are lots of ways to explain your observation, other than positing the existence of such an age limit.
I suspect that your friend didn’t actually know that much Danish. If you actually learn a few thousand words, you’ll pick up some of the particularities of pronunciation by osmosis - enough that you can be understood. Copenhagan is a tough case because the average resident there speaks English better than the average resident of Raleigh, where I live. Even if his Danish was kinda understandable, I’d bet people were just like “Dude, let’s just speak English, I speak it like a native, and only speak Danish with my grandmother…”
Scandinavia is linguistically a funny place. I have a Danish friend who speaks fluent (and attestedly so) Swedish. He said when he’s in Sweden he mostly speaks English. I have another friend, a Russian, who did her university studies in Swedish in Sweden, but works in Stockholm with Swedes in English.
I say we should bring back the Kalmar Union… with English as its official language.
It’s a nice idea But I’d make 'em learn Icelandic - their ancestral tongue so to say!
(But then again, given the chance, I would re-introduce Anglo-Saxon as the official tongue of England! It’s just about time that 1066 was reversed! :-D)
I agree on that , my objective is more to learn new words new expression than to have the right accent. The right accent is , like music , it is coming when you heard a lot , and the day life speaking it is always possible to ask the person to repeat
It makes me wonder how the internet and globalization is going to affect the evolution of language. Distinct languages develop over many many centuries and how “contact” languages influence others. Now, it seems like english is in contact with every language. Given a few hundred years or so, I imagine we would see a ton of english influence on the languages of the world going forward.
You have to practice imitating the accent of that language alot. I do shadowing only to learn the pronunciation and not to learn the words. A good judgement on whether you are assimilating the accent or not is if you can think in that particular accent.
Dont think of getting a perfect pronunciation. Consider that even in one language there can be multiple accents. All you have to do is speak simiar enough to your counterpart that they can understand.
I’ll open up this question to everyone, just in case I don’t get a reply from you.
The FSI, just one source, I agree, states:
“However, despite native language competence, it is unlikely that students will achieve native-like pronunciation in a second language after the age of 14.”
“It is unlikely”, of course, doesn’t mean it applies to all and sunder, and as stated, I’ve seen young adults perfecting their accents as have others here.
Has anyone here any references for people in their thirties or over? By references I mean academic publications.
Failing that, has anyone here any knowledge of anyone over the age of 30 who has acquired a language from scratch and perfected their accent?
But I’d make 'em learn Icelandic - their ancestral tongue so to say!