A case for taking language learning more seriously.
Tags: Linguistics, Second Language, Language, Language Learning, Polyglot

My final point — acquiring a language as an adult is difficult. The topic of the critical period for language learning. This topic is one of massive controversy, despite the fact that research has repeatedly shown evidence for it.

In general, it is the case that children around ages 12 and under can acquire a second language without issue. Past that age, it becomes increasingly difficult. This is why most of the bi/multi- lingual people that you know acquired their additional language(s) as children. Note, though, that this refers to naturalistic situations — not formal ones (like classroom instruction). Naturalistic acquisition is the process that allowed you to acquire your first language.

This graph captures the generalization nicely. Notice that between ages 12–20, scores begin to have a downward trend. This study tested second language users by presenting them with correct and incorrect sentences in their second language and asked them to judge them. As you can see, there is a correlation between scoring high and being young. Link to the study is here.

Interestingly, it is not clear why children seem to acquire an additional language more easily than adults. Some physical limitation of human cognition is likely the culprit, but as I said…it’s not clear.

With this in mind, though, we might want to find it strange that ‘polyglots’ claim to speak upwards of 10 languages. This would mean that they’ve defied this hypothesis several times.

Another glaring issue is that of input.

When acquiring a language, input is the absolute most important factor in determining your success — even moreso than your personal and cognitive capabilities.

Input is someone speaking and you listening. Input leads to you hearing, understanding, and processing what was said. When babies acquire their first language, it’s because of the input that they get. Their parents (ideally) talk to them all the time, and some research has even shown that the amount of input an infant gets determines how rich their vocabulary will be later in life.

This demonstrates that input is critical for not only second, but first language acquisition as well. If you’re in your room studying Arabic with only a “Learn Arabic 101” book, your chances of acquiring Arabic are slim to none. If you were to travel to an Arabic speaking country, however, your chances would drastically improve.

That is not to say, though, that going to a country where your language of choice is spoken would allow you to learn it effortlessly. Not at all. What is true, though, is that the amount of input you’d be receiving would be of unrivaled use to you in trying to learn that language.

If you are not constantly exposed to a language you’re attempting to acquire, it will fade from your cognitive space. That is a fact.

With these ‘polyglots’, it’s safe to assume that they do not have 19 different sources of input every single day. Even if they did, it still would never allow them to fully master all of those languages. The human brain is physically unable to process that much input.

I’m aware that this isn’t the most accurate comparison, but for a second just imagine that your brain is a computer. This computer is only capable of so much.

The first language that you know (your native one) takes up a lot of memory and hard drive space, even if you don’t notice. Now, consider someone telling you that they’re squeezing in 19 more. The story of the polyglot comes more apart at the seams the further we explore this topic.