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Is a native speaker essencial for fluency in a new language? 

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Is a native speaker essencial for fluency in a new language? 

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When learning a new language, people tend to assume that they need to learn from a native speaker in order to reach the highest level of fluency. This seems like a reasonable argument: native speakers are masters of their language, it is their primary form of communication because they speak it, read it, and dream in that language every single day, without even thinking about it. However, this may actually not be the case.

Whilst a native speaker can communicate in their language fluently, it does not mean that they are the ideal teacher. This is because many native speakers have not learned another language, they are not necessarily linguists. This means that they do not completely understand the grammar of their language to the extent that they can teach it to a learner. (Arima, 2019).

On the other hand, a language teacher who has learnt that language has gone through the same experience as the learner. This means that they can relate to the experience more. For instance, they are aware of aspects that are more difficult for learners to grasp, making their form of teaching more tailored to the learner (Wentworth, 2017).

A native speaker may know more about dialects, pronunciation and slang, yet have no idea about the grammar rules. Whereas a non-native teacher has a shared experience with the learner, studied the language, and may also have a lot of knowledge of different accents and idioms.

Sources:

Arima, T., 2019. You Don’t Need a Native Speaker to be Your Language Teacher. [online] Medium. Available at: <https://medium.com/@taiarima/you-dont-need-a-native-speaker-to-be-your-language-teacher-9fad5e38181> [Accessed 17 January 2022].

Wentworth, T., 2017. Should I learn a language from a native speaker? | Langu blog. [online] Heylangu.com. Available at: <https://heylangu.com/blog/2017/01/27/should-i-learn-a-language-from-a-native-speaker> [Accessed 17 January 2022].

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What should parents do to make sure their child remembers the languages they are taught whilst growing up?

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What should parents do to make sure their child remembers the languages they are taught whilst growing up?

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It may be fairly easy to pick up two languages simply by starting off at a young age knowing one and then being taught another at school, for instance French, and practising it at home. However, it is not as easy to retain both languages throughout ones' life.

How should parents encourage the languages at home ? Should they read in simply one language and speak in the other? Should they listen in simply one language and read in the other? Surely, not...

Personally, I feel the best way to do this is by exposing your child to both languages continuously whether this be through tv, speaking or listening. For me, listening is the best way to retain knowledge of both languages as it is an easy way to develop ones vocabulary passively.

The role of parents' in helping children to develop language
-Openaccessgovernment.org
16 October 2019

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Should we aim for perfection when learning a language? 

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Should we aim for perfection when learning a language? 

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The idea of being ‘perfectly fluent’ when learning a new language is often the goal of many linguists. But what is perfection? Is it knowing all your verb endings, knowing when to use the subjunctive or being able to pack your sentences up with idioms? Often the scale of fluency is created by the native speakers themselves, people who have been immersed in and learned the language from a very young age. This is a hard thing to recreate as a language learner and that is okay! Language learners are not expected to be perfectly fluent when learning a language, it is about making mistakes and learning from them. To make mistakes is the best way to learn a language, the cycle of trying, failing, and trying again is, cognitively, good for learning (Lyons, 2018). So next time you choose the wrong tense, see it as a learning opportunity for the next time you try.

The idea of an imperfect language keeps the language alive, different accents, new words coming into circulation are all challenges to the idea of perfection (Malik, 2021). To hear the language in multiple accents and dialects is a beautiful thing which represents adaptation and change. The ‘perfect’ English accent of Received Pronunciation (Team, 2021)is an example because when you come to London, the wide verity of accents and dialects of English is what is notice, you do not hear often the ‘perfect’ version of English.

We worry about not being perfect when speaking or writing in a language but to understand and be understood is the first step. When communicating, the other speaker more than likely will want to help you, not hinder and this allows for your skills to grow.
- CL

Works Cited

Lyons, D., 2018. Why Making Mistakes Is The Best Way To Learn A Language. s.l.:Babbel Magazine.

Malik, N., 2021. My English will never be 'perfect' - and that's what keeos a language alive. London: The Guardian.

Team, L., 2021. Here's how to get a perfect British accent. s.l.:Lingoda.

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The ‘Perfect’ Goal of Learning a Language

‘’The goal of learning a foreign language is to learn perfectly like a native speaker’

Language learning is a complex process, where the academic study aims for a foreign language to be spoken and understood. However, the goals behind this practice are highly individualised and differ once contextualised. To put it simply, even the initial want to study a language stems from the individuals involved, let alone the universal target expected to reach in order to be classified as a ‘perfect’ or ‘native’ speaker.

In order to critically analyse this somewhat ‘perfect’ and ‘native’ goal, it is important to note that while most language objectives remain individualised some reasons are universal (economic, cultural, social). Nonetheless, this idea of speaking ‘perfectly’ like a ‘native’ is a hypothetical idea, bordering imitation; which so-called native are you trying to imitate? A skill-based perspective of languages focuses on the abilities to: write, read, understand and speak coherently, yet at what stage is one considered ‘perfect’ in these abilities? Furthermore, it is advised to reference these highly flawed terms broadly, not literally.

The ‘perfect’ goal of learning a language remains creative to the individual, as from the most clearest perspective of communication, language is considered a form of behaviour, meaning one’s language learning goals wholly depend on how the target language is planned on being used.

- H.B

Sources

Aljohani, Nouf. “International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research” The Goals of Language Teaching. Volume 7. 2016, pp 442

Brown, H. D. “Principles of Language Learning and Teaching” . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Print. 1987.

DeKeyser, Robert N. “Practice in a Second Language”: Perspectives from Applied Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2007

McKay S. "Teaching English as an International Language”: Rethinking Goals and Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Nunan, David. “Task-based Language Teaching” Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, Print. 2004.

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‘Some immigrants from Europe speak better English than some of the English themselves!’

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‘Some immigrants from Europe speak better English than some of the English themselves!’

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On what do we base the quality of language? Is it based on syntax, semantics, grammatical accuracy, or on something else entirely? If we assess language proficiency on grounds of grammatical accuracy then, certainly, it can be argued in many cases that learners of a second language speak ‘better’ than its native users.
For example, an immigrant with a strong grasp of English as a second language may use the structure ‘you and I’, whereas a native English speaker would be more likely to express this as ‘you and me’. Here, the immigrant is technically correct, thus if we base language capacity on grammatical grounds, the native speaker falls behind. However, it is indisputable that language is constantly evolving as it is passed through generations and we unlock more and more insight into other cultures and languages through globalisation, so albeit that the immigrant in the example is more grammatically accurate, it does not sound natural or idiomatic in today’s society.

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Why Children are Better at Learning Languages than Adults

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Why Children are Better at Learning Languages than Adults

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How is it that 4-year-olds can master the grammar and accents of multiple languages, often better than you can? It’s because children have the abilities to learn languages faster than adults. This is since in our early years are brains begin to specialise and tune into the sounds that we hear most frequently[1]. Therefore, at this age, children do not learn language but they acquire it.

An MIT study concluded that the most optimal time to learn a language to native fluency was by the age of 10[2], as these are the years our brains are still highly susceptible to sounds around us.

Additionally, children have the time to learn a language. All children are occupied with in their early years is absorbing what is around them, and imitating what they have learnt. For this reason, they have the mental and physical capacity to learn the different sounds and words in their surroundings. Their minds are not filled with less beneficial items that adults need to progress through everyday life. So now you can blame your mother for not teaching you French sooner!

[1] BBC. “What is the Best Age to Learn a Language?”
[2] TruFluency. “Best Age to Learn a Second Language”.

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‘Some immigrants from Europe speak better English than some of the English themselves!’

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‘Some immigrants from Europe speak better English than some of the English themselves!’

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When considering the many philosophies of language, this question is perhaps not as immediately easy to answer as one would first assume.

There are two ways to approach this statement. It is almost definitely true that many immigrants speak more grammatically correct. Though can a speaker’s second, third or even fourth language truly be better than a native speaker?

But it is perhaps more important to examine what we mean by the word ‘better’ with regards to language. One would maybe propose that it is by being grammatically correct. However this only elicits two further questions. The first being why does this make language speakers ‘better’? The second being is there such a thing as grammatically correct? With such fragile lines between dialects and swift fluidity of language, there can perhaps not be a true ‘grammatically correct’. With enough people speaking with one variety of grammar, who is then to say that it is incorrect in lieu of simply a different way of saying something that has developed through language fluidity?

With the notion that there is no such thing as correct language, we can disagree with the statement or we can deem it unanswerable if we have no true definition of what we class as better. If native speakers simply speak different varieties of the same language rather than some grammatically correct and others the antithesis, then it makes entire sense that their ability to speak this language would be better than someone who is not native.

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"It's impossible to learn a foreign language as an adult!"

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"It's impossible to learn a foreign language as an adult!"

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Why can children pick up language learning much quicker than adults? Cognitively, children’s brains allow them to acquire a new language quickly by absorbing and identifying sounds around them. As an adult however, this part of your brain is already fully developed, and thus sounds which do not exist or are virtually indistinguishable in your native language become hard to replicate when learning a second language. For example, many native speakers of languages such as Hindi or Turkish interchange the sounds ‘v’ and ‘w’ when they speak English (English and Marr, 2015). Native English speakers might identify this as non-standard, but it’s simply the result of a cognitive difference in the way that our brains develop. For this reason, it is harder to hear and pronounce certain sounds in a different language, or develop a native-like accent, if you learn a foreign language as an adult.

However, this does not mean it is impossible to learn a language as an adult, and indeed, there are certain advantages to it. Adults have longer attention spans, which especially aid with the acquisition of new vocabulary, a crucial part of learning a new language (Hardach, 2018). Part of the reason that young children learn languages faster than adults is they do it by a process of absorption and immersion, like learning your native language again, rather than by grasping more artificial grammatical rules. Perhaps if adults were to be in a more immersive environment, they would also pick up a foreign language quicker.

Even though the process of learning a second language as an adult may take more time and require more effort, it is certainly not impossible or too late to try!

Sources:

English, F. and Tim Marr, Why do linguisutics? (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015)

Hardach, S., ‘What is the best age to learn a language?’, 2018, [online], Available at: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181024-the-best-age-to-learn-a-foreign-language [Accessed 17/01/22]

Smith, D. G., ‘At what age does our ability to learn a new language like a native speaker disappear?’, 2018, [online], Available at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/at-what-age-does-our-ability-to-learn-a-new-language-like-a-native-speaker-disappear/ [Accessed 17/01/22]