We've all heard a lot about how difficult, if not impossible, it is for someone older than their teens to learn a new language. William Alexander in his charming book Flirting with French discusses this humorously and thoroughly and concludes, for the most part, that he's not convinced. Neither am I. Even if it is true that a certain part of our brain loses its capacity to recognize new tones and nuances (how they can claim that's true without scanning everybody's brains is beyond me), I feel that older learners bring things to the table that an acne-plagued 16-year-old may not possess. By adulthood we've finished college, and if we took French or some other second language, we've got most of the grammar and basic vocabulary already snug under our ever-expanding belts. Also if we take up or resume language study as a late adult, we're probably doing it with conviction (or at least as a serious hobby). I know when I was studying French in college, I was constantly playing hooky from language lab sessions and did not apply myself nearly as much as I would if I enrolled today. In addition, more and more self-study materials are being produced all the time these days, and there are programs that will drill us in pronunciation that is closer to a native speaker's. And so we have an accent. I know dozens of people who absolutely swoon when they hear someone who is French speaking English with a strong French accent. And Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau's fake accent in the Pink Panther movies is funny, but endearing.
Seems to me that all those pundits and linguists who publish findings about how we older language learners are doomed to failure would do better to keep that little tidbit to themselves. It's frightens and discourages perfectly sincere and hard-working people away from the magnificent pursuit of learning a second (or more) language.
No comments:
Post a Comment