I have always thought that, once we reach a certain age, it is very difficult to learn a foreign language. It is hard enough even when we are exposed to the language in a natural setting, but if our only contact is through "artificial" means, i.e. language learning methods and courses, then I think the task is hopeless. Obviously I value my life so I take care to keep these views to myself. Perhaps there are some supremely gifted people who manage to learn a language in this way but I have yet to meet one. I myself found it a very long and hard slog to learn French when I came to live and work in France at the age of 25; even worse, I now find, as I prepare to enter my 70th year, that my French is beginning to disappear while my English remains in the ascendancy.
An article by William Alexander in the NYT, entitled "The Benefits of Failing at French", recently caught my eye. At first sight it seems to confirm my worst fears. Mr Alexander begins:
"I USED to joke that I spoke French like a 3-year-old. Until I met a French 3-year-old and couldn’t hold up my end of the conversation. This was after a year of intense study, including at least two hours a day with Rosetta Stone, Fluenz and other self-instruction software, Meetup groups, an intensive weekend class and a steady diet of French movies, television and radio, followed by what I’d hoped would be the coup de grâce: two weeks of immersion at one of the top language schools in France.
“French resistance” took on an entirely new meaning as my brain repelled every strategy I employed. Yet my failure was in fact quite unremarkable. Advertising claims notwithstanding, few adults who tackle a foreign language achieve anything resembling proficiency."
Mr Alexander goes on to explain why we lose the facility to learn a foreign language at a very early age, and why we have to strive so hard for the most mediocre of results.
I was just about to congratulate myself on my superior intelligence and general all-round awesomeness when I was brought up short by the following sentence : "But that may be all the more reason to try, for my failed French quest yielded an unexpected benefit."
What on earth could he be driving at? He writes that "just before tackling French I took a cognitive assessment called CNS Vital Signs, recommended by a psychologist friend. The results were anything but reassuring: I scored below average for my age group in nearly all of the categories, notably landing in the bottom 10th percentile on the composite memory test and in the lowest 5 percent on the visual memory test." But he decided to forge ahead just the same.
Well, at the end of his year of learning French (Mr Alexander is 57), and failing miserably in his quest, he discovered the following: "After a year of struggling with the language, I retook the cognitive assessment, and the results shocked me. My scores had skyrocketed, placing me above average in seven of 10 categories, and average in the other three. My verbal memory score leapt from the bottom half to the 88th — the 88th! — percentile and my visual memory test shot from the bottom 5th percentile to the 50th. Studying a language had been like drinking from a mental fountain of youth."
In other words, studying a foreign language is well worth the effort, if not for the reason one thinks it is, and I should learn to keep my mouth shut.
Here is the link to the complete article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/
An article by William Alexander in the NYT, entitled "The Benefits of Failing at French", recently caught my eye. At first sight it seems to confirm my worst fears. Mr Alexander begins:
"I USED to joke that I spoke French like a 3-year-old. Until I met a French 3-year-old and couldn’t hold up my end of the conversation. This was after a year of intense study, including at least two hours a day with Rosetta Stone, Fluenz and other self-instruction software, Meetup groups, an intensive weekend class and a steady diet of French movies, television and radio, followed by what I’d hoped would be the coup de grâce: two weeks of immersion at one of the top language schools in France.
“French resistance” took on an entirely new meaning as my brain repelled every strategy I employed. Yet my failure was in fact quite unremarkable. Advertising claims notwithstanding, few adults who tackle a foreign language achieve anything resembling proficiency."
I was just about to congratulate myself on my superior intelligence and general all-round awesomeness when I was brought up short by the following sentence : "But that may be all the more reason to try, for my failed French quest yielded an unexpected benefit."
What on earth could he be driving at? He writes that "just before tackling French I took a cognitive assessment called CNS Vital Signs, recommended by a psychologist friend. The results were anything but reassuring: I scored below average for my age group in nearly all of the categories, notably landing in the bottom 10th percentile on the composite memory test and in the lowest 5 percent on the visual memory test." But he decided to forge ahead just the same.
Well, at the end of his year of learning French (Mr Alexander is 57), and failing miserably in his quest, he discovered the following: "After a year of struggling with the language, I retook the cognitive assessment, and the results shocked me. My scores had skyrocketed, placing me above average in seven of 10 categories, and average in the other three. My verbal memory score leapt from the bottom half to the 88th — the 88th! — percentile and my visual memory test shot from the bottom 5th percentile to the 50th. Studying a language had been like drinking from a mental fountain of youth."
In other words, studying a foreign language is well worth the effort, if not for the reason one thinks it is, and I should learn to keep my mouth shut.
Here is the link to the complete article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/
I wonder if the difficulty is with any foreign language or particularly French? Certainly it sometimes seems embarrassing to disclose our terrible accents and this does seem a matter for huge disdain to the natives.
ReplyDeleteYou, as I recall, polished up your grammatical French before leaving these shores by reading the entire works of Agatha Christie in French, though goodness knows what that did for your accent. All I recall now is your children's unseemly mirth, some years on!
But as a niece of ours says, what does it all matter so long as you can work your way through various international menus?
I think that some languages are more difficult to learn than others, but all of them are difficult in the circumstances I describe.
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