[HN Gopher] For polyglots, there's something special about their...
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For polyglots, there's something special about their native tongue
Author : netfortius
Score : 72 points
Date : 2024-03-12 15:58 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu)
| triyambakam wrote:
| > each of whom had at least some degree of proficiency in five or
| more languages
|
| Maybe the study clarifies this but the conclusion is exactly as I
| would expect if you use such a loose definition of polyglot.
| tomsmeding wrote:
| Why? Would you expect something different for people who speak
| more languages, or speak them more proficiently?
|
| The paper abstract (
| https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/34/3/bhae049/7625489 )
| does into a little more detail on their findings already.
| mplewis wrote:
| I mean, "some degree of proficiency" means the person self-
| reported "at least minimal proficiency." I could achieve
| minimal proficiency through a few hours of language tapes.
| csa wrote:
| I see your point.
|
| I'm good at learning languages, and 100 hours of self-study
| would make me sound "fluent" to most Americans. That said, I
| would self-rate myself as "minimally proficient, mostly at
| short simple conversations".
|
| > Maybe the study clarifies this
|
| They do:
|
| "The mean self-reported proficiency for the highest-proficiency
| language was 20 out of the maximum score of 20 (SD = 0; note
| that for three participants, the highest-proficiency language
| was not their native language; Table S1), 18.3 for the second
| most proficient language (SD = 2.45, range: 10-20), 15.8 for
| the third most proficient language (SD = 3.36, range: 8-20),
| 13.3 for the fourth most proficient language (SD = 4.034,
| range: 7-20), 11.2 for the fifth most proficient language (SD =
| 4.23, range: 4-20), and--for individuals with proficiency in
| more than five languages--10.33 for the sixth most proficient
| language (SD = 3.99, range: 4-18)."
|
| These were folks who self-reported (perhaps inaccurately, but
| still...) at a relatively high level of proficiency.
| Arc_Orion wrote:
| This makes sense. I have fairly good L2 German production, but I
| go from conversant to barely coherent when fatigued. My L1
| English production diminishes, but not nearly as much. Likewise,
| my friends who speak English as an L2, even those who have spoken
| it with a strong command for over a decade, will struggle when
| very tired. Though we usually speak in English (her English is
| way better than my German), I've had a German friend ask me to
| switch a few times when she was very stressed or tired. She
| speaks at least five languages, with English being her most
| fluent after German.
|
| That said, I'm most interested in the follow-up research
| mentioned at the end of the article.
|
| > They also plan to study people who learned one language from
| infancy but moved to the United States at a very young age and
| began speaking English as their dominant language, while becoming
| less proficient in their native language, to help disentangle the
| effects of proficiency versus age of acquisition on brain
| responses.
| Tmpod wrote:
| Yeah, I have similar experiences. When fatigued, my English
| speech stops being as fluid and my stuttering intensifies (akin
| to higher stress levels). I've also observed that in those
| cases, mixing language becomes much more common, incorporating
| words from my native language in English, and vice-versa too.
| OnACoffeeBreak wrote:
| Regarding the follow-up...
|
| I grew up speaking only Russian. I moved to the US when I was
| 15. I had 7 years of deliberate English practice prior to the
| move and became fluid in it within a year of moving.
|
| That was about 30 years ago. Because I moved alone, and didn't
| seek out Russian speakers for this 30 year duration, I only
| occasionally spoke Russian. The result is that now my Russian
| feels like a second language. When speaking it, I constantly
| struggle to translate from English. It doesn't feel like my
| Russian comprehension diminished, but speaking it is a
| struggle.
|
| The shift to English being the primary language happened in
| stages. The last noticeable change for me was when I would need
| to count something. For a decade, maybe longer, I would default
| to Russian in my head when counting. The change was gradual,
| but now it's English all the way.
|
| Fun story... During the first year after the move, I remember
| being freaked out when I had my first dream where I spoke
| English.
| rayiner wrote:
| I learned English around 5-6, and what's weird to me is I
| have vivid memories from before that where I'm speaking
| English but clearly wasn't.
| ska wrote:
| Memory is a funny thing - much of what we "remember" is
| created on the fly, based on aggregates. I also have a
| clear memory from around this age that is impossible.
| Arc_Orion wrote:
| Yeah, this is something that I'd love to see research on,
| though I imagine it might be difficult to find enough people
| to act as subjects.
|
| That first dream in a target language is always so weird!
| It's one of those things people say happens when a language
| first "clicks" for you, but it always feels momentous, even
| if it happens earlier than expected.
| david422 wrote:
| > became fluid in it
|
| became fluent in it
|
| I think you want this ^^
|
| When I was in 6th grade I had a classmate move from Canada
| (speaking French) to the US, and after a couple of years
| speaking English he said that he started to lose his French
| speaking pretty quickly.
| OnACoffeeBreak wrote:
| Touche... As I was typing that up, I knew I would screw up
| somehow trying to demonstrate proficiency. :-) Leaving as
| is.
| simpletone wrote:
| > It doesn't feel like my Russian comprehension diminished,
| but speaking it is a struggle.
|
| I didn't know you could 'lose' a native language that you
| grew up with til near adulthood. Maybe speaking has more to
| do with muscle memory and hence easier to lose than a
| somewhat passive skill like listening and comprehension.
| Makes me wonder how language is stored and processed in the
| brain. Are there two complete separate regions for speaking
| and listening? That feels a bit inefficient.
| brabel wrote:
| If you learn any language as an adult, chances are you're never
| going to become as fluent as a native speaker, no matter how long
| you live in a second language environment. I say that as someone
| who has done it myself, and seen a lot of friends and family
| going through the same process.
|
| Children are a different story. They can learn a language and
| start speaking just like native speakers, local accent and all,
| within months. It's absolutely amazing to see. My niece went to
| Australia when she was 5. She could speak Portuguese, our native
| language, as a native, obviously, and was very afraid to learn
| English. A few months later she was fluent in English and had the
| local accent from basically day 1 :D. I never absorbed the accent
| myself (moved to Australia as a 23 yo, over 20 years ago). She is
| 11 now and she now mostly speaks English, and it takes effort for
| her to answer to us in Portuguese when we try to get her to do
| so. Her dad, my brother, studied for years (even before moving)
| to try to speak somewhat fluent and correct English... but even
| now, more than 5 years later, he struggles. His wife barely
| speaks anything.
|
| When I was new in the country, I could see that the younger the
| person, the faster and the easier it was to learn. No child I've
| seen ever had any difficulty learning a new language from
| scratch... they really are amazing at it!
|
| I have been learning Swedish as I've moved to Sweden years ago,
| and I am in the same position as my brother is in Australia: I
| can only speak basic Swedish and I make mistakes and have to
| think a lot to say things coherently, specially without having to
| translate from English first - I've spoken English so long that
| it's my main language now... but I still understand Portuguese
| with less effort than English (and after just a few weeks
| speaking mostly Portuguese, as I do on some of my vacations, I
| become much better at speaking it again and words stop coming in
| English first, but that depends on the topic as well - if it's a
| topic I only ever speak about in English, like work, I find it
| horrible to speak about that in Portuguese!).
|
| To think some people are able to learn 50 language (as mentioned
| in the post) blows my mind. I don't think I will ever speak my
| third language properly, let alone learn another dozen languages
| in the future :D
|
| But this is another observation I've made over the years: a
| minority of people are very talented at languages and can indeed
| learn much more easily than others... though as far as I know,
| only children can learn within months and with perfect
| pronunciation.
| a_c_s wrote:
| Sorry to be a curmudgeon but I get tired of all these claims
| about how well young children speak second languages.
|
| A young child saying "Vanilla ice cream please!" often sounds
| more like "Ganiwa ishe! cweam! pweese!".
|
| A typical 4-year-old speaking English substitutes many sounds
| for another because they developmentally aren't able to make
| the right sounds yet. Their intonation is also all over the
| place.
|
| If an adult had their accent it would be barely intelligible
| (and in fact many small children are hard to understand by
| people who don't spend a lot of time with them).
|
| Here's one speech sound development guide for English:
| https://childdevelopment.com.au/resources/child-development-...
|
| It is amazing to watch how fast small children grow and develop
| but we also (rightfully) grade them on a curve. It is when we
| compare them to adults that somehow we forget the curve being
| applied.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| Just a thought from someone who speaks English and a
| smattering of Spanish.
|
| If the child can correctly express the idea/intent they want
| and be understood then arguably they have learned that part
| of the language. Sure it might not sound how an adult would
| be likewise they probably don't in their native language
| either right?
|
| I doubt anyone is saying that kids learn to speak the
| language perfectly but clearly there is a pattern where by
| they are able to understand and express themselves faster
| than adults - even if they sound childish still.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The person you're responding to said that children are
| graded on a curve. Your response is that children _should
| be_ graded on a curve. Fine, but only being understood by
| your mother when near an ice cream shop is not the goal for
| adults learning a second language.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| My children went to kindergarten (barnehage) in Norway when
| they were about three and a half and speaking English well.
| Well with a year they were indistinguishable from the native
| children.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| I've observed my kiddo when he was a toddler and I think
| there might be an inflection point when they are very young
| and don't speak so well, when they might be able to learn any
| language with ease, precisely because they don't recognize
| let alone speak even their own so well. I recall my kid was
| watching TV and all and at some point while eating he pointed
| to a drawing on a cocoa box and said "monkey!" in English,
| and indeed it was a monkey. Must have picked it up from
| cartoons or something.
|
| But then there's a point of no return when they learn enough
| native language from which point on any attempt at a foreign
| one becomes deliberate practice that requires effort. And
| this point of no return follows very early from the point
| when they start to speak.
| Havoc wrote:
| Presumably they've adjusted for actual use?
|
| I grew up with German as first but find English (2nd) easier
| thanks to more use. And same for third lang (Afrikaans) - ease
| feels directly correlated to usage not order
| Tmpod wrote:
| I think perhaps both use and order have an effect on the
| cognitive effort one has to put in to speak in a language.
|
| You probably started learning English at a fairly young age
| (less than 15?), which certainly helped you cement it as a
| "native" language. Yet, it is interesting that you report
| Afrikaans as being easier than German. When did you start
| learning it?
| Havoc wrote:
| You're right - was at a young age. School enforced 3x lang
| minimum.
|
| >Afrikaans as being easier than German
|
| It definitely is. Most places quote hours to learn as
| substantially higher (~30%) for German and in practice it
| feels even higher. Afrikaans average conversational level
| feels simpler too.
|
| >When did you start learning it?
|
| German 1st and then English and Afrikaans bit later maybe
| like 10? School medium of instruction alternated
| German/English
| dhosek wrote:
| I'd be curious what would happen with my kids who grew up with
| pretty much equal levels of Spanish and English at home, although
| right now, they're mere bilinguals (my ex-wife as a trilingual
| (Spanish-English-French), is a bit of a laggard among her family
| where many speak four or more languages).
| aragonite wrote:
| In my observation of non-native speakers working & living in the
| US (a group to which I belong), there's also something special
| about number-words. If you are a non-native speaker, even if you
| boast near-perfect English pronunciation and fluency, and are
| accustomed to using English in all aspects of your life, not just
| for communication but for e.g. personal note-taking, and even if
| you haven't spoken/written your native language with anyone in
| months, the moment you need to _count_ (a sizable enough
| collection), or you need to enter on your computer a numerical
| passcode received on your smartphone, you (most likely) find
| yourself reverting (in your (sub)vocaliztion) to the number-words
| of your mother tongue, because doing the same thing in English
| just feels so much more _cumbersome_.
| kelvie wrote:
| Does it have to do with syllables?
|
| I use English mostly (and am certainly a native English
| speaker), but use my mother tongue to memorize numbers, as mine
| (Cantonese) has single syllable numbers. I think I can keep 5-7
| numbers in short-term memory in english, whereas I think it's
| closer to 10 or 12 in Cantonese.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I don't think so. Neither my native nor adopted tongues are
| English. My native tongue actually has more syllables than
| the adopted one, for some lowish numbers. Yet, I still count
| in my native tongue, e.g., when counting the reps while
| lifting weights.
|
| I'd say I speak better my adopted tongue than my native one.
| People from my country say I speak with an accent, while
| locals are surprised to learn I'm a foreigner, since I speak
| with no accent. When I think about things, I also use my
| adopted language (I went to school here, so it's easier,
| since I've learned the concepts in this language). Hell, I
| sometimes use English for my internal thinking. Just not when
| counting or adjacent tasks.
| fipar wrote:
| While I don't belong to the same group, I've been working
| remotely for a bit over 2 decades now (not continuously at
| first, but yes for the last 15 years) so on weekdays I do end
| up speaking more in English than in Spanish (my native
| language) with other people, and I definitely have the same
| issues you mention with number-words.
|
| I'm not sure if it's related but a similar thing happens with
| spelling. I guess because there's some ordinal relation to the
| letters in a word? But I feel whenever I need to spell my name
| in English it takes me about the same mental effort as giving
| my phone number, and I'm otherwise rather fluent in that
| language.
| diggan wrote:
| Sample size of 1, but I don't think in my mother-tongue
| anymore, and also don't count numbers in my mother-tongue and
| find them harder to recall at this point. But I don't
| speak/listen to it anymore, so that probably influences it.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| (as a native English speaker who has spent some time in India)
| I have such a hard time thinking of numbers in terms of Lakh
| and Crore, I find even if I can remember the number of decimal
| places represented by each one, I almost have to visualize the
| number and move the commas in my mind to be able to make sense
| of them.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Similarly the only knowledge I've pretty much entirely
| forgotten about Hindi is the way the digits are written. Even
| going years without reading or writing in Hindi, the muscle
| memory comes back pretty much immediately for everything
| except for the digits.
|
| Technically Hindi would be my mother tongue, but I wonder how
| all that plays out in terms of having initially been raised
| with it, then having entirely forgotten it and replaced with
| native level English for a few years, and then having
| relearned Hindi from scratch. I tend to think in a mix of
| both languages, and have a tendency to mix words from other
| languages into my thoughts too if I'm exposed to them often,
| even if I can barely speak those languages.
| dheera wrote:
| Chinese also splits numbers differently than English. In
| Chinese it's every 4 digits, instead of every 3 digits as in
| English. There is a word for 1e4 (Wan ), 1e5 is 10Wan , 1e6
| is 100Wan , 1e7 is 1000Wan , and there is a word again for
| 1e8 (Yi ).
| StefanBatory wrote:
| I have been learning English for close to 18 years by now.
|
| I still can't count in English.
| credit_guy wrote:
| Interesting. There's something about this.
|
| Two days ago I was jump roping. Sometimes I was (mentally)
| counting in English, sometimes in my native language. I'm not
| sure which one I did more often, but when I paid attention, I
| noticed that I made fewer mistakes when counting in my native
| language. An explanation would be that my brain can do that
| more effortlessly. Despite the fact that I lived in the US for
| longer than I lived in my native country.
| mastazi wrote:
| I am a non-native speaker living in Australia, I have been here
| for 12 years now; my experience is that this eventually goes
| away. Until about 5 years ago I was experiencing the same as
| what you are describing but now it no longer happens. I suspect
| that the timing depends on one's age, for example I moved here
| in my 30's and my progress was much slower than my daughter who
| moved here very young. Another factor is the relationship
| between your native language and your acquired one, for example
| I have observed that people whose native tongue is an Indo-
| European language don't have as much of a hard time switching
| to English compared to people from other linguistic
| backgrounds.
| mzs wrote:
| I've encountered that as well. Someone at work tells me a
| number of something to check in English, I have to write it
| down. I can't even _see_ the number in my head. It 's the
| complete opposite if someone tells me say a phone number in
| Polish. I lived less than a year outside of the US since
| October 1981.
| FredPret wrote:
| What was emigrating from Poland in 1981 like?
| peterfirefly wrote:
| Like the "Coffee, coffee, coffee" scene from "Moscow on the
| Hudson", I guess. And also very lonely with all their
| friends and family left behind.
| mzs wrote:
| I don't want to be off topic so in short you come-up with a
| plausible reason for travel to then Yugoslavia which takes
| you by rail through Vienna and spend time at Traiskirchen.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traiskirchen#Refugee_Camp_(Bu
| n...
| ozim wrote:
| Hijacking planes was another popular route.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOT_Polish_Airlines_Fligh
| t_1...
| FredPret wrote:
| Incredible - they guy got his freedom. These stories are
| as inspiring as they are tragic.
| FredPret wrote:
| Unbelievable. Glad you made it.
| evertedsphere wrote:
| My impression from having asked people about this exact problem
| --I meet plenty of recent immigrants here in Paris--is this
| goes away quickly if you have to, say, work a customer-facing
| job where handling money is part of your duties, but _much_
| slower otherwise.
|
| (Of course, you can also simulate that experience by drilling
| this for ten minutes a day until it becomes second nature.)
| mzs wrote:
| Not really though in my personal experience. You only need to
| learn conventions about how to say currency values out loud
| because you enter the numbers at a register and it presents
| you with a total that you read out like, "That'll be twenty-
| one oh seven," or, "twenty one dollars and seven cents
| please." All the money handling and change making you do in
| numbers in your head.
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| I live in a non-english speaking country and sometimes go days
| without english at all even though its my native tounge.
|
| I agree, the one thing I tend to still do literal translations
| in my head for is for numbers and arithmetic. Its just so much
| more cumbersome mentally for some reason to do the math in my
| non-native language.
| FredPret wrote:
| Linguist John McWhorter has a fantastic course on human
| language on The Great Courses / Wondrium / Audible.
|
| He specifically talks about this! Apparently the spoken word,
| the written word, song lyrics, and numbers are all processed in
| different parts of the brain almost as if they were different
| languages. He even mentions the same phenomenon as you and I
| think he also said this is the first part that gets hardwired
| into your brain as a kid, leaving you stuck counting in your
| mother tongue forever.
| K0balt wrote:
| As a native English speaker, I speak primarily Spanish in my
| day to day life (Spanish speaking wife and children) and have
| done so for about 15 years. I've had to purposefully build
| relationships in -both- languages in order to feel normal when
| speaking English with them.
|
| I can't even describe the absolute weirdness of saying "I love
| you" to my wife after building our relationship over years in
| only. Spanish. There is definitely some kind of personality
| disconnect when I learn language and culture by immersion as an
| adult.
|
| And yes, numbers are problematic. Spanish me really, really,
| really sucks at math. Even trying to do basic subtraction or
| calculate a trivial tip ends up with internal translations to
| work out.
|
| As a bizarre aside, Once in a while I can be nudged into a
| temporary unresponsive state by the right timing of a language
| change by my speaking partner.
|
| When I "snap out of it" it's like the words went into a que but
| nobody fetched them so I went into some kind of waiting
| condition. It's really weird and makes me wonder if there might
| not be a lot of ways to trigger altered states through similar
| hacks.
| ArchOversight wrote:
| I'm Dutch, my first language was Dutch, my second language was
| German and my third language was English.
|
| I count and do all my numbers in English, UNLESS I am in The
| Netherlands and I have just been talking Dutch then I do it in
| Dutch. I do not switch to Dutch even internally for my internal
| monologue when I encounter numbers.
| humansareok1 wrote:
| If you think English counting is bad you should see French!
| aeyes wrote:
| > there is something unique about the first language one
| acquires, which allows the brain to process it with minimal
| effort
|
| I am only able to overhear normal conversations between other
| people in public in my native tongue. With any of the other
| languages I have to actively concentrate on listening. I have
| been living abroad for almost 10 years and I'm very proficient in
| the language (not English) so proficiency shouldn't be the issue.
| EXOpool wrote:
| I truly wonder what dedication one would have to have in order to
| learn 54 languages. That is just the most impressive even if you
| know the language at a basic level. Quote from the article:
| "including one who spoke 54 languages with at least some
| proficiency."
| ajuc wrote:
| Once you know Russian, Polish and Serbian - you know all Slavic
| languages basically. Maybe Albanian will give you some
| problems. That's like 15 for the price of 3.
|
| There's probably similar shortcuts in other language families.
| dron57 wrote:
| Albanian is not a Slavic language at all.
| ajuc wrote:
| Meant Bulgarian/Macedonian, my bad.
| glitchc wrote:
| I'm not sure I buy this. According to their definition I'm a
| polyglot, but I do not experience this difference in mental
| effort when speaking or listening. I often make jokes crossing
| two or three different languages, it feels completely natural. My
| proficiency, however, isn't the same in all of them but that's
| mainly tied to frequency of use and not lack of knowledge.
|
| I think when languages are learnt plays a critical factor in the
| measurements. If one learns three languages as a young child at
| the same time, chances are the level of effort is roughly
| equivalent when speaking or conversing, and the results will be
| quite distinct from someone else learning different languages at
| different points in their life.
| javier_e06 wrote:
| If I miss in a pick up basketball game an easy layup I can curse
| to my hearts content in English but so what, now If say "Por un
| puto carajo!" now there is catharsis.
| coolThingsFirst wrote:
| i only know 4.
| nyanmatt wrote:
| I've noticed something else particular to my native tongue. It
| lacks emotion. I just don't really know how to express myself in
| English. I can speak very technically and logically, but I'm
| stumped when it comes to matters of the heart.
|
| My Japanese, on the other hand, isn't fluent, but I'm able to tap
| into way more emotion. It feels as if I'm singing when I nail a
| great sentence in nihongo. It really lands with the listener and
| I feel emotionally connected in that moment.
|
| Could this be related to the increased brain activity required
| for foreign language?
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