Well, yes and no! Research has shown that children who start learning a second language at an early age are more likely to develop their pronunciation skills fully, so that their talk in the foreign language will eventually be indistinguishable from native speakers.
Adult beginners, on the other hand, are more likely to retain a "foreign" accent throughout their learning. But that's about it.
Research has also revealed that in the initial stages of learning adults and adolescents outperform their juniors in many respects, including the time they need to acquire the first basic skills. That is to say, adult beginners learn more rapidly than children.
What is known in the language sciences as the Critical Period Hypothesis (the claim that children must be exposed to a foreign language before they reach puberty, or else learning will never take place) is nowadays widely criticised.
There is no hard evidence that the lateralisation process (whereby the left hemisphere of the brain becomes specialized for language functions) ends at puberty; nor is there any real consensus that a decrease in the plasticity of the brain because of age would inhibit language learning in any way.
Not necessarily. The kind of intelligence measured by IQ tests is not a sufficient indicator of language learning abilities. OK, people who score highly in IQ tests are likely to do well in most kinds of tests, including language performance tests. They may also perform better in a classroom environment, where the emphasis is on grammar rules and vocabulary lists.
But speaking a foreign language well is not merely a matter of being intelligent, just as communication is not about knowing the language rules. Language researchers would all agree that a range of intellectual, social and interpersonal skills and one's general aptitude play their role in language learning.
Establishing the learning style that's right for you is a key factor in achieving proficiency. And remember: there is no empirical evidence to suggest that "intelligent" people make more persistent learners. Class "drop-outs", at least in languages, include brainy people too!
This one is mostly true. A learner's motivation is the key determinant of the rate and the success of foreign language learning. Motivation provides an impetus to embark upon learning and a driving force to sustain the tedious learning process. The more driven you are as a language learner, the more successful learning will be.
This is good news for adult language learners out there: You are well over the "critical" age; you also feel that your brain got a bit rusty from not having used any kind of learning material for quite some time; but you really, really want to learn a foreign language. If so, you have what it takes!
If not, then don't despair. There are ways to increase your motivation. Elsewhere on this site, we will guide you through the latest research in motivational studies and offer you some great tips to change the way you feel about yourself and your learning.
Surprisingly, this is a wrong impression students have when they are involved in group work. However, classroom research has shown that learners do not produce any more errors in their speech when talking to peers than they do when they are talking to their teachers.
This is also a wrong impression. Classroom research has shown that certain things will be learned earlier than others anyway (see 6!), regardless of how complex the input they receive is. That is, you need not listen to the simple structures of a well-designed curriculum in order to get "first things first". "Foreigner-talk", like "teacher-talk", often occurs unintentionally: both native speakers and teachers adjust the complexity of their language making the interaction more accessible to non-native speakers.
You're right and, guess what, you are not alone! In typical classroom situations not all of the input made available to students will be acquired straight away and, in fact, some of it will never become knowledge at all. Learning is, after all, a developmental process, and most linguists agree that some things cannot be learned unless the learner is developmentally "ready" to accept them.
Research has also shown, and here is some good news, that learners often learn a great deal that nobody ever teaches them. It is probably the very first stages that are most frustrating; communication practice becomes all the more fruitful as time goes by and, indeed, the learner becomes increasingly good at uncovering most of the language rules all by himself.
This is absolutely true when it comes to children learning their first language. But in most cases a language learner could not practically read the amount of text a child reads throughout his schooling. Research evidence suggests that foreign learners benefit particularly from reading material that is interesting and important to them; which also holds true for any kind of activity they get involved in.
Have you tried it yet? There has been a claim that you need your first 1000 words to get involved in successful communication. There is no empirical evidence to support this claim. Even if it were true, that isn't a great deal of vocabulary. Everyone can do it!
These claims are mostly wrong. Linguists would all agree that there are no "difficult" or "simple" languages. All languages are equal in terms of their complexity - in all aspects, phonology (sound system), grammatical structure, and semantics (the meaning of words).
As far as first language acquisition is concerned, children across the world develop their speech or become able to write at the same time. Besides, the basic role of language is communication, a universal, human behaviour that is met regardless of the code being employed.
Where languages across the world vary greatly, though, is in their writing systems. And a foreign learner can be easily "put off" facing an "exotic" alphabet. However, learning a foreign writing system is only a small part of the learning process.
Take three equally bright kids from, say, France, Russia and China respectively, all accustomed to a different writing system, and all starting out in English at the same time. Give them the same duration and intensity of learning, and they would most probably perform similarly in tests. Most surprisingly, they would have made similar errors along the way.
It is a fact though that some languages share great similarities. Languages belong to families too, so they have many common characteristics: similar sounds, cognate vocabulary, and identical word order. Does this make it easier for a Spaniard to learn Italian rather than German? (Spanish and Italian, unlike German, belong to the Romance family of languages, but all three use the Roman alphabet.) Language scientists do not agree on that one. In general, it might appear easy to "pick up" a language with familiar sounds and words you can guess the meaning of. However, a great amount of errors are caused at the same time, as the learner overextends some partial similarity between the two languages; and these are errors that are proven to be difficult to overcome.
Not always. It has been a widely common belief for decades that unless you have a native speaker as a teacher, your learning would be partial, or not perfect anyway. This claim has recently been challenged though.
First and foremost, there are far more non-native teachers than native speakers (especially as far as English is concerned!) and the gap between the two groups is growing.
In addition, the non-native teacher, once accused for limited proficiency, has now been valued for his ability to better anticipate and prevent language difficulties and for his empathy towards learners.
