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I know an anglo white man who didn't speak a word of Cantonese until he was 30. Now he gives lectures in Hong Kong without the need for a translator. It's all about motivation and immersion.
I know an anglo white man who didn't speak a word of Cantonese until he was 30. Now he gives lectures in Hong Kong without the need for a translator. It's all about motivation and immersion.
Cantonese, with its nine tones, is really tricky even for speakers of other Chinese dialects! What makes it worse is that many words sound similiar so you end up saying a dirty or rude word. If not get outright laughed at ...
Good luck with learning. We all have different speeds- keep THINKING in the target language , learn the verbs, vocabulary and synax, etc, and you'll progress. Listen to the radio, read even if you can't comprehend much .It takes quite a lot of time to absorb new words and sounds.
Even though I know that you can "learn" at any age, at which does it become harder to perfect it? Is there an age at which you can never get rid of the accent?
This depends mainly on a person's level of giftedness for learning languages, and perhaps on how much experience the person has had over a lifetime. It's never too late to learn a language well, if you have the resources, and if you have a good ear for language.
Interesting question. I think the best way to really apprehend and internalize a language completely is to start learning it when you are a kid. That way, even if you stop studying it in after high school, then you could always get back to it. I dont think this happens in adulthood. I took a class of french in the university a couple of years ago and, while i did good in the class, i cant remember any of it now. Like it is impossible for me to understand someone speaking to me in french, and i even forgot most words i learned.
While in english, i started studying when i was 6, in primary school, and when i was about 9, i started studying in an institue too, and did it till i finished high school. Thats when my formal education of english stopped, and my informal one began. I, of course had a good level of english after studying it for 8 years, but what really help me develop a real "bilingual" status was that i never stopped using it. I started reading novels in english as soon as i finished high school (i think reading authors in their original language is better and im a fan of northamerican and brittish literature), i lived in USA for a while, made friends and wrote e mails to them, etc. Then the internet became really popular and you could suddenly watch tv series from USA in your computer, and all those forums in english appear and...voilà !! The learning i did after i stopped studing formally was huge, and now my level of english is even stronger than when i was studying it full time. I not only know the formal stuff, but i know slang and expressions that would be impossible to acquire if i werent reading forums , listening to music and watching series and movies without subtitles as much.
So, my take on it is: is better if you start as a child cause then its so much easier for you, is like you never forget about it even if you stop studying. And if you read books in that language, listen to music, watch movies, etc, you will keep learning and it will become so much more easier and natural. English is so natural to me that i many times end up thinking in english. Like there are words that, to me, express better in english what i want to say that a similar word in spanish. To me, im truly bilingual and capable of understanding many things about the english-speaking world thank to the fact that i started learning it when i was so little, and never stopped since.
Now im wanting to learn italian, and, eventhough italian is much more similar to spanish than english is, i know i will have a hard time learning it, and i will probably never be as good with it as i am with english. English always felt so natural and was NEVER hard to understand. That haves to do with the fact that they started teaching it in school when i was 6. It makes the learning proccess so much easier, more natural, and like you are not making effort at all learning the new language. Is just natural on you almost like your native one.
Listening everyone speak the language around you all the time can help A LOT. When i was living in USA when i was 18 and didnt have the slang and expressions knowledge i have now (and was very shy about my english) i remember feeling at first like i couldnt totally follow people when they speak to me, and that i missed half of what they were saying. I thought it was gonna be very hard for me to truly understand all that people speaking in a language different of my own. My head hurted at night the first days for making so much effort of following all the people. After a week, i was 100% following conversations, speaking faster myself, and stopped having headaches completely.
What is your expection? Native proficiency is not attainable if you are an adult. Professional working proficiency is definitely possible through serious learning and practice. Some proficiency is better than nothing! If you plan to move to Mexico for retirement, even limited working proficiency will make a huge difference!
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