Learning New Languages?

[Shamar]

A thought occurred to me. I have tried to learn a foreign language many times in the past, but am unable. I have formally studied German, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. In the course of my work, I have also tried to learn (by necessity) Turkish, Malaysian, Hawaiian, and Melanesian Pidgin. I learn and retain a few words, but fluency, or even competency, eludes me. For some reason, it just doesn't take. I got to wondering if this could be an autism thing? Does anybody else here have trouble learning a foreign language?

 

[AprilR]

I have always been good with languages, so i thought the opposite. Of course every autistic person is different.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I tend to think fluency and retention is under that category of "Use it or lose it". My brother-in-law (US citizen) is of German-Austrian decent, studied the German language in high school and the university, and after graduating with a chemical engineering degree, spent 2 years in Germany as an engineer. I remember him saying that, in his mind, he didn't become fluent in German until he was immersed in it and began dreaming in German. Now, some decades later, he only remembers a few words.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I am reasonably fluent in German and American Sign Language. I dabbled a bit in Russian and Cherokee. I created a language for one of my novels.

 

[NDR2]

I’ve talked about this before. I’m not good at learning languages. I can learn words and remember them - maybe even sentences. I can even learn songs in other languages and sing them. But I could never speak another language fluently if my life depended on it.

As an English speaker in the US, I acknowledge that being bad at languages is a privilege here.

 

[Tom]

My feeling about it is that some inate talent is a big factor in being trully good/great at languages. Some configuration in the brain that makes some learn and retain easier. Similar to what you see in art, math, music etc.

 

[FilterFreq]

I like to think that if I'm not still actively trying to learn something despite everything that stands in my way, it's really just proof that I gave up on it; not that I'm unable to learn it.

Honestly, some stuff takes moths, years, decades, etc. I like to think that we only fully master one or two things in life, and the rest of them are just 'almosts', and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm 99% sure that even if something takes years upon years to learn, you're not failing at all, you're just becoming a master.

It's also worth it to consider that if you're already fluent in 4+ languages as it is, you're actually really successful in your goal of learning new languages, so that's a lot further than most people would've come. Are you trying to learn every one of them? Better yet, do you really think you can fit them all in your head at once?

(if so, I think you can!)

 

[AuAL]

@Shamar, you might want to look at Pimsleur’s work. I’ve found his language programs very effective, and he’s written about the theoretical linguistic background to them (I’ve got the book but not read it yet.)

 

[AndyFBlues]

I've always struggled at learning a foreign language, but that could just be me.

 

[Shamar]

I like to think that if I'm not still actively trying to learn something despite everything that stands in my way, it's really just proof that I gave up on it; not that I'm unable to learn it.

Honestly, some stuff takes moths, years, decades, etc. I like to think that we only fully master one or two things in life, and the rest of them are just 'almosts', and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm 99% sure that even if something takes years upon years to learn, you're not failing at all, you're just becoming a master.

It's also worth it to consider that if you're already fluent in 4+ languages as it is, you're actually really successful in your goal of learning new languages, so that's a lot further than most people would've come. Are you trying to learn every one of them? Better yet, do you really think you can fit them all in your head at once?

(if so, I think you can!)

No, I studied them one at a time. After failing one I tried another. I was never fluent in any of them, at best I could order food or find a restroom or train station. I probably couldn't do that any more.

 

[NDR2]

Last Sunday I went on a trip with the program for people with learning disabilities. I met a new person who said he was originally from the Dominican Republic and moved to the US when he was 4. He said he didn’t become fluent in English until he was 11. He said the secret to becoming fluent in another language is wanting to learn it (he probably also didn’t have a choice).

 

[vergil96]

I doubt my autism diagnosis, but at least one doctor talks as if it was true, so maybe it is.

I'm good at learning foreign languages. I have achieved a reasonable level of 4. I'm good at learning everything except history, because it didn't make logical sense to me, just a bunch of dates and names.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

No, I studied them one at a time. After failing one I tried another. I was never fluent in any of them, at best I could order food or find a restroom or train station. I probably couldn't do that any more.

I can "speak" several languages with varying levels of ability, but I know what you mean about never quite getting it!

I minored in French in college and while I could pass tests in French, I couldn't walk down the street and buy a baguette if it meant also exchanging pleasantries with the proprietor.

Here's a little something I just noticed that might help the way you think about it. I recently purchased a tiny language translator. I'm going to Europe and will be in countries where I can barely say excuse me, please, thank you, and where is the bathroom, which I think are the bare minimum required to go into a country where one does not know the language.

So I got this little translator and I tried it out with audio recordings from the Rosetta Stone and with the sound track to a French movie. On the Rosetta Stone, the translations were perfect. From the movie, no. The translator had all the words right, but they were in a funny order for English and I couldn't really make out what it meant. That's exactly what happens to me. I can hear all the words and know what they mean, but I have little idea of what the sentence actually means.

I do believe there is some little gap in understanding there. This year, I am taking on a whole new challenge of spending a year with speaking French in all kinds of situations with students around the world, all remotely of course. I'm excited about it.

 

[DavyBoyAB]

I speak five languages almost freely (Russian, English, Norwegian, German, French), but I'm always feel troubles with listening, especially in languages which where you cannot correctly understand what is said, among Europe I feel French impossible for hearing... I can only write and read it and understand writings but I can't understand where words starts or ends, sometimes I listen to unique people on radio which accent make me absolutely understand every said word, but the most of time - I can't understand what do people say to me.

I also as SAD person feel very anxious in verbal communication, I do always feel that I might make a pronunciation mistake or/and in stressful situation I can totally misunderstand people, I think that podcast and radio are easier to understand that I do not have to think what should I respond and it is less stressful. I feel these problems sometimes even on my native language (Russian).

In English I love the British accent it is very clean to understand what they are talking about. While I can sometimes misunderstand Americans, even though that people who listened to me said that my pronunciation is like an American one.

For language learners I'm open for remote language exchange, but I will need some time to adapt myself to you in order to prepare for verbal communication, as it is very stressful for me and I need to be sure that will understand limits of each other.

The same time languages are my obsession, I love them and even tried to learn dead languages (Latin, e.t.c.), hard languages (Chinese) and even tried to create my own language because I found it very interesting. So structurally I understand what every language is, and the most hard part for me is phonetics only, that's why I abandoned Chinese and struggle with French :3

 

[DavyBoyAB]

The translator had all the words right, but they were in a funny order for English and I couldn't really make out what it meant.

French inherits it's word order from Latin and it have simple rule: "the noun first" [noun, adjective/definition] so you don't say Eiffel Tower, but say the Tower of Eiffel, and not say "United States" but say "States United" (États-Unis), always talking about something you have to say what are you talking about (the noun) before you plan to say any feature, definition or other explanation of the noun.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

French inherits it's word order from Latin and it have simple rule: "the noun first" [noun, adjective/definition] so you don't say Eiffel Tower, but say the Tower of Eiffel, and not say "United States" but say "States United" (États-Unis), always talking about something you have to say what are you talking about (the noun) before you plan to say any feature, definition or other explanation of the noun.

Yes, that is a change I'm very familiar with and it comes naturally to me. I'm talking about more subtle changes.

 

[Misty Avich]

I heard autistic people are supposed to be good at learning foreign languages, maybe because it's seemingly a common special interest in the autism community. Personally I've always struggled with learning foreign languages and I dropped out of French/Spanish classes at high school.