Re: At what point (age) does learning a new language become futile?


phoglund@xxxxxx wrote:
mb kirjoitti:
If you speak the Swedish variety of Finland, you will be perceived as
"having a Finnish accent" by speakers of metropolitan varieties.
However, you can be a monolingual speaker of that "accented" variety.
Are you then a native speaker of Swedish or not?

Of course, and there's no need to be monolingual either.
The question, though, is not that: How likely is a stranger who learned
Finnland-Swedish late in his life to pass himself as a local-born in
Turku or Helsinki --not somewhere else in the Swedish-speaking world.

Quite likely, actually, provided that s/he has associated with local
Swedish-speakers for a long time.

Sure, some people manage it, no contest there. Statistically speaking,
though, the majority would need, as you well say, a "long time". Very
long. Longer than their remaining lifetime.

That allegation should be backed up by something. In my opinion, five
years is enough for a normal person.

Even the allegation that the sun sets in the West should be backed up
by something. As you know, in this case there aren't reliable
statistical data around.

If, however, you are the Galileo trashing conventional wisdom that is
based on exceedingly many people's direct experience, I think you
better get us something to underpin that challenging opinion of yours.

In this case, it is about the probabilty of an L2 to acquire a dialect
and accent undetectable as foreign by the locals of the adopted L
community. And yes, of course there are cases (in fact I know one of
them for the example you proposed, a Polish surgeon who was
recognizedly able to pass both as a true-blue Finn and a local Swedish
L1 6-7 years after arrival; the rest of the family will need at least
60-70 years more). And no, of course we aren't talking about the
adaptability of L1 from the same language area (which is perceived as
being relatively frequent).

.

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