Learning a New Language

After taking four semesters of French in both a New York classroom and a small French city, I can confidently say that I am in no way close to being fluent in the language. I can hold a simple conversation and tell you what I ate for dinner last night, but compared to my French classmates, my French abilities are sub-par. After so much time studying French, I have become very interested in the process of learning a language–questions such as: how age impacts the ability to learn a language, if cultural immersion helps foreign language retention, and if where one is born has an effect on the number of languages learned. I decided to dive right into the topic and found some interesting results!

 Does Age Affect One's Ability to Learn a Language?

The first question that I researched was whether or not learning a language at a younger age helps with retention. In a 2018 study called “Which English?,” researchers were able to determine a person's native language and dialect from an online English grammar quiz that asked people to pick which sentences sounded like they were grammatically correct. They then used the results from the over 600,000 participants to determine the length of time it takes to become fluent and how a person’s age affects their ability to learn a language. The study found that:

The ability to learn a new language, at least grammatically, is strongest until the age of 18 after which there is a precipitous decline. To become completely fluent, however, learning should start before the age of 10.

Another result that I found interesting is that according to the study, "It is possible that after one masters a first language, its rules interfere with the ability to learn a second." This is the main factor that I always considered when I had difficulties learning French. The most obvious case that I always came across is the gender-agreement. In the French language, all nouns are considered either masculine or feminine. If a subject is feminine, you have to change the adjective used to describe it to match the gender of the noun. For example, if you wanted to say, “a small apple” you would say, “une petite pomme.” In addition to this, there are several other rules in French that are not used in the English language. Learning a new language starting at the age of 18 was difficult enough, but trying to remember all of the new rules and intricacies of a language that I have not used in the 20+ years of speaking my native language made learning French a difficult process for me. I have always wondered if I would have had an easier time with French if I had started sooner. According to this study, that is an accurate assumption.

 How Do Foreign Language Requirements Differ by Country?

The next question that I was curious about was whether or not taking a foreign language is mandated in either primary or high school, and how U.S. foreign language education compares to other countries. When I was living in France, I noticed that a lot of the younger French natives I talked to knew both English and French. All four of my roommates, who were born and raised in France, had a good understanding of the English language. Although two of them were more fluent than the others, all four were able to easily hold a conversation with me in English. Why were they all mostly fluent in French while I struggled to hold a conversation in French? 

As consistent with the study above, I suspect the reason is that they all learned English in primary school, before the age of 18. This made me wonder if all French students take multiple languages in school. After doing some research, I found that there is a national requirement to take a foreign language in many European countries. In France, for example, students are required to start their first foreign language at age 9, and are also required to study a second language at the age of 13 for at least one year. However, in the United States, there is no national mandate for foreign language education. Only 10 states have a language requirement for high school graduation and there are few schools that have a requirement for foreign language in primary schools. Perhaps the most striking statistic is that, according to the Pew Research Center and a 2017 report by the American Councils for International Education, while 

A median of 92% of European students are learning a language in school…Only 20% of K-12 students are enrolled in foreign language classes.

Knowing this information now, it is not surprising in the slightest that one of my roommates was fluent in French and English, and was also taking both Spanish and Italian classes last semester.  

How Does Cultural Immersion Affect Foreign Language Learning?

Another factor that I considered is whether learning a language in the actual country it is spoken helps more with retention than simply learning in a classroom. According to the "Which English?" study, "how" a person learns a language is even more significant than "when" that person learns it. The study found that:

People who learned via immersion—living in an English-speaking country more than 90 percent of the time—were significantly more fluent than those who learned in a class.

This conclusion also did not surprise me. Although I took three semesters of French during my first three years at Fordham, I learned far more in the five months that I spent in Reims than during those three years. For me, the actual amount that I gleaned in the classroom in France was equivalent to what I learned at Fordham. However, the day to day situations where I was forced to use what I had been taught was what really helped me with my sentence structure and grammar. For instance, there was one time that I had to go to the post office and ask about a missing package. The workers there did not know any English, so I did not have any choice but to try to speak my broken French. Another time that really sticks out was when I was on my way to class and a little girl stopped me and said, “Ton sac est ouvert!” It took me a minute to process what she had said, but I finally understood that she meant that my backpack was open. It is these small instances that really made me realize the difference between learning a language in a classroom and immersing oneself in the country. 

I hope you found this as interesting as I did when I was researching it. I will say that I really enjoyed learning French, as I saw it as an exciting challenge that I was able to practice with my French roommates and local boulangerie workers last semester, but even though I have only been back in the United States for two months, I can already tell that my French comprehension is fading. Just the other day while doing a New York Times crossword puzzle, I completely blanked on the clue, “The French word for ‘between.'” It wasn’t until I filled in 2 out of the 5 letters that I realized the answer was “entre.” Perhaps if I grew up in France, I would be fluent in four languages like my roommate, but for now, I will settle for knowing how to say, “Bonjour, je m’appelle Lilly.”