No Stupid Questions

Some people are barely fluent in their native language

No, pretty much everybody is able to acquire another language unless they have a neurological disorder that makes them unable to acquire any language at all.

You don't need to be young or be a child to acquire a language either. The critical period hypothesis is a causation-correlation fallacy at best. It points out many issues directly related to traditional language learning methods and not acquisition of another language at an older age; the issues it points out are the resultant bad pronunciation, spelling errors, grammatical errors upon trying to output etc.

These do not result from "improper age" or "an inability to learn another language", they result from how society as a whole has accepted "formal study" and "language courses" as the best ways to acquire a language, which they are definitely not.

Language acquisition is achieved first and foremost by comprehensible input in the target language. Hundreds and thousands of hours of comprehensible input. This can consist of any type of content a person enjoys watching, as long as it's language dense, easy to understand at the start and slowly harder going forward. A good figure to aim for is 10,000 hours of this.

Production of language, or output, is not beneficial to the learner, especially at the first few thousands of hours where it can permanently damage the learner's ability. The reason for early outputting being so detrimental to language acquisition is that as the learner doesn't yet completely know how the target language sounds, and they don't understand grammar rules intuitively yet because of the lack of input, anything they force out will in all likelihood be incorrect and they will unconsciously reinforce the incorrect grammar and pronunciation they just outputted.

So the best way to get to fluency is by doing as much input as possible and while starting out as much no output as possible. This is also usually called immersion learning.

You did mention immersion in your text, but considering that you live in an English speaking country you most definitely were forced to output early to at least survive, which damaged your speaking skills. The reason your reading may be bad is that you may not be reading enough English. If you're talking about language courses when you say “formal study“ and not just skimming through a grammar textbook for an easier time with immersion, which you most likely are, that may have harmed your perception of how English sounds too due to toxic input (the incorrect speech/writing of other learners).

Tatsumoto‘s website is pretty useful for more information and resources on input-based learning. It is primarily for Japanese but as language acquisition doesn‘t differ from one language to another it doesn‘t matter and you can just skip the Kanji-specific parts. I would just think twice about joining their community though as they are pieces of shit, but the website is really well made for a complete language acquisition guide that only uses Libre tooling.

Edit: The amount of misinformation in this thread is just sad. I reached basic English fluency at around 14 and I'm currently doing Japanese immersion, with my comprehension rate of the Japanese content I consume being around 90%. And I'm not 9 months old, as you can also probably tell.

Like with any other ability, like painting or playing an instrument, learning a language is something that some people can do better than others.

And while starting to learn a language as a baby or toddler has it's advantages (Our kids basically grew up bilingual), I started learning English in school when I was 11, and I still managed to learn it. Yes, native speakers will still tell me that I have an accent, but I'm good enough that they cannot place it, just that it is not native. With only 2-3 weeks a year in the UK, it is probably the closest I can get. Written English is another matter, anyway. I've probably read way more English books than the average native speaker...

Chiming in with more context, my PhD was in neuroscience and I worked in a language lab. As others have stated, there is a critical window for learning a language. The biology behind it is fascinating.

As early as about 9 months of age, your brain begins to decide what speech sounds are important to you. For example, in Japanese the difference between /r/ and /l/ sounds doesn't matter, but in English it does. Before 9 months, most babies can tell the difference between the two sounds, but babies living in Japanese-speaking environments (without any English) LOSE this ability after 9ish months!

Language is more than just speech sounds, though. Imagine all these nuances of language - there are critical moments where your brain just decides to accept or reject them, and it's coded somewhere in your DNA.

The thing about language is that you kinda have to start from a young age. The older you start, the more difficult its gonna get.

I was born in Mainland China, I immigrated to the US before I turned 10. It was difficult at first, but now I speak fluent English (American English) with no noticeable accents according to my classmates in highschool.

I wouldn't say to "give up", but like... have realistic expectations.

I'm never gonna learn french or german to nearly as good as a native speaker, not in this lifetime at least. If I hadn't immigrated that early, I'd never have the same proficiency in English. My brother who's just a few years older than me is horrible in English. But honestly, he's an abusive piece of shit that I feel better at the fact that I have better English proficiency than him (sorry to bring up my family drama, I'm going though a lot in life and kinda wanna vent a bit)

Anyways, good luck, its gonna be tough. Try your best 😉

I think when people are learning some new skill, eventually they reach a proficiency where they stop actively working on improving. Instead, they'll transition from "improving the skill" to "applying the skill".

Practice does not make "perfect". Practice makes permanent.

The older you are when you begin trying to learn a foreign language the harder it is. Like almost everything, actually.

So what I'm gathering from this thread is that since I'm 42, I probably shouldn't even try learning a new language? That's reductive but more or less the energy I'm getting.

For near-native fluency, there is an age cap at around 10 years. It's much harder for adults, as their critical learning period is closed: https://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical-period-learning-language-0501

However there is evidence that psychedelics can open up critical periods for social learning (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3) and ongoing research about other critical periods, language learning being one of them.

I work in a bilingual workplace that offers language training to everyone. My colleagues are dedicated professionals and take learning seriously. However, some succeed more than others. There seems to be a lot of variation in language learning ability, even among smart hard-working people. Don’t feel bad if you’re struggling.

My advice is to focus your effort on the hard parts. If producing accurate sounds (phonemes) is difficult, try recording yourself and repeating the tough ones.

For reading, you might have a mismatch between the level of the material and your current ability. When i was beginning to learn my second language, i started with young adult books. Next easiest is a book that has been translated into the language you’re learning, preferably from your native language. Sometimes i would buy the same book in both languages and compare. Reading on your phone is also nice because you can usually click a word to see the definition.

For speaking, the best thing to do is talk, talk, talk. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and don’t always talk to the same person.

Good luck! Don’t get discouraged! I’ve been learning my second language for 42 years and i am still getting better.

Some people just can't, but that's fine, you're still just as valuable a person as anyone who can ! ^^

This doesn't answer your question, but I'm curious. You say your writing is good but your reading is bad. In my experience reading and writing are so intrinsically linked, and reading is the easier of the two. If it's possible can you explain the difference for you? I just find it really interesting!

Everyone's brain is wired differently.

English to Vietnamese or Vietnamese to English is harder than, say English to Spanish or Arabic because the sounds are so very different - I am sure I simply can't hear some of the different sounds in tonal languages, and had a friend who moved here from Taiwan when she was so young she learned better in English than Taiwanese but still she could not hear the difference between ear and year.

I don't think it's impossible but do think it's unusual. My dad was bilingual English and Spanish and I wish my parents had done the "one speaks English one speaks Spanish" language immersion but we only spoke English at home.

I don't have any empirical evidence for you on this topic, but in my opinion yes, I think some people are - especially with oral language adaptation. And I think I'm one of them too.

I've tried learning French on and off for most of my life. Did it in school for several years, got a French tutor who helped me scrape by with a C in it, spent a few years with it on Duo Lingo (I know I know, that so is far from perfect), spent time watching French news. And after all that I'd say my French language skills aren't even closer to a conversational level. I especially struggle with the oral side of the language, even though multiple teachers have told me I have a good jack for pronunciation.

I haven't lived there, so maybe that would push my over the edge? But I don't know. I think I'm in the same boat as you.

The language your are learning also factors in. I've also tried learning Spanish and have found that easier. Meanwhile, I tried learning Mandarin and was completely lost. And English is often described as being ready to learn at as basic level but difficult to master. It's such a relatively unstructured language with so many weird exceptions.

But with all that said, don't give up! It might just take longer for the oral part to lock in. And your written English is excellent.

but my speaking and reading are still bad.

Wow. For most people, reading is the easiest part, writing is more difficult, speaking is hard and understanding speech is the hardest.

I believe language learning like most anything varies quite a bit individual to individual. Much of it might come down to interest. I am horrible with language. When graduating college a friend and I exchanged transcripts and his comment was. Wow. Actually you get pretty good grades (im looking at him like did you expect me to do poorly?), oh, except in spanish. When english was a subject in school it was my worst subject. Now my brother on the other hand totally geeks out on spanish and latin culture. He says he does not speak that well but in the right scenario (low light setting) it can take awhile for someone to realize he is white. I think they realize there is something wierd about his accent but figure he is from somewhere they are not or was diluted by being in the us or such.

Thing is your ability to learn language drops with age. Children learn their first language at ridiculous rate, teenagers learn fast, 30y olds learn slowly, 50 years and above have problem to ever get fluent

I learnt to speak French by living there for a year or so but I still cannot read it at all beyond short sentences because how a word sounds is different than how it looks.

As for English, I think both learning English and English speakers learning other languages is extra hard because English is such a hodge podge of random bits of other syntaxes and structures. Its a mess of a language in lots of respects making it hard to learn and hard for native speakers to get past the messiness and learn a better structured language.