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I always thought learning a second language was difficult. I took French I for, like, eight years. Not because i kept faling, but because they kept changing when they decided to teach French I in grade school, and it sort of followed me around, then I went to a different school for Middle School, and there it was again, then they changed when they decided to teach it again, and so on. So I took the same exact French class in 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th. grades. OK, so I was exaggerating above when I said eight years.
Years later, I became slightly drunk in a bar in Kinshasa Zaire, and found that I could speak perfect French ... as long as I kept my sentences to about 20 verbs and 100 nouns and mainly discussed whether something was on the table or under the table, and where the library was, and where I could get my fur coat cleaned and that sort of thing.
A few days later, I found myself "in the field" where there were no common languages between me and anyone around me, except for the fellow anthropologist I was traveling with. Early on into the field season, he and I did our best to not communicate in English, and for much of the time did not even live in the same location. I learned the local lingua franca quickly and quite well, eventually learning to speak that dialect of KiSwahili as well as the locals (keeping in mind that it was their third or fourth language in most cases).
This led me to conclude that the adult language learning difficulty is not as severe as advertised, and perhaps is more of an American phenomenon than a general phenomenon.
Well, the reason this even comes to mind is from reading a post on a recently launched blog that I recommend you check out. The author of Cognition and Language is doing some interesting on line experiments on language learning that you can participate in.
Comments
Not a scientific answer, based on a sample size of one, whereas mental math skills decreases fast after college days, language skills do not. And there is a huge distinction between the languages and skills that we learn instinctively at toddler age versus those learned later, again very different retention rates.
Posted by: This is common sense | January 12, 2008 3:35 PM
You could start with something simple, like Toki Pona.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_pona
Posted by: Lassi Hippelinen | January 12, 2008 3:42 PM
"get my fur coat cleaned " what, a fur coat dry cleanerS in Kinsasha?
Necessity is a great teacher, especially of language...here in the US, it is likely that abundance provides apathy, which in turn provides cultural anthropologists, linguists, and semiologists with fodder for theories about adult language difficulty...
but you can get freeware Swahili dictionaries ( and others!) at:
http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/swahili.html
" Jembe lisilo na mpini halilimi"....
Posted by: the real cmf | January 15, 2008 6:06 PM