Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

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Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Sep 25, 2022 12:25 pm

Reading an article about Michael Palin, I came across the assertion:
Not only does learning a second language help you write with precision and economy, but Latin furnishes you with words that, naturalised into English, have become markers of high thinking.

Ignoring the Latin argument, is the first point correct? Does learning a second language "help you write with precision and economy"?
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Re: Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby leosmith » Sun Sep 25, 2022 1:26 pm

I don't know what the answer is, but there are probably advantages and disadvantages. for example:
Advantage - Learning an L2 improves one's overall memory.
Disadvantage - An L2 draws on resources that L1 uses. Like, maybe my mind only has enough memory to keep 50,000 words near the surface, and L2 is trying to steal 10,000 word slots from L1.
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Re: Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby zgriptsuroica » Sun Sep 25, 2022 1:37 pm

I would say that, at best, it's drastically overstated and lacking some necessary qualifications. I don't think it applies to those who learn without some sort of formal study of the language, so, for examples, children who pick up a second language when they move to another country at an early age probably wouldn't necessarily see the same benefits. If you go through some formal study of another language, I suppose it will eventually make you more aware of grammatical structures in most cases, which could help with things like understanding when to use "whom" or what the difference is between adjectives and adverbs, but this is all stuff you could do with proper studying of English. Picking it up via a second language just might make it simpler because the examples might have more morphological complexity than their English counterparts, making it easier to distinguish things like direct versus indirect objects, or what have you, since the cases/particles/whatevers are actually distinct.

If you happen to pay a great deal of attention to these elements in your writing, I'm sure it helps to refine your writing, by I think this claim is mixing up correlation and causation. Individuals who learn several languages to a high level likely have to grapple with these concepts at some point or another in their studies, but advising someone who otherwise has no interest in a second language to learn one in order to improve their first strikes me as misplaced time and effort. By the time you reach the point where this grammar would really start to be drilled into your way of thinking, I imagine you could have completed several satisfactory grammar courses in English and learned much the same.
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Re: Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby BeaP » Sun Sep 25, 2022 1:56 pm

Using Latin words and proverbs might make you sound more sophisticated, but I don't know if this can be true for any other language.
But ignoring the Latin argument...

Yes, it does because (based on my experience from Hungarian schools):
- textbooks show you how to build up an argumentation or a formal letter, how to debate - these things are often left out from literature curricula, favouring analysis of art instead
- textbooks show you how the grammar system is built up - again often left out in education or done inefficiently
- textbooks teach you the different types of reading (e. g. skimming, scanning) - again not really done in literature classes, at least not on higher levels, which leads to weak comprehension and learning skills

No, it doesn't because:
- you never stop learning a language, you can always improve your style and your presentation / debate skills
- time is limited - if you learn another language, you'll have less time for your mother tongue
- high level foreign languages harm anything studied before - mirror translations of favourite expressions appear for example that sound strange in the other language
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Re: Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby Carmody » Sun Sep 25, 2022 2:09 pm

Well, for me learning French has helped greatly in speaking English. The French, Chinese, Koreans, Germans, etc. have a form of speech for the familiar in speaking to someone. American English does not, however, I have come to see that choice of words together with tone of voice is the way Americans handle the familiar registry. I absolutely wish we had a familiar register, but we do not.
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Re: Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby Le Baron » Sun Sep 25, 2022 3:44 pm

It might, but not necessarily. Seems like the obvious answer. Michael Palin had a certain kind of schooling, which involved a lot more than just exposure to a second language and this 'exposure' was Latin - and whatever other languages - was applied to literature and to learning in general. I went to a similar school (on a scholarship, not rich parents) and it's the schooling rather than simply the individual elements.

The argument surely can't possibly be universal, because lots of people learn second languages and for many it has little effect on how they write or speak their native language or think about it at all. You have to be aware and curious in general for this or anything to have an influence.
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Re: Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby anitarrc » Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:58 am

It really depends on the context.
(Caveat: I 'm not learning Latin and I'm not going to)

If two languages you know/use /learn are similar, working out the, often subtle, differences in meaning or grammar definitely helps.
For example, struggling with subjuntivo in PT lead me to rethink and relearn the equivalent Subjuntivo Pretérito imperfecto / Pretérito in Spanish again.

If you translate or correct translations for a living, it makes you definitely spot the errors in the source text much better.
Last but not least, a huge vocabulary in Spanish and/or Portuguese helps to understand words of Latin origin in ANY language.

Apart from that, I really don't think it has much influence on your knowledge of the source language
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Re: Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby badger » Mon Sep 26, 2022 3:05 pm

I think learning French has improved my English, partly though there being so many cognates, & partly through having been taught English so badly in UK state schools in the 70s/80s. the only grammar(/punctuation) I remember being taught was possessive apostrophes & a trip to any greengrocer's will show how effectively that was taught. ;)
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Re: Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Tue Sep 27, 2022 12:56 pm

Studying German is how I finally sorted It’s versus Its. The first is a contraction, the second is a Genitive. Mind blown.

More broadly, my German degree really helped my English, because it made me much more aware of language, particularly written language. I’m a better writer and a better lawyer because I once wrote a 15 page term paper in truly mediocre German. That (slow, painful) experience was the true value of my degree. The fact that I can now watch Netflix in German is just icing on the cake.
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Re: Does learning a 2nd language improve your skill in your native language?

Postby sporedandroid » Tue Sep 27, 2022 2:58 pm

Studying Hebrew improved my ability to read intensely. That didn’t improve my English, but it did improve my ability to read Spanish.
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