Retention

[Eternal Foreigner]

In another thread: (https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 14&t=19970) the topic of retention came up, and I found the discussion very interesting.

Do you find that you're able to retain a language once you've learned it to a certain level?

At which level do you find you're best able to retain a language? In that thread it was mentioned that B2 seems to be a safer bet, because it will likely take very long before your skills start to dissipate.

Bonus question: Which skills do you think diminish more after extended lack of use? I imagine that listening comprehension, or at least being able to make out what words are being said at a natural speed, is probably more like "riding a bike" and difficult to lose. While active recall of words is easily lost, I'm sure we've all had the experience of forgetting a word in our own native language (until someone else says it). I'd like to know if anyone has a different view on this or experience to share.

[emk]

Personally, I suspect that retention comes from deep "automatization" of your skills. Once something is burned so deeply into your brain that you can do it without thinking, then you'll tend to keep it.

For most learners, I think this occurs once you start doing heavy extensive reading and listening (or lots of conversation). Something like a Super Challenge involves so much exposure that your skills become automatic. And for most people, you can't get that kind of massive exposure until after you reach B1 and start working towards B2. Speaking is similar: you normally can't get enough conversational practice to "burn in" your skills until you reach B1, because few people want to spend hours and hours talking to A2 students.

But what if you focused on an unusually narrow set of skills around A1? And what if you practiced those skills until they became fairly automatic? Then I think you might retain big parts of those skills for 5+ years with almost no maintenance. You'd still need to "knock the dust off" the way a more advanced student would, but I think a lot of it would come back.

So I don't think B2 is a magic level—I think B2 is just when (1) people get their skills pretty burned in, and (2) people can use their language skills casually to do stuff without officially studying, so it's easier to avoid having big gaps in the first place.

[Cainntear]

Bonus question: Which skills do you think diminish more after extended lack of use? I imagine that listening comprehension, or at least being able to make out what words are being said at a natural speed, is probably more like "riding a bike" and difficult to lose. While active recall of words is easily lost, I'm sure we've all had the experience of forgetting a word in our own native language (until someone else says it). I'd like to know if anyone has a different view on this or experience to share.

I agree with that. It takes a long time to truly "forget" a language once you know it; it's the productive skills that seem to go first. It's not so much that you can't do it, but that your brain doesn't expect to need to do it, so doesn't even try. The brain's main goal is efficiency, so if it doesn't expect to need to do something, it won't do it. As such, you can get to a point where the main goal of practising the language isn't to get certain language patterns into your brain (which is the goal when you first learn the language) but just to get your brain to understand that it's important.

This is why people tend to describe their language skills as being "rusty" -- it's an intuitive understanding that the mechanics are still in place but just aren't moving right, and it's just a matter of getting them moving and adding a couple of drops of lubricant (often of the ethanol kind!) to get things running smoothly again.