Um, why is this interesting? Are you just down with obsolete names for train systems or did I just miss the sociological significance of the wiki-entry?

Don't blame me: it's theatre.

どうみてもA氏の言い方はバブル青田っぽい。

aw come on stop bragging!

carl, i think the answer is BOTH.
odot "aw, come on!"

aw come on stop bragging!

I find that studying languages always gets very competitive - to the extent that I was always sitting back in class thinking, man, these Japanese grad students sure know their Japanese.

But ultimately, innate talent can only get you so far with fluency. It maybe accounts for 25% of your skill. The rest is just study, experience, and determination - which takes the fun out of any real notion of "competition."

Come this August, I will have been studying Japanese for an entire decade. If I wasn't able to write three-line fake plays about the late 80s, I'd be in trouble.

10 years? Shit, then you are off my "gotta be better than him" list.

How old is "too old" to learn a language? Is there such a thing?

The "can-do" spirit would say, "No! Of course not!"

But I do believe that the Kissinger Principle says that the later you start learning, the less you'll be able to lose your accent. I've heard the cut off is around 18, although that seems late to me.

Language learning is very good for seniors citizens, though, seeing that it uses every single part of the brain.

I thought this was to announce that you had the encoding problem in your feed fixed. :)

18 is way, way too low, yo.

I'm sure there is a good article somewhere, but I've heard that the brain/tongue basically can't be pushed towards native fluency after 18. You'll always have somewhat of an accent, even if you're great.

"Both [leading theories of Second Language Acquisition] agree that children have a neurological advantage in learning languages, and that puberty correlates with a turning point in ability."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_language_acquisition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period

Interesting links. The question still seems open about age effects, but accent does seem to be the most difficult to correct post-childhood. That gels with anecdotal evidence.

So, yes - you can learn Japanese starting at whatever age. But no, you'll probably never sound native unless you start in your early teens.

Sadly though, European accents in English sound intellectual and sexy. Indo-European accents in Japanese sound bad.

what about scottish accents in osaka-ben?

back in my linguistics classes, the prof liked to stress that children have the distinct disadvantage in language acquisition that they still suck at their own language. You can't effectively learn words like "ontology" until you can put together a concept of it.

I'd believe that adapting an accent after a certain age is much less natural, ie a concious knowledge and manipulation of the mechanics of sound production is necessary. But inasmuch an accent coach can work effectively with an actor, I don't think overcoming an accent is impossible. Didn't the old school spies used to do that stuff all the time?

It's not impossible, but it takes a certain set of skills. I've met people very fluent in Japanese with a massive level of vocabulary who just refuse to pronounce anything as if it were not the vowels of English. They either have never noticed that they don't sound Japanese or have and can't fix it.

I do find that my intonation and flow get better over time, but I'm not sure my accent has really improved much. Vocabulary is probably the easiest thing to acquire.

I'm my experience, my immigrant friends who learned English before age 12 sounded American. If they came after that, they kept an accent.

----

"Hey, wanna take the E-den?"
"What's the E-den?"
"Aw, forget it. Taxi!"

Hmm, are you saying that in the bubble days train conglomerates, and by extension the public utilities in general, were hurt because people were willing to waste money on more expensive and privatized means of satisfying their desires? Or. :/

This play is commenting on the inefficacy of the "E-den" campaign.

The critical period closes at 12. You can never learn to speak like a native speaker after that. Although supposedly Conrad learned English at 18 ... tensai da na.

Incidentally, you can forget about ballet and cello, too.

I believe 12 more than 18, actually.

What about Nabokov? I assume he had an accent, but a way with words.

What people always overlook -- and Nabokov did little to discourage them -- is that he was basically brought up bi-lingually (or actually, tri-lingually: Russian, French and English). So he's not really an exception, he would have acquired the basic structures (syntactic as well as phonological) of English long before he moved to the states.

I didn't know that. I had always asssumed he learned English from the butterflies.

do people in Tokyo shout for taxis? I've never heard it before.

I've never heard it done there. Does shouting for taxis really work, anyway? What are the chances the driver would hear you? I'm thinking it's all in the body language. But 欧米人 probably find whistling and shouting pretty satisfying.

Anyway, my theory is that A氏 was just suggesting a taxi to B氏、
like「タクシーで行こう！」

This BBC Radio 4 programme examines whether language-learning ability declines after childhood.

For those of you unfamiliar with the wonder that is google video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4324075157404820799&q=morning+musume+ayaka

Because there's nothing better than Japanese girls being plyed with sweets to memorize random, inappropriate English phrases.

Oh, that is definitely going to be Exhibit A at some tribunal on patriarchy and infantilization after the revolution.

This play is commenting on the inefficacy of the "E-den" campaign.

Pff, author's intent is dead. The play comments on what I think it comments on.