Is it really possible to become proficent in a language as an adult?

[Tinker]

Not your mother tongue, obviously.

Or has the window shut, as it were?

Did French A level (got an O ) but have done an OU course since (passed!) and used to have own French tutor for a while (only an hour once a week/fortnight). Could I really become any good if took studying it seriously? Is total immersion the only way now - am 41? Or is it all too late?

yes, I am in wales and it is common for adult, including from outside wales, to become proficient. In fact, some of my Welsh teachers (and this is at the university of Cardiff language school) actually learnt as adults.

This is not by immersion, it is by hard work. Its very hard to immerse in Welsh as virtually all Welsh speakers speak English and will switch to English when you start stumbling.

Have you tried reading stuff in French? I found it helped no end for me to read learners magazines etc in Welsh. And there is absolutely LOADS of French resources on the internet.

Pob lwc

I think if you moved there and worked at it you'd become excellent. I don't know of anyone successfully learning a language from just evening classes though. I would love to be proved wrong though.

or is it proven wrong?

My bil has just become fluent in French, he did a course here and then moved there, and when he was first there did a 3 month course (full time).

Oh, this is all encouraging. My accent is good but I'm not so hot on grammar. And really stuggle to "hear" people properly.

Oh, I know lots of people who have become fluent from evening classes. They do need to be good classes, and you need to put a lot of effort in.

Here's more examples. Round here we have welsh language education, and lots of the preschool teachers, who speak welsh with parents and kids fluently (and are teaching the kids Welsh) have actually learnt as adults. There is a whole older generation with no Welsh round here, so this is necessary.

Yes, it is possible, if you are prepared to put in the work. Read as much as possible, watch French films, listen to french radio. Living in the yountry is the easiest way, your way you just have to work harder at it! A friend of mine, Jewish and thrown out of the former Soviet bloc years ago, went on to become fluent in 3 languages as an adult. Quite incredible to hear her.

They say (who "they" are I don't know!) that it takes about ten years of total immersion, living in a country, to become fluent in that language. however that is to the point of having a very nearly flawless accent.
Depends what you mean by fluency. Real fluency is being very comfortable with the idiom of a language and imo (used to be a language teacher btw) that takes immersion and interaction witht he culture. Being able to function in a language usually requires a lot less work.

Ive have chosen a french au pair this summer to help my ds age 4 with his French speaking. I am of course hoping it will help me too

Gosh, Pruni, you´re not giving Tinker much hope! ; )

I think 10 years is an excessively long period to become fluent; would like to know where that time span was published. There´s also a big difference imo between proficiency and fluency and proficiency is a very accessible level for everybody and in a much much shorter time frame. If Timker is a highly literate person in her mothertongue she may never be satisfied with her achievements in a foreign language but may actually have a very acceptable level in that language.

nah but prunis saying accent free, us. ie really really good. ten years isn't much to become that good!

how long to when most people understand you, thats the question.

Yes filly,I'm in Wales too and know many fluent speakers who have acquired it as adults.
They have worked bloody hard at it.

My sister has lived in France for nearly 20 years and has a degree in it.Although her French is superb,she is not (and never will be) a native speaker.
Her kids sometimes snigger at her accent too.

yeah, the working bloody hard was what put me off

lol
they've had a lot of fun too though!

Oi US I did then say that to become proficient takes a lot less work. As you say, and I did too, it totally depends what you mean by proficient and fluent - they are not the same thing.

Sorry Tinker if I did put you off
Really truly the window has not shut - emphatically not. There's no reason why a 41-yr-old shouldn't be able to learn a language really well, apart from that life is busy and it needs a bit of work.
You say you struggle to 'hear' what French speakers are saying - so I would say, listen as much as you can. I found that just a few sessions of watching the French news on cable really improved my ear (I used to speak good French a while ago). Can you get hold of a talking book in French, so you can listen and read along (if you want to)? Fifteen minutes a day really does make a difference and if you can find something you enjoy then you're likely to improve without it even being like hard work. Ditto something like watching a favourite French film: watch it first with English subtitles, then with French subtitles, then with none. If there's a tv series in French that you like, that would work better as it's in smaller chunks - more manageable.
It sounds as if you really enjoy it - that is the biggest hurdle ime.

HTH

I forgot, if you do get a talking book, try to do some dictation - choose a random bit, not too long, and transcribe it as exactly as you can. Really helps the ear and the grammar too. Old fashioned but v effective ime.

Following on from the nuclear power thread, am now listening to the internationale in french. (la internationale?) The internet is a wonderful thing.

I do want to learn welsh properly, have done gcse but thats all. Might start a "Wenglish" thread...

Have just remembered where I heard the 10 yr thing - it was at a conference talk given by Joanne Kenworthy, who is an academic working in the acquisition of good pronunciation. V interesting it was too - as an expert in phonetics/phonology, she'd got herself a nearly perfect german accent but had to fake a bad one whenever she did something that German people would automatically know what to do, and foreigners wouldn't have a clue about - otherwise she'd get taken for a deliberately obtuse German, or a nutcase.

Thanks Pruni, and I have to say I agree re the dictation exercise. It is a very useful learning tool!

Ha! I sniff a fellow teacher...
(I am 'retired' now though.)

Pruni,that's very funny! When I lived in Russia and had some Russian,it dawned on me that I was saying 'I'm sorry,I don't speak Russian' far too fluently and therefore learnt to ham it up a little.

Filly,there are quite a few Welsh threads if you look in Bilingualism.

Do you home educate?
If so,do yuor children speak Welsh??

After living in the UK for 12 years and learning the language for many more, my English is v good but I still have a strong accent. Sometimes I hear some idiom or other from DS(6) and wonder at how easily it comes to him. When I'm tired or under pressure (e.g. in an unfriendly verbal exchange) I still make many mistakes.

My MIL learnt Latin in her 60s. But there's the big advantage of not actually having to ever speak it or hear it.

Good luck.

Cool mother in law.
Mode in which learnt is intersting too.
I am Welsh/English bilingual and have normal comprehenson of Welsh I hear but reading in it still involves some effort,as I wasn't educated in the medium.

With my French,it's the other way round.Did it to degree level in very formal way,thus am able to read and comprehend it far quicker and more easily than I am with spoken French.