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  • Becoming Fluent

  • How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language
  • By: Richard Roberts, Roger Kreuz
  • Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
  • Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (141 ratings)
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Becoming Fluent cover art

Becoming Fluent

By: Richard Roberts, Roger Kreuz
Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
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Summary

Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, students may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do?

In Becoming Fluent, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do, they should learn like adults. Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages - gained from experience - of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language.

Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.

©2015 Richard Roberts, Roger Kreuz (P)2015 Blackstone Audio

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Hope for older learners

This book validated my thesis about language learning with facts and funny anecdotes. I highly recommend, only thing I would have loved more was consistency from the narrator.

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3 people found this helpful

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Very insightful.

There are lessons here that can be applied at any lever of your language development. Don't expect any quick tricks though, this will help you work effectively but you still need to put the graft in to get where you want to be.

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2 people found this helpful

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Quite informative

I liked this audiobook, a summary about linguistics and some tips how to learn a language. But it doesn't provide techniques of how to gain fluency. I think the title should be different. But I liked it.

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1 person found this helpful

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Fascinating

I now feel excited to learn my ‘target language’ despite the book categorising it as one that is ‘super super hard’. A fascinating read. I finished it in one day.

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Great guide to learning

This applies to everything, not just languages. Well read, well researched, incredibly useful. Definitely recommended!

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Descriptive

I have read already a few books related to different memory techniques used by people. Based on my knowledge I can state that the book describes all those techniques in detail and how our brains work when we use them. I would say; read in between the lines and you find out few tips that will push forward a bit.

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Well-grounded advice, for learners and educators

Some of the best tips were saved until last. I get a lot of benefit out of spaced repetition, method of Loci, memory pegs and other mnemonics discussed in the last chapter.

The advice throughout is applicable to all lifelong learners, not just those of languages.

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Fascinating aid to my progress

As an older language learner I found this book very helpful and will use the strategies to keep pushing forward towards fluency

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Good food for thought for adult language learners

Useful and helpful anecdotes of studies about how the memory works and its relevance to language learning, especially for older people. Encouraging book

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Great book

covering lots of surprising and helpful topics.
I learned a lot about my brain and about learning. not so much about languages, but with the knowledge from this book, you're very well armed to learn any language at any age.

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