Learning a second language as an adult is effortful. The level of fluency one can expect as an adult learner is rarely that of a native speaker. One of the obstacles is the unfamiliarity of some of the sounds of the new language. A well-known example is the difficulty for Japanese speakers to distinguish between the sounds "l" and "r", creating possible confusions between words such as "grass" vs. "glass". Below is a simple demonstration with Hebrew sound contrasts. The words in this demonstration should sound similar to non-Hebrew speakers because they end in sounds that are unique to Hebrew.

What about people who were exposed to a language early in life but never heard it again subsequently? Is all their early learning lost? Some research suggests it is. French psychologist Christophe Pallier tested Korean adults who were adopted by French families when they were young. Pallier found no evidence that any Korean had been retained by the adoptees, even though some of them had heard and spoken Korean until they were eight. It is possible, however, that familiarity with more subtle aspects of the early language was not completely lost, such as the capacity to discriminate subtle sound differences in that language, as in our example above.

At the University of Bristol, psycholinguists Dr. Jeffrey Bowers, Dr. Sven Mattys and Suzi Gage are addressing this question in a large-scale research project funded by the Economics and Social Research Council. They are interested in whether a language learned during early childhood can leave an indelible mark on the brain, even without subsequent exposure to that language. They are investigating whether participants who regularly 'overheard' a language during childhood are better at re-learning to discriminate the sounds of that language than individuals who never heard that language during childhood.

In particular, we looking for people who regularly overheard Mandarin, Korean, Hindi/Urdu or Zulu during their childhood, but not in later life. This early language experience might be from living in a place where these languages were spoken, or perhaps a carer during childhood spoke Zulu or Hindi. Importantly, however, we are looking for people who heard these languages during childhood, but not in later life. If you have such a language history, and are interested in taking part in our study, please contact us (see below).The study can be carried out in your home wherever you live in the world.  We can pay you for your time.

Can you hear the difference between these words?*

Even speakers of Hebrew can struggle to hear the difference if they started learning this langauge during adulthood. We are interested in finding out whether early experience with a non-native language makes it easier for you to perceive these words as distinct following training.