Forgetting English words after studying another language?

Summary

In this linguistic exploration, Dr. Taylor Jones delves into the phenomenon of 'tip of the tongue' moments, particularly when speakers juggle multiple languages. The video unpacks how bilingualism can inadvertently suppress native language usage, leading to temporary word forgetfulness. It also touches on the intriguing link between language learning, executive function, and ADHD, suggesting that bilingualism may enhance cognitive control. The engaging narrative is a must-watch for language enthusiasts and those curious about the fascinating intersection of linguistics and cognitive science.

Takeaways

• 😅 The script discusses a common experience where people forget words in their first language while using a second language.
• 🧠 The phenomenon is related to psycholinguistics and how the brain processes language, specifically 'tip of the tongue' moments.
• 📚 The speaker, Dr. Taylor Jones, has a PhD in linguistics and speaks multiple languages, providing a credible perspective on the topic.
• 🗣️ When speaking, one must convert concepts into words, which involves selecting and arranging sounds and syntax.
• 🤔 Theories suggest that language processing involves cascading activations where concepts activate words and their corresponding sounds simultaneously.
• 🌐 Bilinguals may use a word-mediated approach, thinking in one language and translating to another, or a concept-mediated approach, mapping concepts to words in both languages.
• 🕊️ There's evidence that translation involves conceptual mediation, taking longer as the brain doesn't just translate word-for-word but thinks of the concept first.
• 🔍 Studies show that bilinguals experience priming effects where recent exposure to similar words or concepts can speed up language processing.
• 🔄 Bilinguals also experience interference effects where certain words can activate networks of another language in the brain, causing confusion.
• 💡 The script suggests that learning a second language might improve executive function, including suppression and response inhibition, which are related to ADHD.
• 🤷‍♂️ Forgetting words in one's native language while using a second language is a natural part of bilingualism and doesn't require a solution.

Q & A

What is the phenomenon where people forget words in their first language while learning another language?

This phenomenon is known as a 'tip of the tongue' moment, where one feels the word is almost there but cannot recall it immediately. It is related to the process of language learning and the brain's way of managing multiple languages.

What does the term 'L1' stand for in the context of the script?

L1 stands for 'first language,' which is the native language of a person.

What is the difference between 'word-mediated' and 'concept-mediated' approaches in bilingualism?

The word-mediated approach suggests that bilinguals think in their first language and adapt it for the second language at the word level. The concept-mediated approach posits that concepts are mapped to words in both languages, leading to different predictions about brain activity and language processing.

How does the brain process language during speech?

The brain processes language by getting from a concept to selecting words that communicate the concept, and then turning these mental objects of words and syntax into instructions for speech production, which involves complex and rapid cognitive processes.

What is the 'paradoxical suppression' mentioned in the script?

Paradoxical suppression refers to the mental effort required to suppress the first language when speaking the second language, especially when the second language is less dominant. This suppression can be exhausting and may lead to difficulty in recalling words from the first language.

How does learning a second language affect the executive function of the brain?

Learning a second language can improve executive function, as it involves skills like interference suppression and response inhibition, which are subdomains of executive control. Some studies suggest that bilingualism may even have a causal effect on enhancing executive function.

What is the relationship between ADHD and language learning as discussed in the script?

The script suggests that while some skills involved in language learning might be more challenging for individuals with ADHD due to executive control issues, it does not mean they are not capable of language learning. In fact, bilingualism might improve executive function, which could be beneficial for those with ADHD.

What does the script suggest about the effect of bilingualism on very young children?

The script indicates that very young children, including native bilinguals, may see a benefit in executive function from being bilingual, as seen in experimental studies.

Why might someone forget a word in their native language while speaking their second language?

The script explains that when speaking a second language, the first language is suppressed, and this suppression can make it harder to recall low-frequency words from the native language, especially if the second language has been recently and actively used.

What is the role of 'priming' in language processing as discussed in the script?

Priming refers to the effect where recent exposure to certain words or concepts makes it easier to process related information. In the context of bilingualism, hearing or seeing words in one language can prime related words or concepts in another language.

What advice does the script give for dealing with the phenomenon of forgetting words in one's native language while learning another?

The script suggests that there isn't much one can do about this phenomenon, as it comes with the territory of learning a new language. However, developing robust code-switching skills may help benefit from priming rather than suffer from interference.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 Language Learning and 'Tip of the Tongue' Phenomenon

In this paragraph, the speaker addresses a common issue experienced by language learners where they momentarily forget words in their native language while speaking or studying a foreign language. The speaker introduces the concept of 'tip of the tongue' moments and explains that this phenomenon is not about forgetting words but rather the temporary inability to recall them. The speaker, Dr. Taylor Jones, a linguist with a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, dives into psycholinguistic theories to explain why this happens, including the idea of cascading activations where concepts activate words in a waterfall-like manner. The paragraph sets the stage for a deeper exploration of bilingualism's impact on language processing and the brain.

05:02

🧠 Bilingualism's Impact on Language Processing and Priming Effects

This paragraph delves into the intricacies of bilingual language processing, discussing how bilinguals may map their first language (L1) to their second language (L2) or vice versa, leading to different predictions about brain activity that can be tested through experiments. The speaker explains the concept-mediated and word-mediated approaches to translation and how they affect the speed of language processing. The paragraph also covers the phenomenon of priming, where recent exposure to certain words or concepts can speed up processing related information. Additionally, it touches on interference effects and the concept of suppression, where the speaker must inhibit their L1 while using their L2, which can be mentally taxing and lead to the forgetting of L1 words.

10:02

📚 Understanding and Embracing Language Interference in Bilingualism

The final paragraph concludes the discussion on language interference among bilinguals, suggesting that there's not much that can be done about the 'tip of the tongue' moments except to accept them as a natural part of bilingual language use. The speaker suggests that regular code-switching can lead to benefits from priming rather than interference. The paragraph also humorously addresses the idea of 'paradoxical suppression,' where the effort to speak one's L2 can lead to difficulty in recalling words from the L1. The speaker wraps up by encouraging viewers to like, subscribe, and comment on their favorite linguistic mix-ups, and mentions the support options available for the channel.

Keywords

💡Tip of the tongue

The term 'tip of the tongue' refers to a phenomenon where a person feels that they are on the verge of recalling a word, but it does not come to mind immediately. In the video, it is used to describe the experience of forgetting words in one's first language while speaking or learning another language. The script mentions that this is not actual forgetting but a temporary inability to access the word, which can be related to the cognitive process of language retrieval.

💡Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics is the study of the psychological and neurological mechanisms underlying language processing. The video discusses how psycholinguistics provides insights into why people might forget words in their first language when learning a second language. It is related to the video's theme as it helps explain the cognitive processes involved in language learning and the interference between languages.

💡Cascading activations

Cascading activations is a concept in the video that describes the process of language production where concepts activate related words and sounds in a cascading manner. This model suggests that language production is not a linear process but rather a dynamic and interconnected one. The video uses this concept to explain how words in one language can interfere with the retrieval of words in another, leading to 'tip of the tongue' moments.

💡Word association model

The word association model is a theory in linguistics that suggests that when we think of a concept, it activates a network of related words. In the video, this model is contrasted with the concept-mediated approach to explain how bilingual speakers might map words between their languages. The video suggests that the word association model might not fully account for the complexities of language switching and retrieval.

💡Concept-mediated approach

The concept-mediated approach is a theory in bilingualism that posits that when bilingual individuals switch between languages, they think in terms of concepts rather than directly translating words. The video discusses this approach as a way to understand how bilinguals might experience interference between their languages, leading to instances where they forget words in their native language.

💡Priming

Priming in the context of the video refers to the phenomenon where recent exposure to a word or concept makes it easier to process related information later. The video uses the example of Russian-English bilinguals being primed by words that are similar in both languages, affecting their language processing. Priming is a key concept in understanding how language learning and use can influence cognitive processes.

💡Paradoxical suppression

Paradoxical suppression is a concept discussed in the video that refers to the cognitive effort required to suppress one's first language when speaking a second language. This suppression is necessary to prevent interference from the first language but can be mentally taxing. The video suggests that this suppression might contribute to the forgetting of words in one's native language when heavily engaged in a second language.

💡Executive control

Executive control is a set of cognitive processes that regulate attention, memory, and task coordination. In the video, it is mentioned in relation to ADHD and how it might affect language learning and switching. The video suggests that the processes involved in language suppression and switching are related to executive control, which can be challenging for individuals with ADHD.

💡Bilingualism

Bilingualism is the ability to speak and understand two languages. The video discusses bilingualism in the context of language learning and cognitive effects. It explores how being bilingual can lead to interference between languages and how it might affect the retrieval of words in one's native language. The video also touches on the potential benefits of bilingualism for executive function.

💡Code-switching

Code-switching is the practice of alternating between two or more languages in the course of a conversation. The video mentions code-switching as a behavior that can lead to the suppression of one's native language when speaking another, potentially causing 'tip of the tongue' moments. The video suggests that regular code-switching might help mitigate the effects of language interference.

Highlights

People often forget words in their first language when studying or speaking another language.

The phenomenon is known as a 'tip of the tongue' moment, indicating the word feels accessible but isn't immediately recalled.

Language processing and speech planning involve complex, subconscious mechanisms that are not fully understood.

When speaking, one must convert concepts into words, syntax, and then into physical speech movements.

Early theories suggest that concepts activate abstract word forms before sounds and morphology.

Cascading activation models propose that concepts, word selection, and sound mapping occur simultaneously.

Bilinguals may use a word-mediated approach, thinking in one language and translating to another.

Alternatively, bilinguals might use a concept-mediated approach, mapping concepts directly to words in both languages.

Translation tasks show that bilinguals often think of the concept before translating, supporting conceptual mediation.

Priming effects demonstrate that recent exposure to words or concepts can speed up language processing.

Cross-linguistic studies show that words in one language can activate related words in another, even if not identical.

Interference effects occur when words in one language hinder retrieval of the correct word in another.

Suppression of the first language is necessary when speaking the second language, which can be mentally taxing.

Paradoxical suppression suggests that it's more effortful to suppress the dominant first language.

Bilingualism may improve executive function, with potential benefits observed even in young children.

Executive control, including interference suppression and response inhibition, is linked to ADHD.

People with ADHD might find it more challenging to switch languages, but it doesn't mean they can't learn languages.

Regular code-switching can lead to benefits from priming rather than negative effects for bilinguals.

Forgetting words in one's native language while speaking it can occur due to the effort to activate a second language.

Transcripts

I got a question on my last video that

was really interesting I am so far off

my filming schedule at this point it's

ridiculous but it's a question a lot of

people have a lot of people ask me and

it's probably more interesting than what

I was going to talk about this week

anyway so here's what happened last week

I had a few tips for language Learners

and when I introduced them I mentioned

it took me a few seconds to remember the

word tip in English instead of the word

asuse which is not English I remembered

all of the other words it was just the

tip

but I'm not the only person this happens

to a lot of people talk about forgetting

a word in their first language when

they've been studying or speaking

another language even if it wasn't super

recent and we've all had that friend who

did two weeks in Spain over the summer

and came back talking like Hilaria

Baldwin so I was asked what's going on

why does this happen and it's actually

really interesting and related to some

fascinating psycholinguistics that tells

us more about the language faculty so

stick around and I'll explain what's

going on whether we can do anything

about it and how it relates to ADHD eh

that's a good hook it's a good hook if

you don't know me I've got a PhD in

linguistics from the University of

Pennsylvania I speak a handful of

languages and I'm an international Man

of Mystery I'm Dr Taylor Jones and this

is uh um

uh this is language

Jones first things first we have to get

some terminology out of the way what

we're talking about here isn't really

forgetting per se you'll remember the

word later and be able to use it you

haven't wiped the drive rather the

technical term and I'm not even kidding

is tip of the tongue moment you feel

like the word is there it's just not

quite happening there's a lot of

research on how we process language in

the brain and speech processing and

speech planning are way too much to get

into for just this video but you should

know it's an academic morass with all

sorts of competing theories so when I

tell you what I think makes sense there

is strong academic support for it but

it's also not completely settled anyway

if you're just a regular old monolingual

who's speaking your native language you

still get tip of the tongue moments the

difference is that for many of us it

feels like the word in the language

we're learning almost forces out the

word we wanted before we can get to why

I just want to run down what even

happens when we speak you have to

somehow get from a concept to selecting

the words that communicate the concept

to turning the mental objects of words

and syntax you've constructed into

instructions for moving your mouth meat

and nose holes

those are not the technical terms early

theories posited that you think of a

concept then that activates a number of

competing lmas basically abstract words

sort of before letters and sounds and

definitely by all accounts before you

add things like morphological markers

that's plural s for instance then you'd

actually select word sounds and arrange

them or arrange the concepts and select

the sounds that spell out that structure

in generative syntax this is actually

just called spellout in all caps the

theory I'm partial to and which has a

lot of academic support is one where you

have cascading activations so concepts

are coming together but words are

already being selected and mapped to

actual gestures to produce those sounds

all in a beautiful waterfall like teared

champagne glasses at a wedding if you're

someone who's already speaking before

you know how that sentence will end

you'll agree with me on the plausibility

of this over organizing everything on

one level at a time and then speaking

either way both would be below the level

of Consciousness and blazing fast okay

so what happens when you add a second

language in the mix well there's

different things that could happen one

is that you map your L1 that's fancy

linguist jargon for your first language

to your L2 your second language so if

you're bilingual in English and French

like me maybe you just kind of think in

English and adapt it at least at a word

level for concrete items this is the

word mediated approach is it word

mediated no W is not word association

model okay this is the word association

model the other option is the concept

mediated approach where you map Concepts

to words in both languages what's cool

about this is that they make different

predictions about how our brains work

and we can test those predictions with

experiments that are potentially as

simple as just measuring how long it

takes people to translate Andor label

things under various conditions so this

is what linguist and psychologists did

There's pretty strong evidence that

translation or switching languages is

conceptually mediated meaning it

actually takes longer if you're given a

word and told to translate it because

you don't just go word to word but you

actually think of the thing first

although that's not quite right and

recent work has found that there's all

sorts of asymmetries so if you give me a

word in my L2 let's take koska a

different L2 I might actually depending

on how I learned it have that mapped

directly to English cat but if you ask

me how to say cat in Russian I'm likely

to actually have to think of a cat on

some level before I can generate koska

there's all sorts of studies that

indicate interesting priming effects

meaning if you've heard or seen

something recently it makes processing

Rel information faster that's priming

but the crosslinguistic stuff is the

weird stuff if you ask Russian English

bilinguals to perform a task in English

if the words in English are sort of

similar to Russian words they'll

activate entire networks of Russian in

their brain activating entire networks

of Russian the classic study on this was

an eye tracking study that asked people

to click on the marker and found that

Russian speakers looked at stamps before

clicking on the picture with a marker in

it but English monolinguals didn't why

well stamp in Russian is Mara the astute

among you will notice that they're not

pronounced exactly the same so cascading

models of activation actually get some

support here because they hear Mar and

start looking at the stamps even though

the Marka and marker aren't pronounced

the same similar enough and you get

priming it's also easier to remember

words that share sounds and have meaning

overlap even if they're not actually

related this is why I can remember that

bizar is Mu in Hebrew it's also why I

think it's really smart that dual

insists on forcing you to do harder

mappings pretty sure they only give me

strange or weird as options for that

word film in the French course is

exclusively translated as movie oh and

the even more astute of you will wonder

if I was primed to include the word

astute in my script because I had the

French word ause activate astute in my

mental lexicon while writing the script

we also see some interference effects so

in studies with Dutch English bilinguals

if you want them to say mountain in

their second language in this case

English say you gave them a picture and

said what is this it can be helped Along

by either saying a word like mouth in

English that shares some sounds or ma in

Dutch it can also be impeded by saying

dull which means nothing in English but

Valley in Dutch or so I'm told and is

therefore semantically related but the

wrong word but what we want to know is

why they might remember mountain when

they're speaking Dutch and wanted to say

and that's where it gets really

interesting when you know two languages

they're both active in your brain

listening to your L2 will actually Prim

words in your L1 so yes astute ause

similar overlapping brain regions light

up when we use our various languages but

they don't overlap completely either the

leading theory on what happens when you

speak your L2 is that you actually have

to suppress your L1 and vice versa

believe it or not the thing is I speak

English all the time and I speak French

way less so when I'm speaking English

it's really generally not hard for me to

suppress French but when I speak French

it takes mental bandwidth to keep

speaking French cuz it's hard and it's

not my first language and wouldn't it

just be a lot easier to speak English

this leads to what's sometimes called

paradoxical suppression it takes way

more energy to suppress your first

language this is not just a metaphor

it's literally exhausting and that means

once you've been doing that for a while

it's also hard to turn off so the fact

that I'd been binge listening to French

podcasts a little earlier in the day

before writing that last script was

enough for me to just be in the habit of

suppressing English words and low

frequency words are harder to conjure

than high frequency just normally and

I'd been listening to podcasts that gave

tips so I'd heard the actual word ause

more times recently than the word tip so

is the pretentious friend who now can't

recall anything in English because how

you say I spent a week in Barcelona

faking it maybe it's a real phenomenon

but people can also play it up because

they want you to think they're

interesting and ask them about their

vacation and the running of the bulls or

whatever yeah I I know wrong City leave

me a comment with the right City and if

they still do that okay but what about

that hook at the beginning ADHD this is

absolutely wild to me if you think about

this suppression I've been talking about

it's interference suppression and

response inhibition these are both

subdomains of executive control if

you're at all interested in ADHD you

probably know that it's all about

executive control YouTube's favorite

ADHD expert even argues it should be

called ID intentional deficit disorder

all because of executive control so does

this mean that people with ADHD are not

good at language learning absolutely not

although some of the skills might be

more difficult I know I'll be more

patient with the adhders in my life who

just keep on speaking to me in English

when I switch for funsies to a language

we both speak it's legit harder to make

that switch when it's not necessary or a

crisis this is true of a lot of people

and not just those with ADHD so don't

get it twisted my wife for instance had

studied French for years but wasn't

comfortable speaking it until after I

faked a stomach bug and niece and left

her with my very monolingual Aunt while

I read in the bathroom for a while note

this is neither language learning nor

relationship ship advice and try this at

your own Peril anyway what's really cool

about this is that the research suggests

that bilingualism improves executive

function it looks like it might actually

be causal and not just a neat

relationship and part because very young

children including native bilinguals see

a benefit in experimental studies of

executive function and some studies seem

to suggest an improvement in executive

function from studying a foreign

language although they're not

necessarily longitudinal studies so take

them with a grain of salt and more

research just needed and yada yada yada

yada so what can we do about this

forgetting words in our native language

well nothing really it just sort of

comes with a territory the best we can

say is that if you develop robust code

switching on a very regular basis in all

domains like catalon and Spanish

speakers and this is from an

experimental study you're likely to

benefit from priming rather than suffer

from it but for most of us we're going

to have tip of the tongue moments and

for language Learners paradoxically yes

you can forget words in your native

language when you're speaking your

native language because it's just too

hard hard to suppress the thing you've

been actively trying to develop the

ability to activate so there you have it

if you like what I'm doing with the

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umz ah bye