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Man is it painful to be a sociolinguist and read this thread. People really like to throw the critical period hypothesis around without really thinking about how absurd it would be if it was definitively true that someone just can't learn a language after a certain age.

I think it's quite dangerous how we can place ourself in pitfalls solely because the decision is in the eye of the beholder. If language acquisition (like another commenter rightfully said) were remotely the same as other processes, maybe the comparisons would be more apt. However, what exactly is wrong with making errors in the target language? Consider conversely this, is there actually a need for someone to arguably overlearn a language to a point (like many of us here) that we not only take for granted, but possibly entrap ourselves within a sociolinguistic framework?

The idea that we cannot learn a second language past 2x can be disproven, if there is evidence for it - there is no law here. More importantly, as that is not an interesting question - why might it be the case that we can't? To be frank, it might just be because you are telling yourself the lie that you couldn't, because of the investment you've made in your native language.

"Errors" in a second language are arguably not always such a bad thing - yes, communication is important but does overlearning one language prevent us from making more progress in others? Also, if we stop considering errors to be a bad thing, then we face the potential reality that novelty is present everywhere in second-language learning, but when speaking your native language the experience of novelty (in relation to the language) is nigh inexperienced. Except, in many cases, when someone speaks "improperly" or wrongly.

We cannot as a culture distinguish ourselves from the desire for everyone to be like us, and/or for ourselves to be like everyone. Of course someone will come along and disagree, but my point on that note is that perhaps the significance of the errors we attach related to language is simply code for our disdain for something else.

I personally am under the impression that a lot of that has to do with social knowledge rather than actual knowledge about the language in question, though.

When I say something 'wrong' (f.ex. grammar-wise) in my native language, I do so with confidence. I know what I just said, and you gotta deal with that, full stop. And people will mostly just accept it, shrug their shoulders, and go:

'huh, guess that's one more way of saying it..? Sure, why not? He seems pretty stubborn about it, so I must be the stupid one'.

And when enough people start imitating the word, expression or manner in which you just said something, it will be considered 'in line' or within the range of the acceptable, respectively - others will think 'that guy definitely probably knew what he did there (maybe?), so he must be.. uhhh.. fluent'.

The same is not true for a second language, though. Going by my own experiences: as long as people don't see you and thereby aren't able to judge your nationality, ethnicity etc.; given that you speak their language well enough, they will simply assume you to come from a remote enough region that their assessment of themselves being in the wrong (or 'not in the know', rather) will somehow still hold true. When they do see you, however, they won't accept nothing they'd deem 'non-standard', because they will immediately assume that you just don't speak the language well enough.

I've found myself in this very situation several times, one of which even cost me a job interview, because the lady on the phone simply refused to believe me when I told her that I'm German and therefore didn't have to jump through some of their hoops regarding providing proof of language proficiency. That might sound like anecdotal evidence, but I'm fairly certain I am onto something with my observations so far

When the image or 'form' of the 'thing' in your mind associates with the word in a new language rather than having to actually process the translation from your original language to the new one - that's when you 'know' a language, IME. And its when more than 80% of the words coming out of someone's mouth have that image association in your head despite accent, speed, age, colloquialisms, etc.

I became fluent in Fijian (for the most part, its a non-written language) in the 90's when I lived there, and learning a language by experience (vs study/books) really reinforces my point above. The sound associates with the image in your brain--that's when you 'know' a language.

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Your lack of knowledge, language acquisition, and imagination is glaring.

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