| That's still basic-level language learning. To speak like a native you need: 1. Weeks, possibly months of professional voice coaching to teach your mouth muscles to move in ways that eliminate all trace of an accent. 2. Mastery of idiom - learning at least the most popular idioms and knowing when to use them. 3. Mastery of social register and nuance - learning the subtle differences in grammar and word choice that indicate social class and educational level and knowing how and when to indicate both. 4. Some awareness of regional accents, so you can hear where someone is from. Anyone with a reasonable IQ could master these within a year or two - if they worked on them full-time. But that wouldn't leave a lot of time for having a normal life. So probably around half the population never loses the ability to learn a new language with complete fluency. What they lose is the free time to do it, and access to the resources to do it well. Social register can be a huge problem. E.g. UK English is notoriously indirect and passive-aggressive. When someone in a meeting says "I'm not sure that's a good idea" they often mean "That suggestion is literally idiotic." Unsurprisingly, foreigners get very, very confused by this. The Dutch on the other hand are far more direct, and English-Dutch meetings can get very... colourful. |
This reminds me of how in Singaporean English you may often have hawker centre or restaurant service people ask you something like "You want a drink or not?"
In US or UK English that might be perceived as rude, especially the "or not" part, but in Singaporean English it is not rude at all, and is in fact just imported from the Chinese "要不要" grammatical construct, which literally translates to "want-don't-want" and is a polite way to ask if someone wants something. In Chinese it is probably the most neutral and polite way to ask the question because you present both options ("want" and "don't want") on equal footing for the other side to choose, and that idea is carried over to English in Singapore.