[ezequiel-garzon]

I'd like to offer a counterpoint: quite likely you'll reach a ceiling unless you move as a kid or, better yet, as a toddler or baby! I spent ten years in the US, and was very lucky to have a wonderful native uncle who cared a lot and, sometimes tenderly and other times quite bluntly, corrected me constantly, but naturally this became less frequent.

I was 17 years old when I arrived in the US, and after half a year there I could almost sense getting better by the day, it was an extremely exciting experience. My very naive illusion, however, was that this progress would stay linear until I caught up with the natives, but it unsurprisingly plateaued, in particular when it came to my accent and pronunciation. But again, that first half year felt amazing!

[frant-hartm]

The effects of just absorbing what's around you diminishes at the C2 level. From my experience a huge effort must be made to improve beyond that, e.g. pronunciation won't improve without focused effort - you need a tutor or youtube videos on the topic.

Still, great improvements can be made in niche areas - know you are traveling to Scotland for holiday? Watch video or two about the accent differences, few movies and you understand 95 % in no time.

[somrand0]

nah, I disagree.

I've been trying to express complex ideas at the limits of my own grasp of language (including my native one) since always. And so long as I've kept trying I have kept improving. Surely diction is difficult, but you would have probably needed some diction tutoring or other tips to better use your mouth to sound like a native. It is possible but it's work.

so this is my counter point to your counterpoint.

[ezequiel-garzon]

Plateauing is compatible with maintaining an upward trend.

[somrand0]

that makes no sense to me. clearly something's missing here. could you elaborate?

I understand a plateau to mean that there's no more upwards

[ezequiel-garzon]

Consider reaching a point where you only improve half of what you improved the day before, say first p for some increment p in English proficiency (hence p/2 the next day, p/4 the next…). By definition, you’ll keep improving for the rest of your life, but will never improve 2p counting from that fateful day, à la Zeno. That’s an example, not a model, which I don’t have.

And certainly you have a point, devoting time and money may clearly help vigorously push the upward trend for longer, but I was just talking about my experience, those relatively effortless early moments. In any event, no matter how much you apply, I think it’s hard to argue that it’s quite rare to find foreigners that moved to a country as adults and sound truly native, and I don’t believe it’s due to half-hearted dedication.

[shem73]

It just means one is not improving monotonically. There may be plateaux but the general trend is upwards.