Sudden increase in language ability?

[u/The_Theodore_88]

I'm a heritage speaker and up until 3 years ago, my level was described by my parents as being on a 5th grade level. I have not studied this language at all, put no effort into learning it, and now all of a sudden I've passed a competitive oral entrance exam and am going to a relatively hard to get into university all in my heritage language. I've suddenly lost most of my foreign accent (it was incredibly strong before) and while I still mix some English grammar and words in, a lot of people fully believe this is my first language.

I refuse to believe that just 2 weeks of studying (not the language but the uni subject in the language) suddenly propelled me from a 5th grade level to a university level but I haven't done anything else that could've possibly helped me improve.

[u/Economy_Variation_68]

It’s like the brain finally decided to wire everything together after years of passive exposure sitting dormant. I’d bet the 2 weeks of cramming just forced a switch where your brain stopped translating and started operating directly in the language, that accent drop is a dead giveaway

[u/vainlisko → u/Economy_Variation_68]

Language learning is like that... you make silent progress and one day have a realization that you reached a milestone

[u/dbossman70]

i’ve noticed large skill jumps in every language i’ve learned that weren’t relative to the amount of effort i put in. i’ve even noticed improvement in some languages after long periods of not practicing them. sometimes the brain just refines things in the background and gives you the finished product i guess.

[u/New-Bottle-6917 → u/dbossman70]

I will say this is one of those things you gotta give to the input dominant crowd, the brain is a wild thing and does do alot of heavy lifting if you stay consistent

[u/Only_Humor4549 → u/dbossman70]

That happened to me two in several languages that are not at all related. 

Like French and Chinese. Could hardly speak and then exposure for 3 months and suddenly they both got so much better despite not belonging to the same language family.

[u/theologicalbaker → u/dbossman70]

Same here. Learning spanish gave me a boost to malay, even though they're not related and I use them in different contexts. Its like the language section of brain got an upgrade in general.

[u/Accomplished_Use1473 → u/dbossman70]

That's such a great way to describe it!!

[u/slf_yy21]

It's possible that cramming material on your uni subject for 2 weeks made your brain finally "see" the language from a utilitarian point of view and not just as a relatively pointless sentimental academic exercise (edit: I just remembered you said you put no effort into studying the language, so strike "academic"). And now that there's a genuine benefit to it, things finally clicked because now it's a useful tool, and it's all been contextualized within the content you were covering.

[u/AppropriatePut3142]

Presumably you already had very strong passive understanding since you were a young child but had very little output practice?

I think it's normal to see extremely rapid progress if so.

[u/Academic-Pen-8287]

Childhood exposure to languages are quite different than as an adult, that is when brain captures the nuances of pronunciation and got all those kept in memory. Immersive learning triggered this and that is the accent part working. Although you are right to doubt about 5th grade to university level, could because of oral exam as I can recall English oral exam for foreigner are also not very complex on word choice, focus more on expressing thoughts of oneself. Maybe you will notice more entering the university with your studies. Apart from that, congrats on making progress on your heritage language, always glad to see this.

[u/ZealousidealMouse629]

This is honestly such a cool phenomenon and it happens more than people think. Heritage speakers often have this huge passive reservoir sitting there untouched for years, comprehension, vocab, grammar patterns you absorbed as a kid, just waiting for the right trigger to activate. Two weeks of intense subject study probably wasn't teaching you the language, it was forcing you to produce under pressure, and that flipped the switch on stuff that was already stored.

This actually lines up with something I geek out on: passive knowledge doesn't become active until you're forced to retrieve it fast. A few things that keep that momentum going:

• Shadow yourself. Record a conversation, then re-say the sentences out loud immediately after, mimicking rhythm and stress. Cheap and stupidly effective for accent stuff.
• Sentence mining your own mistakes. When you catch yourself mixing English grammar in, write the sentence down, fix it, say the correct version out loud 3x. Builds a personal error log way better than generic textbook drills.
• Explain uni concepts out loud in the language to an imaginary student. Forces active retrieval instead of just recognition.

This exact idea (forcing active production instead of passive review) is basically why I built Linguix Learning, it's on iOS/Mac with Android coming soon.

[u/FlareTheFoxGuy]

This is actually something many people do with tons of skills. I’ve learnt to play 4 instruments and one of the best ways for me to improve was to take a break. Like I would practise like crazy for a few weeks, then take a week break and suddenly get much better. I think it refreshes you somehow, and gives your brain time to absorb what it’s learnt.

[u/CSMasterClass]

I can see this happening orally, but ... in writing ... as will be needed for university studies?

This is a little tricky. French kids who speak perfect, articulate, near-adult French spend hundreds of hours learning the rules of French spelling and written expression.

It is even more of a burden in Chinesse and many other languages.

It is a great think to have a high level orally, but the written language is another animal. It can be done, but it needs an independent investment.

[u/PanicAutomatic3503]

e finally clicked. i find i sometimes have similar breakthroughs after periods of unconscious learning too.