Language Talent: Your Guide To Finding Your Trump Card

Have you ever encountered that one person in your surroundings who speaks 7 languages, leaving you wondering how this gifted individual managed to learn them all? It's easy to conclude that they possess a special language talent that allows them to easily pick up languages, like mushrooms after the rain.

There is some truth to this reasoning: language talent does play a role in learning. But what if you too have the talent for languages?

Here's how to find out for sure.

Language talent: What is the Modern Language Aptitude Test?

It can be challenging to deal with abstract concepts, especially when it comes to innate "talents." Furthermore, it's even more difficult to measure them. Let me illustrate this point with an example.

People have no difficulty determining whether one person is intelligent or not. However, when it comes to measuring intelligence, we haven't come up with anything better than terrible and incredibly daunting IQ tests.

The same story applies to language talent. There are several official tests that can assist you in determining how successful you would be in learning a foreign language.

One of these tests is the MLAT, or Modern Language Aptitude Test. It isn't as modern as you might expect, having been invented in 1958 by a couple of Harvard researchers, and it hasn't changed since then.

The government uses this test for a specific purpose. The MLAT enables them to identify talented language learners and recruit them as military linguists to serve the government's mission by placing them in various parts of the world.

If you possess language talent, you're a part of the devil's plan.

Language Talent or Language Talents?

When we talk about language talent, we often think of something uniform: a single magical ability that works on every aspect of language learning.

However, talent for languages, or language aptitude, is actually a whole set of independent and very specific abilities. The point is that some of these abilities may be strong while others may be weak. It is the distribution of these skill points that determines a learner's strengths when it comes to languages.

For example, MLAT currently tests four language talents:

• Phonetic coding ability

• Grammatical sensitivity

• Rote learning ability

• Inductive language learning ability

Let's examine each of these separately.

Phonetic Coding Ability

Individuals with strong phonetic coding ability excel at distinguishing sounds, quickly associating a sequence of these sounds with a certain meaning, and retaining these connections.

So, if you tell them a random word in a foreign language like "gawajingwaam," they can repeat it back accurately.

This is quite different from the response of someone like me who usually raises an eyebrow and says, "WHAT?!"

Grammatical Sensitivity

Grammatical sensitivity comes into play when you need to identify who did what to whom in a sentence like "lupum occidit venandi" and compare it with "magister discipulum laudavit" to determine the subject.

People with this language talent are fairly adept at manipulating words and identifying their grammatical functions. They are less likely to misunderstand a given sentence and more likely to construct correct sentence structures themselves.

Individuals who lack this skill are selectively blind to language-specific grammar. If you have tried to translate anything with Google Translate, you know that it perfectly illustrates what it means to have no grammatical sensitivity.

Rote Learning Ability

Rote learning ability is nothing more than good word memory.

MLAT assesses your ability to quickly memorize pairs of words, build efficient and strong form-meaning associations, and accurately recall them even after some time has passed.

Inductive Language Learning Ability

Another important language talent is the ability to recognize and retain patterns.

So, if by any chance you happened to take an intro linguistics course in university and did well in morphology and syntax, here's your lucky star.

Theoretically, people with a strong inductive language learning ability would require fewer data to infer grammatical rules. Thus, the language starts to make sense to them earlier than it does to the rest of the population.

You can roughly estimate your level of these four language abilities with MLAT example questions. However, the full test is top-classified (which makes sense considering its main function).

How Important is Language Talent?

Language learning aptitude is closely related to intelligence and tends to remain at the same level throughout one's life. So, if you struggle with language learning, it may be difficult to improve.

However, it's also possible that you have a set of prominent language skills that you haven't noticed.

Learning Strategy and Working Skills

As you may have noticed, inductive language learning ability really interweaves with grammatical sensitivity. Similarly, phonetic coding and rote learning abilities are closely related. Roughly, you can group them into two categories:

• analytical skills

• communicative skills

Determining your set of language skills is a good starting point because the more your learning strategy matches your set, the faster your language learning will progress. By contrast, if there's a huge mismatch, like taking grammar classes when you have acute phonetic coding skills, it won't go well.

Timeframes and Ultimate Attainment

The better your language talent is, the less time you'll need to learn a language.

This point is particularly important as MLAT is often used to estimate whether or not it's worth placing a test taker in a government-funded intensive language learning program.

These courses are fairly short, as you can learn from FSI timeframes for language learning. Participants are expected to achieve a working proficiency level over a period of 20-40 weeks, depending on the language. Someone with lower language talent will take longer to reach the same level.

Language aptitude will also play a role in how far you'll be able to go in your language learning before you hit the ceiling of stabilization. Traditionally, gifted learners are expected to achieve more native-like levels in pronunciation, grammar, and overall communication.

So now, the question is whether there's life after the MLAT test.

Can You Learn Languages if You Don't Have Language Talent?

The only thing you can be sure of if you fail MLAT is that your future career as a government translator/interpreter/military linguist has just crashed.

Sorry, the US Government refuses to train you in their intensive programs.

But! It doesn't mean that you cannot learn a foreign language at all. Language aptitude is nothing but a bonus point: it only facilitates language learning or some parts of it. If you don't have any, it will simply be harder for you to adjust your ears and hemispheres to another linguistic system. That's all.

Folks like Benny Lewis clearly prove this point. You can spend half of your life struggling with languages only to discover that motivation and a new learning strategy have suddenly made you a polyglot.

So, don't be distraught and embark on your language learning task, keeping in mind your strong sides.