What do we know about individuals who reach native-like levels in a foreign language?
Achieving Native-Like Second Language Proficiency (Speaking) by Betty Lou Leaver is a research-based catalogue of factors that would seem to predict ability to reach the highest level of foreign language proficiency and is based on common characteristics shared by more than 200 near-native speakers, identified by self-report, survey, and interviews by master testers. Contrary to popular belief, far from all the interviewees, including the polyglots, were good classroom language students. One remembers receiving a D in a college Japanese course and being told to give up on languages and take an easier course. In a bygone day (clearly), a French professor threw a book at a current Level-4 speaker of French in exasperation at her then very strongly non-Parisian accent. A near-native speaker of Russian got C after C in college Russian courses and was gently encouraged to consider other languages. Many of the interviewees reported frustration with their early language-learning e...