How your first and second languages shape the way you learn English grammar
What is it about?
When people learn a third language, their first and second languages can both help or hinder the process. This study examined how speakers of three different language backgrounds (Persian, Azerbaijani, and Sorani Kurdish) use relative clauses (e.g., "the person who lives next door") when writing in English. Azerbaijani and Sorani Kurdish speakers had all learned Persian as a second language before learning English as their third, while Persian speakers learned English as their second language. The researchers analyzed 144 essays to see how each group constructed these sentence structures. Azerbaijani speakers, whose first language is very different from Persian, actually outperformed Sorani Kurdish speakers, whose first language is closely related to Persian. The researchers suggest this is because Azerbaijani speakers had to work harder to learn relative clauses in Persian, which made them more attuned to similar structures in English. Meanwhile, the few errors that did occur, such as adding an extra pronoun where English doesn't allow one, came from speakers whose first languages permit that pattern, showing that a person's mother tongue can still introduce mistakes even when their second language is helping.
Why is it important?
Most research on language learning focuses on just two languages. But millions of people worldwide speak three or more languages, and we still don't fully understand how all of those languages interact in the learner's mind. This study provides new evidence that the relationship between a person's known languages matters more than any single language on its own, a finding that could inform how multilingual students are learning grammar.