Hi,
My first post on the list. I decided to learn a little Lojban about 2 weeks ago. The idea of a language with grammar based on predicate logic intrigues me.
To address what you are talking about, one of my coworkers in the past moved to the US from Italy when he was 8 or 9 years old. He did not speak one word of English when he arrived. He has no accent so most native speakers do not realize that English is not his native tongue. What gets him are some of the idioms. There were a few times when I used some slang or some idiom and I'd get a blank stare, then a question about what it meant. Those were the only times that his command of the English language would indicate that he wasn't born here. His grammar is better than mine.
Jesse Johnson
That his grammar is better is no surprise. He's learned English along with the grammar, whereas you learned it by attempting to find patterns in the way other people spoke.
With total immersion since age 8 or 9, I'm surprised he's missing idioms, but it does make sense that he would miss, say, a Dr. Seuss or Sesame Street reference.
I've had immersion in English for only two years: at age 8 and then later at age 14. The rest is from reading books and watching TV, and yet I can pass for a native, at least for a while.
I do get the occasional moment of some missing vocabulary. I was talking to my father in law (American born, 40 years in this country, and definitely not fluent in Hebrew) and wanted to say something about my daughter's glasses. I wanted to say that the part that goes from the front of the frame all the way back to the ears is pink. I know what that part is called in Hebrew (יצול), but I couldn't think of the word in English. No wonder, how often do we get to talk about that? But I expect that someone who is immersed for a long time would have heard that it's called an "arm" or a "temple", and even if not, they, like me, can get away with "the part of the frame that goes from the front to the ear". I guess that's fluent enough, as long as you don't do it too often.