Based on nearly thirty years of working with EFL students from numerous cultures across the globe, I do believe that the stronger the language/writing use in the first language, the more likely the language use in writing will be--if the target language shares some similarities whether in vocabulary, syntax, or rhetorical structures.  As Ramon points out, the same language family can help a great deal in gaining second language proficiency particularly in grammar and syntax. 

I am most interested in Michael's response because he makes an important--essential--point about the two languages.  I have taught quite a few Chinese and Arabic-speaking students; they are generally at Intermediate level 5 but their writing skills are seriously hampered by stylistics and pragmatics.  I had the opportunity to work with a Professor from China for one semester and we discussed the tendency of Chinese writers to "beat around the bush" (the American expression for the rhetorical style).  As she explained, Chinese rhetoric does not generally encourage student claims that may go against a professor's view or the view of the text, etc. Even when students develop a claim that to me seems rather innocuous, they still talk all around the subject in a very indirect way.  They may not even express the point clearly enough to satisfy an English composition instructor.  At the graduate level (where I teach), this type of writing will not satisfy the rigors of academic writing.  Arabic speakers have similar difficulties in academic writing or the writing for the graduate exams.  Their problem is not the indirect style but the excessively coordinate (in the view of most American composition instructors) used to present their claims and evidence.  These Arabic speakers are all graduates of Middle Eastern universities, most of them with degrees in the natural sciences; their abilities in Arabic are excellent on all levels.   On syntactic levels, Chinese and Arabic students often have similar problems with punctuation (Arabic has a variety of end punctuation available; English has two).  Usually my Arabic speakers can defend a view, persuade, even argue--but they earn low grades because American writers and readers want to see the subordination that signals (to us) the ranking of the ideas and our views on those ideas.  On Graduate exams, both Chinese and Arabic-speaking students have more reading problems, chiefly because their languages have NO similarities to any of the family of Indo-European languages that could help them develop vocabulary through a variety of affixes, root words, synonyms, etc. Luisa makes the point that I am talking about here--will the writing strategies transfer?  When they don't, the writing of the second language is extraordinarily difficult.

One point of interest I have noted and can't explain.  My Iranian students are usually much more fluent, both in speaking and in writing, than my Arabic speakers. I wonder whether some of that ease may be related to Farsi's being an Indo-European language.  Although Farsi is not written in Roman letters, its roots and a number of its vocabulary words are directly linked to Indo-European roots.

The other important point about writing in a target language has to do with how much practice students receive in their own countries regarding those speaking and writing skills. In countries that have little use for English on a daily basis, those student experiences are quite limited.  Even for students living in the US, it takes time for them to gain the "ear" for the language that can help them develop style in their writing and fluency in their speaking.  Much of that fluency depends on whether or not the target language is ever used at home.  In my experience, the first language dominates home, while the second language is on campus.  And for many of my Arab students, this situation remains a problem.  The girls do not hang out with other students in Starbucks or in the library; most often, the Arab/Muslim girls band together almost everywhere they go. When their classes end, they immediately leave campus. There are simply so many variables that go into writing in a target language--even academic writing for most native English speakers is difficult because it demands such different strategies than students use in more personal writing.  The cognitive activities taking place in writing are incredibly complex and fascinating--but difficult.  Adding a second language to those brain activities can only complicate the situation, especially for high school and college students.

This is a very good question, Yahya. I recently advised a student group that is looking into this same question. My personal thesis is that first language writing quality DOES influence second language quality, because structures we learn in the first language are likely to be applied in the second language.

But of course, it depends on how we define "quality" in this context.  Vocabulary and grammar would not seem to be as relevant.  One would think that ability to use a good structure and logical development of ideas would translate between languages.

The students are considering Chinese first language writers versus English second language writers in expository writing.  They THINK that they are going to learn that students learn different rhetorical styles in Chinese writing than are considered to be the norm in English writing (i.e. a clear thesis that previews main points, logical development of main points with evidence, and a conclusion that relates back to the thesis.

If it is true that there is a correlation, it might not always be positive because a GOOD writing structure in Chinese might hypothetically be not so good a structure in English. It will be some time before there is any data to look at.

I have not studied this topic formally but speak both from my own experience  and from watching many graduate students and postdoctoral fellows grapple with the issue.Being a good writer requires abilities to conceptualize issues well and have good communication skills . These qualities tend to transfer as one learns a second language. I was a good writer in elementary school in Hungary and within two years of coming to the US,,in my freshman year in college I was complimented on my writing. This was for the ideas , but my writing was not yet fluent.In my sophomore year in college a strict English professor insisted that I strive to improve my grammar and idiomatic usage of English.When I entered graduate school, six years after coming to the US my writing in my second language well surpassed my writing in the first. Indeed disuse has made my writing in my first language decline .

Language learning is much more effective for those who experience living in the country ,where the second language is spoken.I hope that others will comment , based on empirical studies of this important subject.

Hi Yahya,

I believe that if a learner learns a foreign language and cares about register, levels of formality, language expressions and active in practising it in the written form, the benefits are also seen in the speaking and the other way about. Eventually, I may sustain that the more you study a foreign language, the more you know about your first language, its rules, its linguistic shifts, etc.

See it it helps:

Fullana, N. (2006). The development of English (FL) perception and production skills: Starting age and exposure effects. Age and the rate of foreign language learning, 41-64.

ISO 690

Thanks for your comments. Why I asked this question is because I figured out many learners who started to learn a foriegn language find a lot of challenges and most of them still have problems with their first languge. I was going to conduct a research to see whether being poor in the first language will have any effects when learning a second language. This would apply to all language skills: writing, reading, listenning and speaking.

The first question to ask is that we understand what aspects in writing and talking. There are several factors involved: the handwriting of the new language; type your spelling: opaque / transparent ?; if the language is the same language family: Romance, Germanic, Slavic, or not; the syntactic structure; lexicon ...

Now if we start studies Cummins (1986) on the Common Underlying Proficiency,  we can deduce that tas bet are competences in L1, they can help a lot in a L2.

Dear All,

If writing quality (style) of the native language is correlated with personnel abilities, cultural backgrounds and imagination than all these primary determinants should work in case of second and third languages. An untalented, uncultivated and mind-numbing person will not have a splendid style even in a second ad hoc language.

Please allow a short answer. Why? I know one language, I´m a beginner in the second language. Where is the correlation for quality?

Yes. Mastering your native language in speaking and writing gives you the basis for attention to grammar, rules, and style in a new language.

Yahya Alghamdi: Probably, if ESL learners write well in their first language, of course, they  will be able to write well  in a second language.  The question is about what writing strategies of the first language  they are able to transfer to the second, as for example: the ability of representing thoughts and organizing the ideas ( planning or composing the discourse),  the habit of documenting (iinventio) and editing their texts.

Based on nearly thirty years of working with EFL students from numerous cultures across the globe, I do believe that the stronger the language/writing use in the first language, the more likely the language use in writing will be--if the target language shares some similarities whether in vocabulary, syntax, or rhetorical structures.  As Ramon points out, the same language family can help a great deal in gaining second language proficiency particularly in grammar and syntax. 

I am most interested in Michael's response because he makes an important--essential--point about the two languages.  I have taught quite a few Chinese and Arabic-speaking students; they are generally at Intermediate level 5 but their writing skills are seriously hampered by stylistics and pragmatics.  I had the opportunity to work with a Professor from China for one semester and we discussed the tendency of Chinese writers to "beat around the bush" (the American expression for the rhetorical style).  As she explained, Chinese rhetoric does not generally encourage student claims that may go against a professor's view or the view of the text, etc. Even when students develop a claim that to me seems rather innocuous, they still talk all around the subject in a very indirect way.  They may not even express the point clearly enough to satisfy an English composition instructor.  At the graduate level (where I teach), this type of writing will not satisfy the rigors of academic writing.  Arabic speakers have similar difficulties in academic writing or the writing for the graduate exams.  Their problem is not the indirect style but the excessively coordinate (in the view of most American composition instructors) used to present their claims and evidence.  These Arabic speakers are all graduates of Middle Eastern universities, most of them with degrees in the natural sciences; their abilities in Arabic are excellent on all levels.   On syntactic levels, Chinese and Arabic students often have similar problems with punctuation (Arabic has a variety of end punctuation available; English has two).  Usually my Arabic speakers can defend a view, persuade, even argue--but they earn low grades because American writers and readers want to see the subordination that signals (to us) the ranking of the ideas and our views on those ideas.  On Graduate exams, both Chinese and Arabic-speaking students have more reading problems, chiefly because their languages have NO similarities to any of the family of Indo-European languages that could help them develop vocabulary through a variety of affixes, root words, synonyms, etc. Luisa makes the point that I am talking about here--will the writing strategies transfer?  When they don't, the writing of the second language is extraordinarily difficult.

One point of interest I have noted and can't explain.  My Iranian students are usually much more fluent, both in speaking and in writing, than my Arabic speakers. I wonder whether some of that ease may be related to Farsi's being an Indo-European language.  Although Farsi is not written in Roman letters, its roots and a number of its vocabulary words are directly linked to Indo-European roots.

The other important point about writing in a target language has to do with how much practice students receive in their own countries regarding those speaking and writing skills. In countries that have little use for English on a daily basis, those student experiences are quite limited.  Even for students living in the US, it takes time for them to gain the "ear" for the language that can help them develop style in their writing and fluency in their speaking.  Much of that fluency depends on whether or not the target language is ever used at home.  In my experience, the first language dominates home, while the second language is on campus.  And for many of my Arab students, this situation remains a problem.  The girls do not hang out with other students in Starbucks or in the library; most often, the Arab/Muslim girls band together almost everywhere they go. When their classes end, they immediately leave campus. There are simply so many variables that go into writing in a target language--even academic writing for most native English speakers is difficult because it demands such different strategies than students use in more personal writing.  The cognitive activities taking place in writing are incredibly complex and fascinating--but difficult.  Adding a second language to those brain activities can only complicate the situation, especially for high school and college students.

I´m not so sure that the first language you learn, your native language, is learned applying grammar rules. You just talk and write and understand. Learning grammar rules later on is an abstraction which not everybody experiences.  So I would not rely on the rules of my first language. And style can be very different in different languages. Just compare Goethe, Hemingway and James Joyce.

I think it has an influence because writing is a "talent". I believe that a person can be good writer in a language even if it is second or third, once he "thinks" by that language; it means, you can not think in your first language and write in the second.

Grammar is fundamental! If you don't know grammar in your own language you will not be able to understand all the rules in another language.

Bye...and sorry for my english, my ESL!

I suggest to have a show program:

"The Graduate's Got Writers" like that one America's Got Telent!

I understand that there should not be made a close relation to a foreign langauge written production with a mother tongue. If a student has a learning disability and it interfers with his writen production, he will definetely have problems in a foreign language. Or his difficulties in the foreign language can be even harder.

I want to add a short comment to the grammar discussion basing on a reminder in my school time. My class was taught english language in the calssical manner, grammer, syntax etc. After three years nobody could talk in english.

The parallel class had a young unconventional teacher. He started a totally different method. From the first minute he talked to his class in english. The class tried to copy his words, sentences and phrases witth a lot of fun and enthusiam. After one year the whole class was talking english, could discuss argue and fool around.

Later on they learned grammar of course and syntax, but just as refinement.

Absolutely, Hanno.

I had many years of Spanish and German and did not learn either. I learned Romanian by systematic immersion. I learned German by in-country immersion. Romanian was taught by speaking while performing tasks. The speaking was grammatically correct. Reading was introduced after we had mastered pronunciation and cadence. Grammar was taught last after we could already speak and read.

German learning required immediate application, the problem of most in-country students. You have 'learned' the language but have not had to use it, but here you are in a foreign country and you have to live, study, and compete with native speakers. I did not learn German from books. I learned it by going native. I learned two local dialects, but I, also, had to speak, read, and write formal German. Knowing grammar was essential.

As you mentioned, writing styles differ. I noticed that there were two styles of scientific writing in German; the pretentious-officious style, and the explanatory style. I adopted the latter, because I cannot write a sentence three pages long.

How very intriguing, and above all... interesting!

I have no idea what my second language is... I was born in Portugal and educated in a French school, from kindergarten. For a long time, I could speak Portuguese better, and could only read and write with proper grammar in French. My grandmother sung lullabies in English, my grandfather spoke to us in French, and I learnt English as a mandatory second language since I was ten. I chose Latin and German as third languages and learnt grammar and declinations. 

I face great trouble with misspelling with most languages.

Nowadays, I lost most of my vocabulary in German, but I kept most of the grammar, because it was the subject of more demanding efforts. 

A few years ago, I travelled to Germany and was very much afraid that I wouldn't be able to communicate at all, but I soon noticed that after a few days, all the (little) vocabulary  soon came back, and was actually kept deep in my memories.

I don't know what ever happened to my latin...

My idea is that what is more difficult or trouble to learn, will be kept longer in memory, and what was immediate, unthoughtful learning, or adaptive learning, is easier to loose...

Hope this was useful.

Kind regards, Maria 

Not necessarily. It depends on your writing skills in general; your motivation to learn the language and your capacity and mastery of learning (nuances, details, areas); the domain of writing (fiction, socio-cultural, scientific, etc.) - knowledge of or interest in the domain in general and the vocabulary in the language you want to use; emotional value - your current mental state and personal involvement with the issues you want to write about.

Some people are better at foreign languages than their own 'native' language, therefore all combinations (writing in native lang - writing in foreign lang) are possible.   

Dear Hristina,

a very amazing story. My first foreign language was latin. We learned it first from gramatical rules, declination and conjugation and so on. Boring and yawning of course, we were ten years old.

We all were talking german like young pupils do it, without any rules.

The second language was english, see my story above. My third language was french, same history like in english. And than after beeing misused for some pedagogic and didactic purposes, we started to learn german grammar, we abstracted the latin rules and got all the german rules without any problem.

You see, you can learn a language, your native one or two, without consciously knowing any regulations, and later on its very easy to refine grammar, style, synthax.

BTW the other lang´s I "learned" just by talking with young girl friends or by travelling were the nordic ones (swedish, dansk) and some parts of italian, spanish and even portuguese.

I think people first think matters in the first language fast and then translate in their second language because the first language, in many cases, found to be the mother tongue. Hence, there is a positive correlation in between these two.

There is a language problem if you think in one then translate to another. I think in the language I am using. I was once an accomplished translator, able to write in German as I read English or the inverse. I could translate to one person while listening to another, thereby keeping a conversation going with little delay. I lost this ability very rapidly when I no longer had the need or opportunity.

A Japanese friend writes first in English then translates to Japanese, including classroom lectures. He claims it is easier in English.

Thats the point dear Joseph, thinking in the language you actually use. Good formulation!

Dear Hanno,

Regarding your story with the languages, your tries with foreign languages have suspected that your excellence in German was supported by earlier learning of foreign idioms. However, you have not had a control: you could have had the same good results with German without any effort of foreign languages.

Dear All,

I think one should translate only if the aim translating is. In communicating naive translation cannot be a successful approach.

In a first language, it is possible to conceptualize an idea exactly. But, when it is rewrote in a second language, the exact meaning may change slightly. So, the quality of writing varies. Hence, it is not possible to correlate both perfectly.

Dear All,

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences here. I do really appreciate it. And I am so sorry for not particiating with your comments due to my busy lifestyle.

In my opinion, only those who had the opportunity to learn other languages may be able to judge on whether or not their strength in their first language has supporte them when learning a second language. And what I mean by being strong is that they all ready have the competency and fluency in all language aspects especially in reading and writing.

Most learners who started learning a second language, for exampl, English, still haven't mastere enough competencies of their mother tongue. Therefore, they find learning a second languge more challenging. Once they have acquired the second language, they feel that such acquisition might added some improvements to their mother tongue's weakness. For example, my first language (Arabic) shares some features with the English language especially in writing; It has a similar structure: introduction, body, and conclusion structured in separate paragraphs; both use similar punctuations.

For this reason, I was wondering whether a learner whose first language is Arabic and has mastered the Arabic language writing in a way that he can understand and use sophisticated vocabulary in a variety of written structures can transfer this ability to the English writing compared to an English learner who has weaknesses in writing in his/her first language.

Dear András,

may be that we wouldn´t have had problems if we had learned grammer later on or in my first native language. But I´ve no chance to make a new experience, im no more a young pupil. Today I prefer for children the talk and write techniques.

I think that people have perverted ideas of what language proficiency is. One can never fully and equally well master all the components in all areas of a given language. Indeed, some knowledge in all components is necessary to attain an overall level but proficiency is a matter of relativity (the purposes it serves, how it relates to other languages, individual discourse, motivation, social context, talents, etc). 

For the most part, philosophy, thought and culture are broader categories - they precede and to some extent shape language. Aesthetic elements in a language (one's expression or discourse) will follow a pre-programmed appreciation of beauty, just like harmony in music - we won't be able to process complex sounds unless we feel the need for complexity in beauty.

I can imagine the varieties of knowing and understanding languages for all those people who spent part of their lives abroad for whatever reasons. Many children are now exposed to multicultural environments. But this does not necessarily imply that they would be good at writing in the respective language namely because learning is happening mechanically rather than as a process involving positive feelings and objective capacity.      

Dear Yahya,

The notion of L1/L2 Transferability has long been researched in SLA; however, the findings have been quite inconclusive. Cognitively, prior learning can either facilitate or hinder subsequent learning. Therefore, transfer may be really at work when non-native speakers start to write,but L2 writing has its own inherent features that are culturally independent and L2rs should internalize them through what Robert Louis Stevenson calls "diligent imitation."

Dear Yahya,

Writing in general and writing in a L2 in particular requires its own maxims and principles. It also needs sophistication, interest,  and good general knowledge, as well as the command to write in the two languages in question. However, if the topic is not favourable to an individual writer, s/he is not able to write well regardless of his/her mastery of writing rubrics. I (as a persian speaker) agree with "Aysha Bey" that we persians do better in internalizing and producing English extracts that to me comes from our interest to English language compared to Arabs. As a lecturer I have noticed an amazing cultural proximity between Persian and English (especially in idiomatic experessions) which may come from a shared source; although, their background is different.

Yahia,

check out this paper !

http://web3.apiu.edu/researchfile/Research%20Material/English%20Writing%20Proficiency/The%20relationship%20between%20Saudi%20EFL%20students'%20writing%20competence,%20L1%20writing%20proficiency%20and%20sefl%20regulation.pdf

regards