<P> Second - language attrition is the decline of second - language skills, which occurs whenever the learner uses the second language to an insufficient degree (De Bot & Weltens 1991: 43) or due to environmental changes the language use is limited and another language is becoming the dominant one (Olshtain 1989: 151). </P> <P> A German researcher, Schöpper - Grabe, once expressed that, "Almost everybody who has learned a foreign language shares the experience of forgetting the acquired language skills once the period of formal instruction is over" (Schöpper - Grabe 1998: 231). This relates to how second - language attrition can be defined as the "non-pathological decrease in a language that had formerly been acquired by an individual" (Köpke & Schmid 2004: 5) and described as the "(...) loss of skills in the individual over time" (de Bot & Weltens, 1995). </P>

An individual who formerly knew how to speak a foreign language
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