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Glite Dictionary
L2

L2

1 7.0
A language you learn after your first language
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : L2
  • Many immigrants find it challenging to learn an L2 in their new country.
  • L2 proficiency
  • L1 and L2

Examples

  • Seventy-six sequential bilingual children learning English as an L2 and attending English-only schools in Arizona participated in this study.

    Academic text (2013)

  • Thus, L1 (Spanish) often becomes the more social language, and L2 (English) becomes the more proficient language.

    Academic text (2013)

  • The following summary from my notes represents what I observed about her L2 literacy in school.

    Academic text (2013)

  • To elicit the behavioral evidence of L2 proficiency, the two story retell tasks were based on wordless storybooks.

    Academic text (2013)

  • The SELPS was designed as a criterion-referenced rating scale of L2 proficiency that assesses syntactic complexity and grammatical accuracy.

    Academic text (2013)

  • Bilingual individuals often switch between L2 and their native language in conversations.

  • Studying an L2 can enhance cognitive skills and cultural understanding.

Synonyms

second language
vsL2
16 3.0

Another language a person learns after their native language

is learned later, typically during adolescence or adulthood

Surface Forms

L2 singular
L2s plural

Etymology

L2 is a modern abbreviation: the letter L stands for 'language' and the number 2 stands for 'second', just like L1 is the 'first' language. So L2 simply means the second language a person learns after their first language, which makes it easy to remember as 'language two'.