On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 2:20 AM, J. Andrew Rogers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Apr 22, 2008, at 11:55 PM, YKY (Yan King Yin) wrote: > > There is no doubt that learning new languages at an older age is much > > more difficult than younger. > > I seem to recall that recent research does not support this assertion. Rate > of language learning is essentially the same for both adults and children > and is a function of the amount of time spent trying to learn it. The > apparent absolute differences in rate of learning turned out to be > attributable to adults spending a smaller percentage of their time learning > a new language than children on average, which gave the false impression > that adults learn languages more slowly. > > I am too lazy to dig up cites at the moment, but I definitely remember > discussions of this research in the not too distant past.
I think a person thinks in his/her first language, and when talking in a second language there is some extra processing going on (though it may not be exactly a translation process), which slow things down, giving the popular impression that immigrants are a bit dumber. I'm not sure how great this effect is, but I'd be very surprised if it doesn't exist. Afterall, I have spent a lot of time learning English and I still find it a severe handicap when communicating in English. PS: children don't spend a lot of time learning languages. At far as I know, when I was a kid I spend most of my time playing around ;) YKY ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
