Hi All, I'm new on these lists and enjoying reading some very interesting and sometimes challenging material. I'd like to add a couple of points, unfortunately just personal but hopefully meaningful.
First, when you're talking about 'young children' that seems a bit vague. >From some reading I've done and personal experience, there seems to be a window (18-48 months maybe?) where children's language acquisition is very rapid. They'll regurgitate words they hear and form new constructions (not just repeating but using rules to generate novel utterances). And, to an extent, in a child's first few years, they DO spend a lot of time learning languages. It's just that it happens naturally so doesn't appear to be (formal) learning. A friend's 5 year old once told me to 'get off me you bastard' which he almost certainly had 'picked up' at school - though I doubt he had been 'taught' it. Does a typical parent - child dialogue like the below seem like learning? I think it is: "what do you say" "sorry..." Secondly, the issue of 'thinking' in languages is easy to confuse. Contrive a situation where you're in a foreign country where you don't speak the language. You can go into a restaurant and order a meal just using hand actions. You may order something called 'funnygrub' and eat and enjoy it with no idea what it is in your native language, even having eaten it. But you do then know what 'funnygrub' is and if you choose to frame your thought with words, that's how you'll think of it. So are you thinking in a foreign language? The point is that language is tied to experiences or sensory data and the trick with foreign langauge learning is that you need to learn new language for concepts you already now and have language for. If you don't have language for the concepts it might be a lot easier since it's not much different from learning a new concept and word in your own language. If it's something you now about already then you have to learn to go from your existing word to a new one, but with time/practise you can tie the concept to the foreign word more easily/directly. For 'young children', learning more than one language at a time means skipping the concept -> first language -> second language step, much like you can call an apple and apple and a fruit at the same time (not a perfect example I grant you). I'd recommend Steven Pinker's 'The Language Instinct' - fascinating and insightful. In fact, I'd recommend anything by Pinker. Cheers, Simon ------------------------------------------- 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
