> Well, it might not be an irrefutable theory, but it's a lot more than > just a myth. Linguists and neuroscientists have been studying the > issue for decades. Check out > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis
Thanks for the interesting link. OK, "myth" was overstating it. But "I feel this is a theory that people should not assume is true, because there is a large body of counter-evidence" doesn't roll off the tongue so well :-) Something I suspect a lot of people on this list might have tried is learning Japanese kanji. I meet a lot of Japanese learners (even as young as in their early twenties) who throw their hands up and say they are too old to learn kanji. They've heard this myth (or whatever, see above) that only children, with their sponge-like brains, can do it. In fact it appears to be the opposite: my children go to the local Japanese school, so I've been able to see firsthand that Japanese school children spend at least one hour/day, 5 days/week, plus considerable homework/juku, for the first 6 years, dedicated to learning the first 1000 kanji. That is 2000 to 3000 hours. Plus using those kanji in all their other lessons. Adult learners, who actually try, can learn the same amount of kanji in far fewer total hours. There is a very under-rated theory, "premature literacy" (perhaps it is more well-known under another name??), that says children shouldn't learn to read/write their mother tongue until they are 10 or 11, as the brain isn't ready for it. (Or, I've even heard claims it damages the brain, so it cannot learn other stuff so well.) And, taking that further, so far in fact that I end up back on topic (!), it has always seemed to me that go patterns are more like written characters than sounds. >> More evidence that adult learners can learn new accents: the existence >> of impressionists. > > Impressionists like Debussy or like Degas? Or perhaps you mean > "impersonators"? :) Meaning two here! http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Impressionists Darren -- Darren Cook, Software Researcher/Developer http://dcook.org/work/ (About me and my work) http://dcook.org/blogs.html (My blogs and articles) _______________________________________________ Computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://dvandva.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/computer-go
