english...

Quote:

---

Tell an 8-year-old kid that's pretty literate in his native language to suddenly go to a whole different society and learn their language. Give him one year and see how much he progresses.

---

that doesn't make sense. i was exposed to another language (chinese, manderin) when i was 1.but the time when i made real progress was when i was 4. at that time i had already pretty much been able to speak english fluently. after coming back from china for 1 month, i could already speak half the language. after going there every 2 years or so for 1 month each time, at the age of 8 i could already speak it fluently. for pretty much everybody here, it would be over probably 100 times harder to learn a language than if you were in you toddler age. because my mom (a doctor with 2 medical degrees (one in china, one in america)) said something like when your a toddler your language learning thing is going at full speed or something. so it's easiest to learn a language at a young age. even though i probably told you way too much just to get a point, i hope you get the picture.

I also heard English is a hard language to learn. The only reason we're good at English is because we use it everyday. When my Latin teacher told me Latin is much easier than English, I didn't believe her. If you think about it, Latin is easier. The grammar isn't as complicated as English grammar. Once you know the vocabulary and the basic grammar, it isn't that hard to read Latin. There are a lot of tiny details to English that you won't know unless you use it everyday, like idioms among other things.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by: a_odessey
that doesn't make sense. i was exposed to another language (chinese, manderin) when i was 1.but the time when i made real progress was when i was 4. at that time i had already pretty much been able to speak english fluently. after coming back from china for 1 month, i could already speak half the language. after going there every 2 years or so for 1 month each time, at the age of 8 i could already speak it fluently. for pretty much everybody here, it would be over probably 100 times harder to learn a language than if you were in you toddler age. because my mom (a doctor with 2 medical degrees (one in china, one in america)) said something like when your a toddler your language learning thing is going at full speed or something. so it's easiest to learn a language at a young age. even though i probably told you way too much just to get a point, i hope you get the picture.

---

Yeah I know what you're talking about, but it's not totally about "going at full speed". I think a great analogy for this is painting. Think about a canvas and a paintbrush. At first you got a blank canvas and you can paint anything you want on it. Once you're done, it's really hard to change the picture since paint is pretty hard to get off. Language works in the same way. When you're a toddler, your mind is still developing and obtaining all sorts of new stuff. Once that settles down, it's hard to change what's already been in there and used 24/7. If I told you right now that you're adopted, you'd have a really hard time believing it since you lived all your life believing something different. (no offense buddy, just using an example)

its irrelevant......
Regardless of the language, it's alot easier for elementary school kids to adapt to a new one than it is for adults

interestingly, the learning curve difference in languages applies principally to the learning of the written language. Spoken languages all have pretty much the same level of complexity. Even "creoles" (spoken languages that develop in isolation) have comparable levels of complexity to any other spoken language.

Also interestingly (despite the fact that I've completely lost where I heard this from, so could be completely wrong), I remember something about Japanese high school students being unable to read more than a very basic set of kanji.

Yeah, young children are pretty much preprogrammed for language acquisition, and that preprogramming pretty much guarantees they'll learn the basics of whatever language they're exposed to (disregarding speech disorders, learning disabilities, and severe retardation or brain damage).

If you want to give your kids a fighting chance in the multilingual world of tomorrow, raise them multilingual, and get them really interested in reading and intellectual pursuits at a very young age.

My first language is spanish but since I was five years old I've been going to a bilingual school which all the classes are in english apart from Spanish, Hispanic and Puertorican history. I've become so accostumed to the english language that I can't speak the cult spanish language (well actually, none of my generation can. It happens. Inventing new words and such). It also ticks me off when I can remeber a word in english but can't remember it in spanish.

Another thing its good to be able to speak the spanish language first cause it derives from latin. So does portugese, german, italian etc. Which means I can understand not all of it but a little and it makes it easier to learn those languages. Something I don't think the english only speakers can do.

Well I guess english or swedish or any other western type languge could be considered difficult to japanese or chinese speaking cause they are so different to eachother. But if you think english is wierd you should try as suggested japanese or thai. Thai is wierd [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] like 5 words spelled the exact same way but depending on where you put pitch or pronounciation (however that is spelled) it means 5 different things. And can become pretty wierd if you say the wrong thing.

Think all languages have their wierd sides for an outsider trying to learn or understand, especially the grammar and pronounciations of things. But as allready said children exposed to dialekts and languages can pick them up pretty fast if they have someone arround them that can explain what the stuff means [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]. I was born in Norway and picked up Swedish when I moved here allthough its almost the same but different in just a month or so, and my dad had english and american friends arround often so that helped alot in speaking english pretty early in life.