Monday, 28 February 2011
The linguistic genius of babies
Summary:
According to PatricialKUHL, babies can learn so fast from 6 - 8 months old. The babies are sensitive for sound. For example, a Indiana mum talks to her 6-month-old child in Koro. This is a newly language in India. There is only 800 people speak Koro. However, her child can also understand what did she say. Also, language has critical period. Native babies can learn every language when they turn to 7-years-old because they will try to know what sound to use in their life. On the other hand, 15 - 39 years old people are the most difficult to learn now languages. Also, English is easlier than Japanese because English has lots of /r/ and /l/, but Japanese has /r/. Therefore, the 10 - 12 months old U.S. babies are better than Japanese babies. Then, the scientists also test the U.S .babies and Taiwanese babies in Mandarin and English. Finally, the U.S. babies didn't improve Mandarin, but Taiwanese babies get improvement. Therefore, the scientists want to find out what's mean to be human through the babies' brains. (180 words)
Response:
I think it is an interesting lecture for me because we learn how to talk when we were a child. Actually, the lecture shows us how babies learn language even thought the babies are not born in a same country as their mother. Babies are ready to learn when they are 10-month-old. Although we don't know what they think, they can understand what we are talking. For example, if we want to learn foreign language, we have to learn it when we are young. Actually we can adapt other languages before 25 years old, and it is easy to fix our pronunciation. From this lecture, I think babies are the easiest human-being to learn languages. If I have a baby in future, I will talk to them in English. I think they can learn English easier than me. However, sound is the most important for babies since they will prepare to learn the language through the sounds. That's why learning materials are also important for babies. For me, I think babies are the cutest people in the world. If we want to know more about babies, we should watch more videos about babies. (193 words)
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I agree with Irene that babies learn languages very fast. For example, my host family's son he is 2 years old and he learns language very fast. His father is Chinese, so sometimes he speaks Chinese with his son. As a result, the kid can speak some Chinese words and some sentences which he copies from his father. It shocks me because his father just speaks this sentence once or twice, but he learned it already. Furthermore, I love the idea of teaching English to your child. It would be great if kids have a chance to learn many languages since they are babies. I feel regret that when I was young I used to hate learning language especially English. Now, I try to learn it, but it will not be as easy as study it when I was young. Even though, it is hard of us to learn English, but we can do our best.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Irene's opinion. It's amazing that children can understand people's talking and begin to learn language when they are 10-month-old. Some studies suggest that they can learn language very fast in a very early age. For example, I have a nephew that he was already able to understand the intentions of adults when he was only one year old. As my sister is working for a foreign company, she often need to speak English even at home. Once my sister on the phone, my nephew suddenly say hello to us that makes us very surprised. The cognitive ability of children is more than we expect. Adults have the ability to control their own learning while the children are in early stages of learning. But the children's ability to learn new things is faster and stronger than adults. Meanwhile, the growing environment also has an impact on children's learning. A good learning environment will help people to learn language better, whether for children or adults.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Irene’s view that it is easier for the babies to learn a language than the adult one. They learn quickly any language anywhere. In light of this view, I would like to share my son’s experience regarding the language learning. Recently, he came from India about a month ago. He speaks Hindi and he studied in India, he can read and write English alphabets and he learnt this from his previous school. When he came from India, he was not able to speak English because there was no atmosphere to speak English language. I send him to school here in Canada and now surprisingly, he learns English rapidly with Canadian accent. It is easy for him to learn English quickly than me and I am still trying to learn English here, it seems hard to me even I have been here for the last 8 months and he has been here just about a month ago. See this is difference and it shows that kids learn language rapidly than the elder one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Irene's opinion, babies can learn many different languages from many ways. I have a friend he was 7 years old but he could speak seven kinds of languages. I was surprised when I heard that. As this result, children can learn very fast before 7 years old. For me, I think it is not useful for children to learn many kinds of languages because it is confusing for children to memorize all the languages.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with Patricia’s theory to an extent. I am going to give you two examples. First example supports her idea, and the second example refutes her claim. My friend speaks fluent German. I asked him when he learned it. His answer was that “he doesn’t remember”. He said that when he was a child he was watching German TV programs. From these programs he learnt to speak German.
ReplyDeleteThe second example is my other friend who lived couple of years in the United States when he was a child. He learned English and spoke fluently; I didn’t believe it until I saw him in video from that time. The reason why I mentioning it is when my friend started English classes at school, he couldn’t speak actually he almost failed a class. If Patricia claims that children learn foreign language faster that may be true, but it doesn’t mean that they will remember it when they are grown up. Therefore, I think without practice is not possible to master any language.
Great topic, Irene. I've had a few students who were exposed to English at an early age but never started learning it until later in life. Although their English ability was low, their pronunciation was dead-on perfect.
ReplyDeleteHi Irene! I read your comment and I watched the video about babies and I think it’s very interesting. I agree with you, if we want to learn a foreign language we should learn it when we are children. This is the best solution, but when we are babies we cannot decide what language is the best to be learned. More of that, even our parents don’t know what's going to be the trend and where we will live in a few decades. However, in my opinion is not the best solution to talk with your children English when the baby lives in an English speaking country, because he/she loses the contact with your culture. The baby will learn English anyway. After a while he/she will refuse to speak your native language and you and your child can not communicate because you don’t have the same value system. On the other hand, I totally agree with you to apply this method if you live in a non-English speaking country. It’s the best way for your kid to learn a foreign language. For me, the video and your comment were very useful especially that now I ‘am fainting with my baby who wants to use just “his language “. I’m trying to understand why he is still so amazed when somebody speaks to him English, because the TV runs just in English and he had contact with native English speakers from his first day. Maybe I will find out before he can tell me. …
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