I’m so glad there are others who feel like airplanes are like Russian roulette. I know, I know, the statistics, but still…!

And you’re better with the pictures than I am on Folie a Deux, I keep reusing the same ones over and over for this site! But I’m working on it, slowly but surely.

Speaking of Folie a Deux, parlez vous Francais?

I’m on the road right now but will read the article and comment back sometime this week, thanks for sending it!

There’s a diff between a foreign lang and a second lang, as there’s EFL and ESL. Now we’re mixing FLA and SLA. I’m not sure what we’re trying to say: Do children learn a lang better than adults? Is that it?

So many theories proposed, but there are just going to be pros and cons of learning a lang at ___ age. The Older Language Learner: http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/87-9dig.htm

We also have different opportunites and circumstances, individual choices and actions. Factor all those in–the process becomes too complex to analyze. Oh well…

Well, tell me your thoughts about that article. And thank you–I’d say the same for you. It’s also very fulfilling to chat with a fellow lang enthusiast. But boy, I’m getting tired. :p

I would argue that any language learned before puberty, is not, by the brain differentiated as a ‘foreign language’.

“A second language acquired during the teenage years, which is late in developmental life, is represented in the brain in a separate location from the native language. But when both languages are learned at the same time early in life, they are represented in areas that have a considerable amount of overlap.” (“Bilinguals Devote Distinct Areas of Brain to Native and Second Languages,” MSKCC: Press Releases, online.)”

NY Times 7/15/97

Agreed that feral children don’t make good examples since they have other major developmental issues but make interesting cases for linguistic research.

The research going on in the area of second language acquisition (SLA) is fascinating and many parts of it are controversial. I have spent time studying linguistics and can definitively say there aren’t many definite answers

Thanks for bringing a thought-provoking discussion to the comments D, I think they are valuable for us all.

Feral children can’t be compared here for foreign lang acquisition, as their human lang understanding alone is abnormal.

“Passive understanding” is the ability to understand a foreign lang while not being able to effectively communicate in it. Usu. a phenomenon observed amongst second-generation children with foreign-speaking parents. When my parents speak Cambodian to me, I can answer back in English w/o necessarily knowing how to answer back in the mother tongue (unless I think about a long time). This isn’t innate–it was passively learned.

I think we’re mixing two diff subjects, and it’s beyond me to figure out how the two intertwine.

French is a great language, I wish I had more frequent opportunities to use it.

Interesting theory by your teacher – Noam Chomsky would disagree. He believes that children have a programmed, from birth, innate understanding of human language (called universal grammar).

Chomsky also subscribes to the ‘critical period hypothesis’ where this innate ability is lost at the onset of puberty. The theory is difficult to study and test and is based on cases of feral/wild children who were found after puberty with no exposure to language.

I agree that education is one of the most important variables to fluency – and that age shouldn’t discourage anyone! The more languages you know the easier newer ones are to pick up, from my experience.

And I appreciate all of the comments, long and short, thanks!

I had a teacher who majored in foreign lang acquisition. According to her:
Children don’t necessarily learn a new lang easily (and multilingual families makes it troublesome). For one, they have trouble w/abstract concepts (i.e. grammar). It also takes many years for them to attain fluency in their 1st lang (which slows their progress in the foreign lang).

The immersion setting is mainly responsible for their (passive) knowledge–which they can lose as they grow up. But if not, they might not have moved beyond their passive understanding.

Adults understand abstractions, making learning a new lang faster and easier. Also, we know for sure of a correlation between education and fluency–the more years of schooling, the higher the proficiency, usu.

Age shouldn’t discourage anyone. With time and motivation–anyone anytime can learn a new lang.

Eh…sorry if this was long. ^_^’