Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Babies learning languages

The talk by Professor Patricia Kuhl in this video describes a series of experiments investigating what goes on in the brains of babies as they learn languages. They show that human interaction is vital for babies to learn a language and also, that babies can process sounds from different languages innately - a skill we seem to lose dramatically as we get older.

She also states that babies learn languages better than adults. I have to say I don't think I agree with this. It takes a child five years to become proficient in their native tongue, whereas it is possible for an adult to become proficient with hard work in a couple of years. Certainly, an adult would speak with an accent, but grammatically and lexically, they could become native speaker-like far quicker than a baby learning their first language. First language and second language learning are two overlapping yet distinct processes and evidence on how babies learn languages may not always hold true for adults learning a second language.

Child language acquisition is absolutely fascinating though :-).