It’s been said…
That children learn languages faster than adults.
But I don’t believe their brains are smarter…
I believe it has to do with dots…
Specifically children’s lack of dots.
Let me explain…
In my efforts to learn Spanish…
I find I’m always trying to make a connection…
Between an English word and the Spanish
equivalent…
Or visa versa.
Sometimes it’s easy…
Like restaurant and restaurante…
Sometimes it’s not…
Like peanuts called cacawhatees Huh?
Or sometimes I’ll hear a word like yellow…
But it’s not a color…
It’s the Spanish word for ice spelled hielo.
‘H’ is always silent, and ‘J' sounds like ‘H’.
So see?
I’m always searching…
For ways to connect the dots…
Spanish dots to English dots…
And that’s my point…
Children are young enough…
They don't have as many dots...
When they learn a word, a phrase, or a concept…
When they learn a word, a phrase, or a concept…
There's nothing to connect to.
So?
Ever learn a second language or third?
How were you at connecting the dots?
Always, Em-Musing
6 comments:
That makes sense. That's why kids are sponges when it comes to information. And yes, as a child, I could speak Japanese fluently and even better than English because I lived there for several years. I still remember a few words, but haven't spoken it in over forty years.
In Japanese, there are a lot of borrowed English. Except the pronoucnation does change for their benefit. In english, we had a lot of borrowed words and we still spell them like where we go them from. If an English word isn't easy to say, then they change it a good bit until it does.
Ha! I like changing words to make it easier.
I read your title as foreign idiots ... whoops. :-)
I can teach English as a second language really well, but I can't learn a second language very easily, which is probably very weird.
In my bucket list is taking the Rosetta Stone challenge and learning another language. But I was horrible at German in high school. I couldn't master stenography because I tried to connect the dots.
I love that you try to find the links (however disparate they may be) between the two languages. It's fun, no?
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