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07-22-2009, 06:48 AM
When you have scientific studies like this, the way they're summarised and reported by a medic outlet isn't necessarily the main thing they were about. Scientists tend to do specific research on topics that haven't been thoroughly understood. This area of linguistics is such a topic.
So you may hear something on the news and say, 'huh? didn't we already know that?' but you may only think that due to vague/incomplete previous research that was touted as a new fact by the way it was reported. I'm not entirely sure what people are calling old; the ease of language learning with prepubescents was known and probably wasn't the focus of the study. This was more likely the ease of learning using the 'lessons' for older children. Also remember that in science, v. rarely does a single study prove a theory, even if it is well controlled and produces very strong results. Although it does depend on the presumed probability of the mechanism behind the result being true, e.g. it's quite likely that even older children can still learn another language relatively easy, but this isn't proven. So a single, strong study could nearly prove this. 
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07-22-2009, 10:34 PM
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For example, there are two different "p" sounds in English, the "p" in "happen" (non-aspirated) and the "p" in "pen" (aspirated). An English speaker would hear and treat them the same, but a Hindi speaker would hear them as different sounds because in Hindi, the two sounds are separate phonemes, but in English they are the same phoneme. This means that the sounds don't change meaning of words in English, but they do in Hindi. Thus, native speakers of English treat the sounds as the same and as they age they lose the ability to hear the difference. Hindi speakers remain attuned to the sonic difference and thus never lose the ability. This exact same phenomenon is why English speakers retain the ability to hear the difference between "l" and "r" while Japanese people lose the ability. tl;dr The program is absolutely unnecessary if you raise your kid from birth bilingually (or multilingually). E.g., my girlfriend's sister is raising her kid trilingually (grandparents = Mandarin, mother = Spanish, father and home country surroundings = English). My girlfriend was likewise raised quasi-trilingually (parents = Mandarin and Taiwanese, home country surroundings = Spanish). Just becaues her parents swapped Mandarin and Taiwanese without any set rules, my girlfriend's grasp of the distinction between the two is a bit tenuous. When raising your kid bilingually, set some type of separation between the languages. You can have the parents exclusively use a different language when one-on-one with the kid. There was a famous Indian mathematician whose family in India had a three story house, and so had a rule: English on floor one, Hindi on floor two, French on floor three. The family's children were fluent in all three.
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07-22-2009, 11:31 PM
Quite interesting. In Portuguese we don't have those "th" sounds the /θ/ and the /ð/, in the words "death" and "father". People here usually pronounce them as "t" and "d", unless you explain to them how to do, but I know how, of course ^_^
I also noticed English speakers don't usually distinguish the "e" sound from the diphthong "ei" in words like Cafe, pronounced in French with an "e" in English they say /cæfeɪ/ with a diphthong "ei" in the end. Same for the vowel "o" and the diphthong "ou". As for me, it's very easy to pronounce the Japanese words because we have similar sounds in Portuguese so I just have to read it as it is written and I'll usually pronounce it right. However, the English pronounce is really a pain, without the IPA, I can't really know how to pronounce the words, since it's pronounced completely different from the way it's written sometimes.
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07-23-2009, 12:41 AM
I was born in Denmark, obviously speaks Danish fluent. I grew up in a home with a lot of English sung music, so I picked up a lot from a very young age. I speak it rather fluent by now. I also speak German, not completely fluent tho, but I taught myself that. My dad's family learn languages easily, so I guess I picked up on that as a little kid. I always had it easier learning languages than abstract things like chemistry and maths.
I'm definitely planning on teaching my kids all the languages I'll eventually learn (I'm planning on studying Korean and moving to South Korea for a while). That means they'll probably speak four languages.. Kinda.. Yin@ That's quite impressive. O_O I mix languages all the time. NanteNa; 'No, I only eat the yellow ones cause I favor the Asians and am a racist like that.' <3
 Younho <3 • Key & Taemin • YeSung & Heechul • Maya Gackto • Aki & Mao • Aoi & Kai • Jui • Yuusuke • Gou • Lee JunKi 너무 유치해<3
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07-23-2009, 06:01 AM
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My wife's so cute learning: "... Thhh... Thhh... Thde." It is teaching "V" that is hard. How do I turn "Wictory" into "Victory"? Or "R". The best I can do to bring the "R" sound out is practice dog growling sounds... The eternal Saint is calling, through the ages she has told. The ages have not listened; the will of faith has grown old… For forever she will wander, for forever she withholds; the Demon King is on his way, you’d best not be learned untold… Check out my You Tube channel (it's new and there's not much there yet, but check back every week and you should find a new vid of hardcore fighting): http://www.youtube.com/user/SarahSunwalker
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07-23-2009, 09:20 AM
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07-23-2009, 09:25 AM
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If she can do an "f" then tell her that the change is like changing the "t" to a "d" because all you need to do from there is to vibrate the voicebox. T->D is just like F->V.
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07-23-2009, 07:11 PM
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NanteNa; 'No, I only eat the yellow ones cause I favor the Asians and am a racist like that.' <3
Younho <3 • Key & Taemin • YeSung & Heechul • Maya Gackto • Aki & Mao • Aoi & Kai • Jui • Yuusuke • Gou • Lee JunKi 너무 유치해<3
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08-05-2009, 09:06 AM
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