How kids become bilingual.
 

New research is showing just how children's brains can become bilingual so easily, findings that scientists hope eventually could help the rest of us learn a new language a bit easier.

Each language uses a unique set of sounds. Scientists now know babies are born with the ability to distinguish all of them, but that ability starts weakening even before they start talking, by the first birthday.

Kuhl offers an example: Japanese doesn't distinguish between the "L" and "R" sounds of English — "rake" and "lake" would sound the same. Her team proved that a 7-month-old in Tokyo and a 7-month-old in Seattle respond equally well to those different sounds. But by 11 months, the Japanese infant had lost a lot of that ability.

It's remarkable that babies being raised bilingual — by simply speaking to them in two languages — can learn both in the time it takes most babies to learn one. On average, monolingual and bilingual babies start talking around age 1 and can say about 50 words by 18 months.

While new language learning is easiest by age 7, the ability markedly declines after puberty.

Recall that Japanese "L" and "R" difficulty? Kuhl and scientists at Tokyo Denki University and the University of Minnesota helped develop a computer language program that pictures people speaking in "motherese," the slow exaggeration of sounds that parents use with babies.

Japanese college students who'd had little exposure to spoken English underwent 12 sessions listening to exaggerated "Ls" and "Rs" while watching the computerized instructor's face pronounce English words. Brain scans — a hair dryer-looking device called MEG, for magnetoencephalography — that measure millisecond-by-millisecond activity showed the students could better distinguish between those alien English sounds. And they pronounced them better, too, the team reported in the journal NeuroImage.

"It's our very first, preliminary crude attempt but the gains were phenomenal," says Kuhl.

But she'd rather see parents follow biology and expose youngsters early. If you speak a second language, speak it at home. Or find a play group or caregiver where your child can hear another language regularly.

Full article: Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily - Yahoo! News

The first point (about the critical age) is hardly news. I was taught this in Linguistics 101 my freshman year in college 7 years ago. The second point (the motherese computer program) is interesting and I'd never heard of this before.

I don't know if this relates to the topic, but I was staying with my host family in Japan back in Dec '08/Jan '09 and they were asking me about different sounds.

I showed them what I do with my tongue and lips slowly when I say sounds like "L" and "R" and also "th..." and I noticed a marked improvement in their pronunciation when they knew how to manipulate their mouth.

This is old news

Really? I must be time traveling.

Seems to me it was written yesterday.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard, Ap Medical Writer – Tue Jul 21, 3:08 am ET

this stuff has been in books for a while.im just surprise how the media is so behind in some stuff

Yeah, the Thais cannot say "R" or "L" either. The sound they produce is a cross between the two.

They also struggle with "TH" sounds, and "V" sounds, and any sound that is on the end of the word. For example, I'm having my wife read to me, I force her to exagerate all last sounds like:

"AnD the caT waS a fuc*ing gay faggoT because he haD no braiN."

She'll never get it, otherwise.

We're supposed to be spawning soon. I'll have the mongrel runt listen to me reading stories every night in order to make sure his English is going to be up to scratch.

This research is new. Have you read the article? Please read the article before saying things like "this is old." etc. Thanks.





KyleGoatz, yes. The first is pretty much common sense, but this new thing about computer programs is definitely new to me. I've never heard of such a program. I actually watched a documentary on these "make your baby smarter" programs on the Discovery Channel a few days ago.

Something I might take a shot at with my child, as I want him/her to be bilingual.

And these experiments done with Japanese babies and Western babies is quite interesting, as well.

HA!
That's quite funny.

Do you plan to teach him two languages? Or just English? Kind of weird question, but I don't know what you're native language is.

My fiancee is Japanese, if we have a child of our own, I will definitely try my hardest to make sure he/she is bilingual. Even if I have to go as far as making him "listen to sessions of consecutive L's and R's" as the article states.
:mtongue:

I'm Australian born. I speak English.

I live in Thailand, and will raise brood here.

Their dominant language is going to be English, regardless I'll be the only one around them who properly speaks it. But of course, they'll also be learning Thai. So yes, a billingual.