Language

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The concept in psychology I think I will remember 5 years from now would have to be the section about language development. I think it is very interesting the different stages of learning languages that babies go through. They start with very simple words and sound to being able to speak a whole language a lot of the time, before even reading a book or learning about grammar at school. There are also the concepts like when children can learn two or more languages at once when a baby. I'm sure they begin by mixing them up, but they are able to develop the two totally different languages and able to speak them both. I am sure that it is a little bit easier considering they all have similar grammar structures. But I find it would be very difficult to differentiate between the two languages considering there would always be two words for the same thing.

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I too found it interesting that infants have the ability to learn any language at such a young age. It kind of made me angry. I wish my parents would have encouraged a bilingual childhood more! It would really be useful.

I definitely find this interesting and can relate. When i was a baby, i grew up learning both english and chinese at the same time, and although I've begun to neglect the chinese language a bit more as I grew older, it was a lot easier for me to relearn it. I'm still guilty of sometimes mixing together chinese and english when i speak and sometimes it's just easier for me to find the word in one language than in the other. But, it's interesting that we can start learning and processing a language from that young an age.

I also find it extremely interesting that we are able to learn a large majority of a language before even learning to read. Taking spanish originally was very difficult to start from scratch, but I think if I lived in a country that spoke fluent spanish it would be a lot easier for me to learn the language. So maybe being surrounded constantly by a language forces the brain to adapt earlier. Great job!

I like what you said in your last point that someone would have two words for every idea. I also think that bilingual children might develop a preference for the language they are more comfortable with or that they have more exposure to, so it is interesting how parents do succeed in teaching their children two languages somewhat equally. I also will remember parts about this language development like the stages that children go through: they speak one word when they are one, they speak two words when they are about two.

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This page contains a single entry by nogle003 published on April 25, 2012 2:53 PM.

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