Re: [Marxism] Spanish

[Anthony Boynton <anthony.boynton@xxxxxxxxx>]

Somewhere in this trhead someone wrote something to the effect that "around
age 17 language learning circuits shut down".

This is almost pure hogwash. I teach English as a Foreign Language and
English as a Second Language, and have spent a lot of time reading about
language acquisition. I have students in their 70's who have learned to
communicate in English. I learned Spanish mostly after the age of 47.

However, there is a grain of truth in the idea that "language circuits shut
down" after a certain age. There are several related listening and
pronunciation problems arising from the habitual use of one's native
langauge that form obstacles to learning other languages.

Probably the most important is difficulty is simply recognizing sounds that
are not part of a person's habitual "sound vocabulary". Why this can be so
difficult is not completely understood, but the most likely explanation is
that we train ourselves to identify a range of sounds as one sound. This is
vital for rapidly decoding spoken language, but is an impediment to learning
a new language.

Here is an example, the vowel sounds commonly identified in English as short
i, as in shit, and long e, as in sheet, are recognized by native Spanish
speakers as one sound. But, interestingly, native Spanish speakers can
easily pronounce both sounds if they are shown how to mechanically, even
sometimes without being shown the mechanics. When this happens it is an
indication to me that the person hears the differences between the two
sounds, but categorizes the sounds as one sound.

Another problem relates to pronunciation of sounds that are difficult to
produce, like the several different "r" sounds in Spanish, and the two
different "th" sounds in English.

Both of the problems mentioned above can be overcome with patience and
practice by most people, even when they are over the age of 17.

Anthony
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