4 ms·

Babies are actually pretty bad at learning language. It's just that it's the only thing they have to do. Adults are much better at learning language, but they n

Babies are actually pretty bad at learning language. It's just that it's the only thing they have to do. Adults are much better at learning language, but they never put any time into it.

sheepolog 2y ago
This is spot on. As a baby, you typically have two affectionate caretakers who dedicate a significant amount of their time to teaching you language/words, and also shower you with love/praise/attention for every little bit of incremental progress. Also, you're in an immersion program: you often can't communicate your wants/needs until you've learned the language, which adds another layer of incentive. As an adult, if you were sent to an immersion program in a foreign country with two full-time foreign tutors/caretakers who loved you, like legitimately loved you with all their hearts, you would pick up that new language pretty darn quick.
- Alex-Programs 2y ago
  Exactly; the advantage of input-based approaches is not their speed. You'll learn a lot faster if you spend the time on flashcards, grammar drills, and studying. The advantage is that it's easier, and often more pleasant, to integrate. That said, babies do have some neuroplasticity advantages. We should play to our strengths - babies are hopeless at grammar drills, and adults aren't as good as babies at neuroplasticity - by applying our brain to the problem. I say that, while having built a comprehensible input tool (https://nuenki.app https://nuenki.app). But it's useful as a complement to that study, as you can more readily run a browser extension or listen to podcasts than devote your entire life to focused study.
mariusor 2y ago
I think that's patently wrong. Babies and children in general absorb languages much easier than adults do. See children of parents speaking two different languages. By the time they reach school age they are fluent in both languages, and in the same time they need to learn how to be humans at the same time. Just because it's not learning as you conceive it as an adult it does not mean it's not there.
- moron4hire 2y ago
  This is a common misconception. It is extremely rare for any child to be fluent in any language by the time they start school. There are different levels of fluency that language training professionals recognize, mostly standardized on the ILR scale [0]. There are 5 levels on this scale. What people commonly consider "fluent" is level 3. There are also midpoints recognized by a "+", e.g. most people who study language seriously but don't have any special aptitude for language training get to a 2+. It's an open question of serious debate and active research of whether it's possible to train anyone past 2+ to 3. Some rare individuals seem to have an innate aptitude for language acquisition and they seem to breeze through their training to 3 and then continue on from there. Everyone else seems to plateau at 2+. 3 is just the level of "can easily be understood as a foreigner by a native speaker". It's not native level of mastery. "So fluent you can fool a native speaker" is 5. All of that is to say that children are most definitely not fluent by the time they reach school age. Most children starting school will be at a 0+ level. Particularly intelligent children might be at a 1. But they are definitely nowhere near 3. And indeed, by the time most people graduate highschool, I would struggle to admit that they are much beyond 3. Hell, I'd even say a large portion of people graduating college don't have mastery of their native language. So no, I don't think children have a particularly large advantage in learning language. Despite significant, continue training in language for the first 18 years of their lives, most aren't able to get very far beyond what any studious adult can learn in 2 years. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILR_scale#ILR_scale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILR_scale#ILR_scale Edits: damn glass keyboards making my own fluency look suspect
  - mariusor 2y ago
    I understand your very well researched post, but a common man such as I would have a different definition of fluency. I have interacted with a friend's child which grew up in a trilingual household and he is speaking my language at the exact level of fluency I would expect a bright 7 year old to have. I didn't try to discuss philosophy with him, because you know he's a child. Of the other two languages he speaks, I do speak one as a A2-B1 level (ILR level 2 I guess) and he sounded to me like a native using constructions that were above my level. So maybe my anecdata doesn't fit the exact scientific consensus, but I am very confident I am not wrong. I would call that fluency especially for the purposes of a HN discussion and not a scientific journal. You might be thinking to apply measurements meant to verify a grown-ups fluency (with all that that implies: vocabulary, idioms, ability to detect nuance, etc.) for children, which is in my opinion a flawed methodology.

Babies are actually pretty bad at learning language. It's just that it's the only thing they have to do. Adults are much better at learning language, but they never put any time into it.

sheepolog 2y ago

This is spot on. As a baby, you typically have two affectionate caretakers who dedicate a significant amount of their time to teaching you language/words, and also shower you with love/praise/attention for every little bit of incremental progress. Also, you're in an immersion program: you often can't communicate your wants/needs until you've learned the language, which adds another layer of incentive. As an adult, if you were sent to an immersion program in a foreign country with two full-time foreign tutors/caretakers who loved you, like legitimately loved you with all their hearts, you would pick up that new language pretty darn quick.

Alex-Programs 2y ago
Exactly; the advantage of input-based approaches is not their speed. You'll learn a lot faster if you spend the time on flashcards, grammar drills, and studying. The advantage is that it's easier, and often more pleasant, to integrate. That said, babies do have some neuroplasticity advantages. We should play to our strengths - babies are hopeless at grammar drills, and adults aren't as good as babies at neuroplasticity - by applying our brain to the problem. I say that, while having built a comprehensible input tool (https://nuenki.app https://nuenki.app). But it's useful as a complement to that study, as you can more readily run a browser extension or listen to podcasts than devote your entire life to focused study.

mariusor 2y ago

I think that's patently wrong. Babies and children in general absorb languages much easier than adults do. See children of parents speaking two different languages. By the time they reach school age they are fluent in both languages, and in the same time they need to learn how to be humans at the same time. Just because it's not learning as you conceive it as an adult it does not mean it's not there.

moron4hire 2y ago
This is a common misconception. It is extremely rare for any child to be fluent in any language by the time they start school. There are different levels of fluency that language training professionals recognize, mostly standardized on the ILR scale [0]. There are 5 levels on this scale. What people commonly consider "fluent" is level 3. There are also midpoints recognized by a "+", e.g. most people who study language seriously but don't have any special aptitude for language training get to a 2+. It's an open question of serious debate and active research of whether it's possible to train anyone past 2+ to 3. Some rare individuals seem to have an innate aptitude for language acquisition and they seem to breeze through their training to 3 and then continue on from there. Everyone else seems to plateau at 2+. 3 is just the level of "can easily be understood as a foreigner by a native speaker". It's not native level of mastery. "So fluent you can fool a native speaker" is 5. All of that is to say that children are most definitely not fluent by the time they reach school age. Most children starting school will be at a 0+ level. Particularly intelligent children might be at a 1. But they are definitely nowhere near 3. And indeed, by the time most people graduate highschool, I would struggle to admit that they are much beyond 3. Hell, I'd even say a large portion of people graduating college don't have mastery of their native language. So no, I don't think children have a particularly large advantage in learning language. Despite significant, continue training in language for the first 18 years of their lives, most aren't able to get very far beyond what any studious adult can learn in 2 years. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILR_scale#ILR_scale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILR_scale#ILR_scale Edits: damn glass keyboards making my own fluency look suspect
- mariusor 2y ago
  I understand your very well researched post, but a common man such as I would have a different definition of fluency. I have interacted with a friend's child which grew up in a trilingual household and he is speaking my language at the exact level of fluency I would expect a bright 7 year old to have. I didn't try to discuss philosophy with him, because you know he's a child. Of the other two languages he speaks, I do speak one as a A2-B1 level (ILR level 2 I guess) and he sounded to me like a native using constructions that were above my level. So maybe my anecdata doesn't fit the exact scientific consensus, but I am very confident I am not wrong. I would call that fluency especially for the purposes of a HN discussion and not a scientific journal. You might be thinking to apply measurements meant to verify a grown-ups fluency (with all that that implies: vocabulary, idioms, ability to detect nuance, etc.) for children, which is in my opinion a flawed methodology.