Welcome to my first blog post!
Hey there, welcome to the first ever post on this website and my first ever blog post in general! I have always been interested in blogging but never actually tried and so I figured
What better a time to start than when putting up my own website?
One thing that I hope to learn through blogging is how to better articulate my own ideas. There have been countless times where I have had ideas that seem really good in my head, but when it comes time to explain it, I can’t. So this gives me the opportunity to practice articulating my thoughts about things that I find really interesting, such as languages!
You’re never too old to learn a language
Growing up, the common idea around language learning was that children learn languages quickly and adults learn languages slowly. If you want learn a language to a proficient level, you need to do it during that critical period, otherwise you’ll never be good enough and it will only be an uphill battle. To sum up my opinion in one sentence, I don’t think that’s true, and I think anyone is capable of reaching whatever level they set their mind to, whenever they want (including you)!
Do babies actually learn languages quickly?
Believe it or not, babies do not learn languages that quickly. Don’t get me wrong, language learning in babies is definitely impressive, but what makes it impressive is not the timeframe. Most babies do not actually start speaking their first words until they are between 12 and 18 months old and even then, it’s often times just a series of loosely connected words, rarely what you and I would consider full and coherent sentences. The number of words they know gradually goes up, and it’s usually not until around the age of 3 that children are speaking in actual full sentences, 3 whole years! I will say though, going from someone who speaks no languages to someone who has native language is pretty amazing, and most people - especially you - have done it, high five!
How do people past the “critical period” compare?
There are a lot of factors that determine how quickly someone can learn a language, but if we took the time to consider them all, this post would be too long (muy muy largo). For simplicity’s sake, let’s work off a generalization. In a post by Education First, it is said that someone (I’m assuming to have average aptitude) needs about 700 hours to learn English to a B2 level. This means if we were being really strict, you would have to study a little under 2 hours every day for a year and never ever take any days off (totally realistic, right?). If you wanted to cut that daily time in half, you would need to study a little under an hour daily for two years. If you wanted to have off days, you would probably need somewhere around 2.5 - 3 years, if we continue to follow this model. Keep in mind, at the B2 level, you are able to read advanced content, carry yourself in most daily conversation, and probably outperform a 3 year old whose first language is the one that you are learning. Here is what crosses my mind when I think of this, the point in your language learning journey at which you can start forming your first words and speaking in full sentences comes way before that of a baby. Don’t believe me? Let’s have a look at some German!
Die Tomate ist rot.
Der Bär ist rot.
Das Haus ist rot.
Let’s stack these sentences so that we can look at them all close to each other.
- Die Tomate ist rot.
- Der Bär ist rot.
- Das Haus ist rot.
Now, you’ve probably noticed something, all these sentences have something in common which is that they all have the word rot in them. What do the things in these pictures all have in common? Well, they’re all red! If we turn on our analytical brains for just a moment we might induce at least three things.
- The word rot probably means red
- The word ist corresponds to some word that describes (the verb to be, perhaps?)
- German appears to be a subject-verb-object (SVO) language (which not all languages are!)
You would be surprised at how much you can just figure out without really needing explanation in a lot of cases (and don’t fret if those things I listed did not come to mind).
What can we learn from babies?
Exposure plays a huge role in language acquisition. You should find ways to be around your language even if you’re not actively studying. Let’s be honest, most people, me especially, would rather just play videogames or scroll instagram than sit down and study languages. But we can find ways to integrate language learning into our daily routines and make it feel effortless! Do you play videogames for 2 hours a day? Set the game language to your target language! Do you doom scroll on instagram for 2+ hours a day? Set the app to your target language and follow influencers that produce content in your language to sprinkle in that exposure!