Acquisition
How to learn any language in six months
Play videoThis video told us how to learn a new language in six months. There are five steps to learn a new language. You need to focus on language content that is relevant to you. Then you need to use new language as a tool to communicate with others on the first day. In addition, when you start to understand some message, you will unconsciously acquire the language. Furthermore, you should learn it in happy and relax the situation. In the end, he provides seven actions to help you learn the new language.
New Yiddish Course on Duolingo
This article touches on the challenges of creating the Yiddish course on the popular language-learning app Duolingo, as well as its importance in exposing more people from the U.S. to Yiddish as a full language instead of a punchline or handful of loan-words. [Published on 04-05-2021]
There's A Huge Market Around 'Baby Sign Language,' But Little Research On Its Effectiveness
This article describes a growing method of "baby sign language", where parents teach their babies signs for simple phrases. It also includes the quoted advice, "Engage in conversations with your baby. Even though your baby can't speak, you communicate as if your baby is able to do that and you interpret her looks and her gestures". I think this relates to our discussion of how being accommodating to the baby is a critical part of "Baby Talk" / "Motherese".
Two-year old picks up on his dad's accent, and makes fun of it
A British two-year old finds his dad's Northern accent to be incredibly funny. He even goes so far as to mimic the accent.
Sonic girls making new words
Play videoThese girls are taking words that already exist and combining them to make a new word with a new meaning.
Why Don't We All Speak the Same Language?
A part of Freakonomics' radio series "Earth 2.0" in which they discuss why humans have language and the costs and benefits of people speaking different languages. They also discuss what we should change if we were to "create" Earth again. [Published on 09-13-2017]
4 Reasons to Learn A New Language
There is a video which linguist and Columbia professor John McWhorter shares four reasons to learn a new language. Nowadays, increasingly people focus on learning English, the diversity of languages is slowly disappearing. The first reason is culture which language is always associated with it. Also, multilingual people less likely to have dementia than people who only use one language. Moreover, it is interesting for us to learn diverse language. The last but not least, we live such a convenient age which it is easier to learn any languages than before.
Who’s Better at Baby Talk, Mom or Dad?
Based upon research, “Mothers responded 88% to 94% of the time to the babies vocalizations, while dads responded only 27% to 33% of the time” (Park, 2014). Therefore, babies respond more to their mothers than their fathers. Additionally, a mother responds more to a daughter and less to a son. Whereas, a father responds more to a son than a daughter. Verbal interaction impacts language performance and academic success. [Published on 11-03-2014]
Phineas and Ferb: Ferb Latin
Play videoIn this episode of Phineas and Ferb, Ferb comes up with a new language to "accommodate new customs". He takes the first letter of the word, places it at the end, and then adds -erb. The characters even go on to replace normal dialects, such as saying "Bless you", by replacing them with an action. The action for "Bless you" being you play a flugelhorn and give them your left shoe. They describe it as a 'phoenetic caboose'.
Baby Talk
This is an article that talks about how “baby talk” is the best way for infants to acquire language skills. It discusses the argument that talking to infants like that may be condescending; however, studies have shown that it is an excellent way for them to learn their language. It also discusses how babies are ready to learn language in the last trimester when their ears are fully developed. They are already listening to their mother and the sounds around them. The use of repetition and slower speech is helpful with infants in learning language patterns. [Published on 12-06-2016]
Do children with Tourette syndrome have an advantage at language?
Researchers in Newcastle recently found that children who had Tourette syndrome were faster at phonological processing than children without Tourette syndrome. The researchers wanted to examine potential strengths of the language-affected disorder, rather than studying the weaknesses, which is far more common. [Published on 09-29-2016]
Babies Are Linguistic Geniuses
In this TedTalk, Patricia Kuhl assess the linguistic abilities of babies and how their surrounding environment affects their language acquisition. She examines the various mental processes and reasoning babies use in order to understand their life in this world. [Published on 10-01-2010]
Expanding Past English May Lead to Great Discoveries in Other Languages
Patricia Ryan stresses the importance of language globalization and how we must expand our linguistic abilities and knowledge past English in order to advance our society as a whole. She discusses how the limitation of acquiring only one language may be causing us to miss out on discovering incredible ideas that are stuck in a different language, which enforces the necessity of multilingualism and shines a light on the rapidly increasing rate of dying languages. [Published on 12-01-2010]
The Language of Twins
This article provides a good overview of language acquisition among twins and the possible development of “cryptophasia,” or a secret language. The article points out that, when they are young, twins spend a great deal of time with each other and reinforce each other’s language mistakes, thus creating a unique form of communication. They are, in a sense, their own community of practice. [Published on 08-24-2011]
Do second and third-born children really talk late?
"What the research says about birth order and early language development." Having observed my two youngest at an early age (they are 15 months apart) the oldest of the two was constantly speaking for the youngest one. I would ask for my oldest to let her sister talk but they had their own speech community. The younger one was always content to let the older one speak for her. It did not seem to me to hinder her language or speech readiness once she did start speaking for herself.
International Body Language
The article shows how body language is an important expression of language. It identifies how important it is when studying cultural languages to understand how body language is used. [Published on 05-14-2013]
Teacher raps to relate to students
Play videoTeacher uses rap song to teach children. She uses rap and dance movements to relate to the children because she knew that the kids would catch on to what she was teaching if she used methods that would keep the kids wanting to learn.
5th Grade Class Starts American Sign Language Club to Better Communicate with Deaf Classmate
Students at an elementary school in Illinois have started learning ASL signs to communicate with a hearing-impaired student in their class. [Published on 02-25-2016]
How Language Seems To Shape One's View Of The World
This article talks about the connection between a language and one's way of viewing the world. It also suggests a change in the way we teach language--providing activities which help students view this new language threw the lens of the world to which it's connected. [Published on 01-02-2014]
Is Learning a Foreign Language Really Worth It?
This is a Freakonomics podcast on the economic worth of learning a foreign language, addressing the "return on investment" of language learning (or, will all of those hours you spent in Spanish class really help you financially in the future?). Of particular interest are sections from 0:58-4:00, which poses the question to be addressed in the podcast, and has a few nice examples of ideologies about language learning and bilingualism from (probably wealthy, upperclass) kids, and 13:10-18:23, which reveals the actual monetary value of language learning. It is important to note that this podcast is mainly from the perspective of a native English speaker learning a foreign language, although native speakers of other languages learning English are mentioned towards the end.
Babies are the coolest
A Qwant comic on L1 acquisition