Is it true a toddler who is gifted at learning new languages will continue to be talented at learning new languages when he is an adult?
>>16850282
No. They're more inclined to encounter early onset depression, but not much more than that. Education waxes and wanes under not only genetic aptitude, but social and emotional pressures as well. All bets are off once juvenile brain development ceases.
All toddlers are gifted at learning new languages. From the womb babies are observing patterns. You can teach a toddler multiple languages at the same time, mostly with multiple caretakers, with very good results. Babies are pattern seekers by nature. That's why kids like you to read the same book to them 500 times.
Any language a person learns before they are 12 years old they can learn fluently without an accent. After that they will have an accent no matter how many years they know it ( hence Arnold Schwartznegger)
ALL TODDLERS ARE GIFTED IN LANGUAGE. IT IS LITERALLY THEIR ENTIRE JOB.
>>16850335
I have formal training in linguistics. You're wrong. It's true that young people are much more adept at picking up accents (though with a lot of work it's not impossible for an adult to lose theirs) but otherwise they're no more gifted at learning languages than adults. That's a mostly discredited myth at this point. The part of your brain that learns languages does not somehow calcify during puberty. Quite the contrary; there's a fair amount of evidence suggesting that adults are able to learn languages more efficiently than children. Please don't peddle misinformation.
Of course, as you correctly pointed out, few if any adults are able to devote the time to learning their second language as children are to their first, so it often does take longer.
>>16850363
The research I have done has all been within the last three or 4 years, so if there is new stunning research on linguistic acquisition you should go ahead and post it. Babies are more adept at learning language ABSOLUTELY because it is what their existence depends on in pretty much every culture a baby learn language from one year old, and that is along with learning to u see their hands, learning to walk, learning to basically exist. An adult learning a language fluently could take that long or longer,and still they would retain that accent.
>>16850371
Then I'm quite curious what research you've done. There hasn't been some momentous shift in the past three years; rather, both the idea of the language instinct and the critical period hypothesis, really the entire academic oeuvres of Chomsky, Pinker, and even Lenneberg, have fallen out of favor gradually over the past couple decades. The idea that only children are able to learn languages to native-level fluency due to the greater neuroplasticity of their brains or whathaveyou just isn't backed up by the evidence. There's been dozens of papers published on this. Probably hundreds.
Although I'm not completely sure what you're arguing -- that people lose the ability to learn languages as they age (controversial at best, frankly discredited at worst) or that children often learn languages faster than adults because they're able to devote vastly more time to the task and tend to be more motivated than adult learners (which is reasonable.)
And yes, as I said, it is often quite difficult for adults to lose their accents, though please don't pretend as though it's impossible; it's not.
>>16852072
What information, exactly, are you hoping for at this point?
Why would you keep learning new languages
It's not a good use of time unless they're a translator or interpreter
>>16852627
>learning languages
>not a good use of time
Yeah, culturing your mind sure is a waste of time.
>>16852627
Are you career Brandon?
>>16850282
Dunno, depends on how bad life fucks him up by the time he's an adult.
