The Myth of Learning Language “Like a Two-Year Old”
You often hear the quip, “Learning languages is easy. If a two-year old can do it, why can’t you?”
Of course this misses the point. Actually, the perprtrator of this myth glosses over several truths with the attempt at humor. Too bad that this humor turns out to have a mean underbelly, a less-than-nice (subtle) set of implications.
Here are the problems with learning language as a two-year old does.
1.) The child’s developing brain is different than a high school student’s brain or a college student’s brain.
The toddler’s brain is geared to acquire the sounds of language (and they will learn to speak as many languages as they are exposed to, without accent.
The toddler’s ear is untrained and they pick up many sounds that older people have been trained not to hear.
The brain undergoes a selective training process in listening for the sounds of language, and eventually filters out sounds that do not belong to the languages that the person knows.
2.) The child’s vocabulary is limited when compared to the vocabulary of the high school student or adult.
The child does not know a lot of concept and content vocabulary. Teaching these words is the job of the schools. Therefore, a toddler’s brain has far fewer connections and associations than does the brain of older people.
3.) High school and college students would find the limited vocabulary of a two-year old to be useless, and if they tried to talk the way that a two-year old talks, they would become the source of social ridicule.
The toddler’s world is self-centered and focused upon themselves and their needs and whims. The high school student is focused more on the whims of a peer group, and the college student focuses on the real-world needs of independent living, interpersonal relationships, and career challenges. The language development of a two-year old is inadequate to serve the needs of older people.
4.) The two-year old knows or understands very little of the culture that they are growing up in. That is the job of parents to teach the child “norms and expectations,” moral judgment, rules and “right from wrong.” The parents and caregivers also watch the child closely, and insist that the child conforms to the family’s expectations.
A high school or college student understands culture, rules and norms. The high school and college student is also able to bring the differences of culture into awareness, and use these in communicating with different languages.
The toddler is not capable of understanding the nuances of culture, habit, ritual and values. The high school and college student is aware and focused upon cultural issues such as acceptance, admiration, accountability and achievement. The high school or college student also develops a tolerance for food, customs, and rules that differ from the rules family and childhood friends.
So, respond to the people (especially language teachers) that tell you that language learning is easy because a two-year old can learn a language by asking, “If I learn the vocabulary, grammar, spelling and a level of cultural understanding equivalent to a two-year old, will I earn an “A” in the class?”
Of course, the answer is “No.”
But, you will have proven your point.
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