#Language acquisition

[langslingslinger]

@official-linguistics-post

Six year old, bouncing up and down with glee as desserts are unpacked: "I'm so appointed!"

Took me a moment to realize she had logically assumed "appointed" must be the opposite of "disappointed" and used it as a synonym for "excited."

[haru-dipthong]

I had an argument several months ago in a japanese learning discord server that still annoys me whenever I think about it. It annoys me because I lost the argument so I’ve written a dramatic reenactment with Northernlion cast as myself and NL’s chat as The Rest Of The Discord Server in which I win the argument to soothe the psychic wound this shit has wrought on me.

NL: [while in the balatro shop] I dunno man, call me crazy but I think sometimes it would be better for some people to learn casual form first. I dunno why the masu-form-first thing is so universal. [reading chat] “-2, -2, it's just how everyone does it” Oh so just because everyone does it it means it has to be universally applied in every classroom and by every self-taught language learner without exception? C’mon dude, the world is a complicated place, let's not be boiling things down into absolutes. [opens arcana pack and puts finger on chin] What am I doing here? [gets distracted by chat again] “It’s probably more efficient for learning that’s why everyone does it.”? How do you figure that? Also literally every single native japanese speaker learns casual form first bro, they’re speaking with family. [voice starts getting more bombastic] And I can tell you now, an infant is learning quicker than you. You’ve probably been studying for four years on a 12 hundred day duolingo streak trying to minmax your spaced repetition algorithm on your fuckin uhh anki deck, you got the JLPT N3 kanji list memorised and still can’t say the three words you need in an average exchange with the lawson clerk - meanwhile a toddler whose brain isn’t even half as developed as yours is spitting coherent grammatical japanese 12 straight hours a day, and you think your method is [does finger air quotes] “more efficient”. Right. [pauses for 2 seconds] Now I know what you’re gonna say: [whiny nerd voice] “oough but NL first language and second language acquisition are different” [starting to sound genuinely pissed] Oh yeah how? How are they different and how does that difference mean that this specific thing needs to be taught differently? Read some Krashen bro, educate yourself. [picks the hermit, goes to next stake] [makes another inadvisable glance at chat] [reading in a doubtful tone] "In a classroom setting you have to speak formally to a teacher, it’s a respect thing.”? Some people don’t learn from a classroom, man! Some people learn from their families and friends and partners! A lotta people are self taught, are you telling me they need to start genuflecting to themselves?! ALL I’m sayin is that SOME people [puts both hands up to camera] NOT ALL, SOME people MIGHT have a better learning experience if they started with casual form, okay?

[todays-xkcd]

My first words were 'These were my first words; what were yours?'

Language Acquisition [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[A child, drawn as a smaller Hairy, stands next to some blocks. Megan and Cueball stand to the right of him.] Child: Vocabulary update: I learned another word today, bringing my total to twelve.

[synticity]

any chance you have any recommendations for entry point resources for learning about early childhood developmental linguistics?

Sorry, I've been sitting on this ask for aaaaages. Work got busy lol. Anyways, this is far enough outside my field that I'm also going to give some general pointers on places to start finding information in linguistics on any given topic.

Language and Linguistics Compass is a journal that publishes a lot of fantastic review articles, which summarize previous research on a topic. Here's an LLC article on how hearing kids perceive and learn from phonetic input that they hear.

Academic presses like Oxford, Cambridge, and Wiley often publish what they call "handbooks" on topics where each chapter is written by a different expert in the field who reviews the previous research. For example, there's the Wiley Handbook of Child Language, and there's also the Cambridge Handbook of Child Language. I recommend not trying to sit and read a whole handbook, but approaching each chapter as if it was a standalone article.

Sometimes introductory textbooks can be a good place to start! I really like Essentials of Linguistics because it's free, open access, and online. Their chapter on Child Language Acquisition is a great overview of the research, and can help you choose where you want to go next to read more deeply.

If there's an article that's not open access, I recommend asking your nearest college student or grad student friend to see if they can get access through their university library's online sign-on.

You're also asking about a very big field with a lot of research, so don't feel like you have to get through everything I link here - just pick a couple things and start reading slowly. If you can get through an article or two every month, that's awesome! This can be a fun excuse to organize a reading club with friends/classmates/colleagues, and discussing stuff as you read will help you learn and retain stuff, too.

Hope that helps!

[conlangery]

How come native speakers don’t have to learn/can’t explain (usually) the rules of the their first language? They just automatically know if something is wrong or right. Sorry if that’s a dumb question

It's not a dumb question at all.

Basically, acquiring your first language is very different from acquiring a language later in life. That structure gets embedded into your subconscious, but you can't just summon that up and describe it.

Think about learning to walk. Almost all humans who are capable of it end up walking pretty much the same way. But can you explain the biomechanics of walking? Unless you've studied it, you can't, and even if you have, you still don't constantly have awareness of which muscles you're flexing, how input from the balance system affects your stride, etc.

When you acquire your first language, you are basically a small animal with an instinct to attempt to communicate with the people around you. You don't have language yet, much less the metalanguage required to describe your language. Your brain just figures out the patterns, attaches it to sensory input, and gradually builds up this system that works behind the scenes as you speak for the rest of your life.

That's also why just asking native speakers how things work isn't sufficient to produce a grammar. You will get speculation, confusion, and sometimes just plain false information if you just ask directly. But asking them "Is this sentence okay," or recording their speech will get data that you can later analyze. Native intuition is data, not analysis, because all of it is them activating a system that was built up when they were still drooling on their bibs.

[em-nikolaev]

A Few Fun Little Language Learning Tips

Hello, these are a few little tips I've found on my language learning odyssey that you may find fun or helpful

Accents! This can be a great way to 'warm up' before speaking more in depth, or a training exercise, but a fun way I've found to get myself to make French sounds (it works for any language really) is to speak English (or insert native language here) with an exaggerated accent that comes from someone speaking your target language, I find this a fun way to get the sounds of a language you're trying to speak into your head in order to make speaking easier (great for speaking exam practice)

Use addictive social media for profit! So this would be best for intermediate to advanced learners, but a way to learn more slang, grow your vocabulary, and just generally get more language input in an easy way is to create a dedicated social media account in your TL and simply lurk, do you spend hours doom scrolling short form video content? Do it guilt free by doing it in your TL, do you like cat memes? read them in your TL, it's addictive, and low energy, so you can do it even when your brain feels like a fried egg

Need a pen pal? Try Ai! So, speaking to real people in your TL can be a daunting task, for reasons ranging from the fear of saying something wrong to just plain stranger danger, so a safer (and totally free) alternative can be through ai chat bots, you can do this with dedicated language learning bots or with just plain old ChatGPT

Nostalgia Bait! One of the most beautiful things about visual art is the fact that it is a universal language in itself, certain symbols can hold significance wherever you go, so re-watching animated TV shows from your childhood or watching new TV content made for kids in your TL can be a great way to add to your vocabulary, and in call & response shows, generate responses and make them more complex if you like, to add more intrigue

When in doubt, write it out! I personally struggle a lot with conjugation, so if you do to, here's a solution I found, use Quizlet learn to help drill conjugation, and when your free rounds run out, you can manually use the flash cards to use the same effective learning strategy (or pay for Quizlet plus, but I, personally would rather eat a dusty lamp then pay for something that, in my opinion, should be free to all learners)

[jewish-microwave-laser]

going from like an hour straight of practicing hebrew to trying to compose one singular sentence in spanish was like trying to walk a mile in boston on january 15 1919

[apollohour]

I put the most common ones I could think of, sorry I am only limited to 12 options :(

[linguisticsnerd13]

guys I love teaching preschool

[ramblingsfromthytruly]

language acquisition goals in this lifetime~

languages i already know:

odia (my mother tongue - but i can only speak in it)

hindi (no longer study in school but i can speak, write, etc BUT i am not very good)

english (probably my best language though it's my third lol)

languages i want to learn (in order of learning):

french (it's been a few months of learning but i can't put in much time because i'm a full time student)

spanish

isl (indian sign language)

italian

asl (american sign language)

german

bsl (british sign language)

greek

hindi (i want to re-learn to expertise, it'll be easy since i already know the basics and much more)

odia (though i'm excellent at speaking i also want to learn to read & write since it is my family's language)

japanese (not sure if i actually will, if when the time comes i'll see)

old english

ancient greek (it'll be easier since i would've already learnt greek by this time)

latin (yes i'm aware that this and the two before aren't spoken anymore but i still want to learn them very much)

[haxyr3]

Wow, you all blew me away with your responses to the “What’s your mother-tongue?” poll! 🌍 With 242 votes, here’s the breakdown:

English: 57.4%

Spanish: 5.8%

French: 4.5%

Portuguese: 2.1%

Russian: 7.4%

Others: 20.7% (thanks for sharing in the comments—I absolutely love the favorite words you dropped!)

The variety is incredible, and it’s so cool to see Russian at 7.4%! 😄 It’s a great sign that native Russian speakers are curious about their own language and eager to learn new angles—love that energy!

This got me thinking: how do your native languages shape the way you tackle Russian? Share your thoughts below or tag a friend who’d enjoy this convo!

Next up, I’m curious—what’s the easiest part of Russian for you so far? Drop your pick in the replies, and I’ll tally the votes for a future post. Stay tuned for more language adventures!

[saja-star]

you know i think my absolute favorite language acquisition thing is when little kids pronounce three as "chree" because like. you're too baby to correctly produce /θ/ so instead you go for /t/. okay fair, makes total sense. but you still know that t -> tʃ / _ ɹ (depending on your dialect ofc). so then you palatalize that /t/ that you just made up.

you're too baby for all the phonemes but not too baby for the phonological rules. you're running before you can walk. like damn kid let's get all the puzzle pieces out of the box before we start putting the puzzle together.

also it's just fucking cute

[haru-dipthong]

The difference between あのー and えーっと

As I touched on in my japanese goncharov post, it’s amazing how much novel research, entertainment, and art are locked behind a language barrier. Even though as english speakers, we are privileged to have many things translated into our language, it’s a simple fact that most things will not be translated into most languages.

I am a huge fan of ゆる言語学ラジオ, a japanese podcast about linguistics. The hosts recently released a book, 言語沼, which goes into detail about some of the subconscious rules native japanese speakers follow but aren’t consciously aware of (an english equivalent might be that adjective-ordering rule we follow e.g. big brown cow, not brown big cow). I’m finding it fascinating, and I wanted to discuss some of it here in english, because I think people learning japanese would find some of these things really useful. It’d be a shame if this knowledge stayed stuck behind the japanese language barrier when the people who would find it the most useful can’t speak japanese fluently enough to read it!

The book talks about how most Japanese people will think of 「あのー」 and 「えーっと」 as having the exact same meaning - they’re both “meaningless” filler words. Despite their belief that they’re the same, those same native speakers will subconsciously only use あのー in one particular type of situation and 「えーっと」 in another, and even feel confused or annoyed if they hear another speaker use one in the wrong context.

So what’s the actual difference? 「えーっと」 is used when the speaker is taking time to remember or solve something. For example, the following exchange is very natural:

Person A: 7 x 5は？ Person B: えーっと、35だ

This makes it a pretty versatile filler word! You can use it pretty much anywhere. Another example would be when you’re talking to yourself, trying to remember where you left your keys.

えーっと、鍵どこ置いたっけ？

On the other hand, あのー is much more specific. It can only be used when you’re taking time to figure out the best way to phrase something. For example, when you’re trying to get a stranger’s attention.

あのー、ちょっといいですか？

In contrast, if Person A was addressed with 「えーっと、ちょっといいですか？」by Person B, they’d feel it was rude because instead of considering how to say something, B is considering what to say, which gives the impression that they hadn’t even figured out what they needed to ask before addressing Person A.

This gives 「あのー」 a more ”polite” feeling than 「えーっと」, even though neither is actually more polite than the other. They’re just used in different circumstances.

Let’s quickly look at the example with the lost keys again. If you replace the filler word:

あのー、鍵どこ置いたっけ？

It is very unnatural. The authors of the book jokingly say that it sounds like you’re talking to a ghost, because 「あのー」 is only used when you’re figuring out how to phrase something, and you wouldn’t worry about that if you’re talking to yourself.

Also, did you know even japanese children properly use each filler word in the correct situation? Despite almost all japanese people (even as adults) being unaware of this rule, they’re subconsciously abiding by it even as children - just from listening to their parents follow the same rules!

It really is amazing how good your subconscious mind is at acquiring language, and how terrible your conscious mind is at it. If you’re not already, I highly recommend integrating a lot of simple language content (e.g. youtube, kids shows, etc) into your study routine - listening to people talk is simply the fastest way to become fluent in your target language.

[dedalvs]

Hey! So while giving advice to a fic writer I actually arrived at a question that compels me greatly, one that I don't know if you can answer since it might require worldbuilding, but it's *linguistic* worldbuilding so you might have an answer.

When Valyrian-speaking parents are (were) teaching their babies the first words, like pointing to various nouns or to themselves and calling out their names, do they call out these words in the nominative or the vocative case?

Basically, I'm trying to figure out if it might actually be more appropriate for a child to informally call her mother "Muña" rather than vocative "muñus" because that might mean the difference between the equivalent of "Mom!" versus "Mother!" in english. I suspect it would have to do with whatever form of the word it is that the baby learns first, since the baby will probably call the parent that for some time regardless of corrective efforts.

So picture the scene. Mother is teaching her baby the word for mother. When she points to herself, does she say "Muña" or "muñus"?

I thank you in advance and hope this is not a frustrating question.

To answer questions like this, it might be helpful to think of the rest of the English sentence that's being left out when we say things like this in English. For example, when someone is pointing at an apple and saying, "Apple!", it's typically short for one of two things: (1) "That's an apple!", or (2) "That's called an apple!"

Now, knowing this is pretty trivial for English, but consider a case language. If you're just saying "apple", suddenly it matters what case the apple would be in in the sentence it was drawn from. In High Valyrian, the case of "apple" for (1) would be nominative, and for (2) would be instrumental.

Back to your scenario, it really depends on what was being said. If they're saying "This is the worst for this person", then it's muña. If it's "This is what you call me", that's muñus.

Also, though, overt instruction only does so much. Most of the time children learn by listening, watching, copying, and, later, extrapolating.

[lingual-exploits]

Language Acquisition vs Language Learning

The average person can learn their native language starting as a toddler. Toddlers are bombarded by a language they hear around them. The learn language because their baby brains realize that communication can help express needs and better interact.

Adults usually aren't bombarded, and they usually have some idea about the language before going to that area that speaks it.

I learned Darija, Moroccan Arabic (and clawed out some French from the back of my brain) out of sheer necessity while living in Morocco Rabat's old walled city. I didn't know any Darija, maybe Hi and Thank You. I kind of knew the standard Arabic alphabet but almost no words.

Since no one spoke English at all and as you went "deeper" into the walled city many didn't even know French I learned Moroccan Arabic out of necessity which is basically the same reason a toddler learns a language.

I had to take a Darija "class/course" while there and came extremely close to flunking, I didn't get a single good grade.

Yet buying correct foods in the walled city, bartering in the souk very effectively, taxi conversations, and other things I did just fine— despite nearly flunking. I think language acquisition and language studying/learning can be two different things.

Babies get acquisition long before proper education based learning. In Morocco, I got language acquisition and nearly flunked language learning.

Also I know literally none of it now.....like at all. I don't even know Arabic script, I forgot it because I never used it.

In 2019 I probably could have easily relearned Arabic/Darija. But now? My memory, TBI, and exhaustion say no.

This is from a post on my main blog link

[jan-ala]

On Comprehensible Input

Disclaimer : I am not disagreeing with the comprehensible input theory of language acquisition within the context of the science of linguistics. This post is about a tumor that has grown off of it into the 'science' of pedagogy. Regardless, this is more of a vent post against current instructional strategies than anything. I am not citing any sources, most of what is here is anecdotal.

For those unaware, language classes in K12 have changed a lot since you were in school. Many decades ago, it was primarily a text translation course. Then it became what most of the readers probably had, a course integrating vocabulary and structures into conversational performance. Today, as has been pushed for the last decade or so, we are 'encouraged' to teach with what pedagogy scam artists call a comprehensible input based curriculum.

This largely involves an immersion class with a heavy focus on reading and listening (especially in the novice level) with multimodal texts to guide understanding. To give you an idea of the efficacy of this strategy, almost zero students have achieved a "passing" (4/7) score on the IB DP Language B exams in my district since our coordinator started pushing this. My heavily lauded predecessor at this school had 2s and 3s across the board last year, students on their fifth year of language acquisition.

My current fifth year students have a vocabulary of maybe 200 words, mostly cognates.

I can think of a few reasons why this becomes the case.

Immersion classes at the middle/high school level have a tendency to devolve into the dominant language of the school. Infants learn this way because it is their primary method of communication and interacting with the world around them. In class, the students' dominant language is spoken by everyone in the room (from whom students are constantly seeking validation). This is especially a problem when taking into account class sizes of 30+ students who largely do not even want to be there.

The curricula that are available are weak, untested (scientifically), and teacher-created. Teachers are not curriculum designers, neither by training nor by time allotted. What results is a mish-mash of ideas half-executed, with wide, gaping holes in student knowledge. My Language B coordinator literally just threw a random assortment of various difficulty beginner reader books (one is a story about a capyabara wearing boots, for example) at me with no materials, no guide, no placement within a curriculum. This is not an effective foundation for a high school student's language journey.

Comprehensible Input as a theory is a description of how language is acquired, it is not a prescription for curriculum. Refusing to take into account the differences between someone whose job, 24/7, is exclusively to understand the language enthusiastically, compared to someone who is in a class against their will for maybe 160 minutes per week is ludicrous.

The de-emphasis on output, especially in the beginning levels, leaves students without the tools and muscle memory to become proficient speakers later.

Recently, I have been studying Toki Pona.

Reading the official text, I learned very quickly and very effectively. I made flash cards, read about grammatical constructions, did translation exercises, and assigned myself conversational tasks to practice what I could. Writing very short stories, skits, practicing common dialogue patterns. It has been really fast and effective.

About halfway through the book, I decided to install a game called Toki Pona Island. A self-proclaimed comprehensible input strategy to acquiring the language. I have played for hours, and the only word I have meaningfully retained is alasa (look for, quest, seek). And it is an entire game ABOUT alasa. Every character says it constantly and I had to look it up about 50 times before I forced myself to remember. Even then, while writing this, I originally wrote it as asala before I looked it up for accuracy. So, in effect, nothing was meaningfully learned.