Why Do People Say Baby Ages in Months Reddit
Any adult who has attempted to learn a foreign language tin attest to how hard and confusing it can be. So when a three-year-one-time growing upwards in a bilingual household inserts Spanish words into his English sentences, conventional wisdom assumes that he is confusing the two languages.
Research shows that this is not the case.
In fact, early childhood is the best possible time to larn a second language. Children who feel ii languages from nascence typically become native speakers of both, while adults often struggle with second language learning and rarely attain native-similar fluency.
But the question remains: is it confusing for babies to learn two languages simultaneously?
When do babies acquire language?
Inquiry shows babies begin to learn linguistic communication sounds earlier they're even born. In the womb, a mother's voice is one of the almost prominent sounds an unborn baby hears. By the time they're born, newborns tin not only tell the divergence between their mother's language and another language, just also show a adequacy of distinguishing between languages.
Language learning depends on the processing of sounds. All the globe'southward languages put together incorporate about 800 or so sounds. Each linguistic communication uses only about twoscore language sounds, or "phonemes," which distinguish one language from another.
At nascence, the baby encephalon has an unusual gift: it tin tell the departure between all 800 sounds. This ways that at this stage infants can learn whatsoever language that they're exposed to. Gradually babies figure out which sounds they are hearing the near.
Between six and 12 months, infants who grow up in monolingual households become more specialized in the subset of sounds in their native language. In other words, they become "native language specialists." And, by their first birthdays, monolingual infants begin to lose their ability to hear the differences betwixt strange language sounds.
Studying baby brains
What about those babies who hear two languages from birth? Can a baby encephalon specialize in two languages? If so, how is this process different then specializing in a unmarried language?
Knowing how the baby brain learns one versus two languages is important for understanding the developmental milestones in learning to speak. For example, parents of bilingual children often wonder what is and isn't typical or expected, or how their child will differ from those children who are learning a unmarried linguistic communication.
My collaborators and I recently studied the brain processing of language sounds in 11-month-onetime babies from monolingual (English simply) and bilingual (Spanish-English) homes. We used a completely noninvasive technology chosen magnetoencephalography (MEG), which precisely pinpointed the timing and the location of activeness in the encephalon as the babies listened to Spanish and English syllables.
Nosotros found some primal differences between infants raised in monolingual versus bilingual homes.
At 11 months of historic period, only before most babies brainstorm to say their commencement words, the brain recordings revealed that:
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Babies from monolingual English language households are specialized to process the sounds of English language, and not the sounds of Spanish, an unfamiliar language
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Babies from bilingual Castilian-English households are specialized to procedure the sounds of both languages, Spanish and English.
Our findings show that babies' brains become tuned to any language or languages they hear from their caregivers. A monolingual brain becomes tuned to the sounds of one language, and a bilingual encephalon becomes tuned to the sounds of 2 languages. By eleven months of age, the activity in the infant brain reflects the language or languages that they have been exposed to.
Is it OK to learn two languages?
This has of import implications. Parents of monolingual and bilingual children alike are eager for their little ones to utter the showtime words. It's an exciting time to larn more about what the baby is thinking. Nevertheless, a mutual concern, especially for bilingual parents, is that their child is not learning fast enough.
We found that the bilingual babies showed an as strong brain response to English sounds as the monolingual babies. This suggests that bilingual babies were learning English at the same rate equally the monolingual babies.
Parents of bilingual children likewise worry that their children will not know as many words as children who are raised with ane language.
To some extent, this business organization is valid. Bilingual infants dissever their time between two languages, and thus, on average, hear fewer words in each. Withal, studies consistently prove that bilingual children practice not lag behind when both languages are considered.
Vocabulary sizes of bilingual children, when combined across both languages, have been constitute to be equal to or greater than those of monolingual children.
Another common concern is that bilingualism causes defoliation. Office of this concern arises due to "code switching," a speaking behavior in which bilinguals combine both languages.
For instance, my 4-year-one-time son, who speaks English, Spanish, and Slovene, goes equally far as using the Slovene endings on Spanish and English words. Inquiry shows bilingual children code-switch because bilingual adults around them do besides. Code-switching in bilingual adults and children is rule-governed, not haphazard.
Dissimilar monolingual children, bilingual children have another language from which they can easily borrow if they can't quickly think the appropriate word in i language. Even 2-year-olds attune their linguistic communication to match the linguistic communication used past their interlocutor.
Researchers have shown code switching to exist part of a bilingual child'due south normal language evolution. And it could fifty-fifty exist the beginning of what gives them the extra cognitive prowess known as the "bilingual advantage."
Bilingual kids are at an advantage
The good news is immature children all effectually the earth tin and do acquire 2 languages simultaneously. In fact, in many parts of the world, being bilingual is the norm rather than an exception.
It is now understood that the constant need to shift attention betwixt languages leads to several cerebral advantages. Inquiry has plant that bilingual adults and children prove an improved executive operation of the brain – that is, they are able to shift attention, switch between tasks and solve problems more than hands. Bilinguals take as well been found to have increased metalinguistic skills (the ability to recall about language per se, and empathize how it works). There is evidence that being bilingual makes the learning of a third language easier. Further, the accumulating outcome of dual linguistic communication experience is thought to interpret into protective effects confronting cognitive pass up with aging and the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
So, if y'all want your child to know more i language, it'south best to starting time at an early age, before she fifty-fifty starts speaking her first language. Information technology won't confuse your child, and it could fifty-fifty give her a boost in other forms of cognition.
Source: https://theconversation.com/why-the-baby-brain-can-learn-two-languages-at-the-same-time-57470
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