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denisoshea13 t1_j4ggs57 wrote

Reply to comment by 5slipsandagully in What it means to “know” a language by thenousman

Children can differentiate between two different languages from before birth. Children can grow up learning two or more languages, which makes it much easier for them to learn languages later in life. Learning a second language impacts the first. A childhood native language can fall out of use in adulthood and a non-native language can become dominant. You do not have to be native level speaker to be entirely proficient In a language. (Think of people from the Netherlands speaking English) This critical period you reference, as well as this “cognitive mechanism that you used to acquire language”, is heavily contested and has more to do with the effects of language on cognition than linguistic ability or competence .It seems like you are devaluing language that is learnt at a later stage in life, this upholds an out of date view on a commonly misunderstood process that is not actually true and can be harmful.

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CiciMcGee45 t1_j4ijugd wrote

I used to work at a daycare and I had a lot of bilingual kids, especially English/Chinese and some of their parents were concerned that speaking Chinese would delay their English and I was always telling them no, the kids know there’s a difference and they rarely use words from one language while using the other. It’s amazing. Some of the toddlers couldn’t tell you that they spoke two, like if you asked them what’s this in Chinese they couldn’t but by the time they were four or five they knew they understood two separate languages. It was so amazing to see them just switch when they’re parents picked them up.

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virtutesromanae t1_j4hk1bu wrote

I don't think he/she is devaluing language learned later in life. I think he/she is just stating that the approach and mechanism of learning changes over time. I agree with that point. I know that I learn nearly everything (language or otherwise) differently now than I did when I was a child.

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5slipsandagully t1_j4iunes wrote

OP's article was about what it means to "know" a language, not what it means to be competent in a language, so of course my comment was about the effects of language on cognition. The only point my original comment made is that childhood language acquisition (no matter how many languages that may involve) and language learning later in life are qualitatively different. I'm not sure why that's controversial or harmful

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denisoshea13 t1_j4qfzsg wrote

But where you say “you’re stuck with what you got” is controversial and (can be ) harmful

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