Re: History of French

From: Mxsmanic (mxsmanic_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 09/15/04 

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 05:48:33 +0200

Ruud Harmsen writes:

> So why do grown-ups always have an accent? Even those who started
> early, and made a serious effort to perfectionate their accent in a
> foreign language?

They _don't_ always have an accent. Some adult language learners speak
without an accent. I've _seen_ this, I _know_ it is true, despite
vehement assertions to the contrary by some linguists (all of whom
coincidentally never manage to learn to speak any foreign language
without an accent themselves).

> There is hardly any confusion. There is training and patterns. And
> discovering what doesn't conform to them.

There's a huge amount of confusion, that's why it takes years for a
child to learn anything. How can one learn by pure trial and error
without confusion? In the absence of confusion, every trial is
error-free.

> You are right there. 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for several years.
> Every single activity a child is involved is also language-learning.
> Any adult spending that much time on language learning would make
> great progress too.

Exactly. And some adults do that, which is one reason why some adults
don't have accents.

> It is. In one sense it is, in the other it is not. And do distinguish
> between language variants, if they learnt some other variant than the
> standard at home, that's two different variants, each with its own
> rules.

Unfortunately, anything less than 100% congruence between variants is an
obstacle to communication.

> Children learn grammar and vocabulary at the same time, before ever
> having thought of the difference. That is the best method, even for
> adult.

Why do you say this?

> English grammar is very complicated, especially if you use books that
> don't think it works the same as Latin.

English grammar is no more difficult than the grammar of any other
language. 

-- 
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

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