Re: Is there an optimal sequence for language acquisition?

>>>>> "leuwarden" == leuwarden <leuwarden@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

leuwarden> .... and the motivation! the inclination! if your new
leuwarden> girl friend speaks Chinese, you'll speak Chinese by
leuwarden> Christmas

I already speak Chinese.


And you're wrong. My cousin (Chinese) has a boy friend (Anglo-Saxon
ancestry, from New Zealand) for many years. They're getting married
in a few months. This guy has been living in Hong Kong for more than
1 year. My cousin's mother speaks no English (other than making up
broken English from the limited vocabulary she could handle). And I
have had many dinner gatherings with this pair and other family
members. At these gatherings, there is a lot of chatting in
Cantonese. Only occasionally do we -- this generation who has learnt
English -- talk to this NZ guy in English, or translation the current
chatting contents to/from English.

If your theory is correct, how come this guy from NZ, having a
HK-immigrant girl-friend for years, living in HK for over 18 months,
surrounded by people speaking Cantonese, has not yet mastered
Cantonese by *last* Christmas?



leuwarden> I only know about English, and English is non-typical
leuwarden> as a language in many regards. Still, I found that
leuwarden> women learn more easily than men and that the best
leuwarden> learners,

Because women like to talk more than men do?

My impression is that men generally tend to think more and talk less
than women do.



leuwarden> there is yet another problem: what is the aim? at what
leuwarden> point do you really *know* a language?

That's why I hate to answer questions like: which/how many languages
do you _know_? Well... please tell me how you define "knowing a
language" first. Then, define "a language" (vs. "dialect", and
probably also "accent").


leuwarden> For most adult people it would be necessary to read and
leuwarden> write;

I don't think so. Many languages are not written.


leuwarden> spoken exercises are too strenuous for them.

Why?


leuwarden> But most people hate writing and reading. They try to
leuwarden> memorize instead. They fail.

Yeah. And most people hate learning, too. If not, why are softwares
selling the (bogus) quality of being "easy to learn" or even
"intuitive"?



--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
.

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