Re: Do Children Learn Languages at Different Rates?

Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Peter" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> Peter> You've obviously never talked with a two-year-old.
>
> You've obviously never talked with a 3-year-old Cantonese speaker in
> Cantonese.
>
> Peter> You CANNOT, for instance, teach a child an irregular verb
> Peter> form until it's ready to learn irregular verb forms.
>
> So, you're implying that you can teach older children irregular verb
> forms? And for such children, corrections have no effect?

No, you cannot teach older children irregular verb forms. They learn
them all by themselves. First they comprehend them; eventually they
produce them. (As with every other phenomenon of language.)

> 3-years-olds can already learn to use classifiers already, and parents
> correct them, and they learn from the corrections.

No, they do not. They learn from hearing the language spoken all around
them. When they're ready to learn classifiers (first to understand them,
then to use them), they do. (Which is obvious, since children who are
_not_ explicitly corrected learn them at the same rate as children who
_are_ explicitly corrected.)

If you deny this is so, then you are claiming that Cantonese is not a
human language.

> Peter> The literature is full of wonderful dialogs between mommy
> Peter> and baby showing that.
>
> Only for tense acquisition?

Hunh???????
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

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