Category Archives: Applied
How Should We Talk to Young Children to Help Them Learn Lanugage?
A couple of articles on the subject here and here. The first article is not precisely relevant. It states that in order to help children learn academic language that they will be using in primary school, it is important to … Continue reading
Filed under Applied, Culture, Education, Language Learning, Linguistics
The Critical Period Hypothesis in Linguistics
Evidence is increasing that children are born with a natural facility to pick up language of any type. The Critical Period hypothesis is very controversial in Linguistics, but it seems to be true as any person on the street might … Continue reading
Filed under Applied, Descriptive, Language Learning, Linguistics, Psychology, Sociolinguistics
How Moving Word Stress Changes Meaning in English Sentences
Tulio writes about how stress changes meaning in English sentences. I reprint it below, with some additions by me. What I think must be even tougher for English learners is the way we use stresses to completely change the meanings … Continue reading
Articles in the English Language
Foreign language learners probably have more problems with articles than with most other aspects of English. This is because the rules of English articles are obscure, if they even exist at all, and because many L2 learners of English come … Continue reading
Observation of an Age Effect in English Language Learning Among Filipinos
I talk to quite a few Filipinos on the Net, mostly women. I have noticed an age effect for English language skills among those that I talk to. Over 50: I didn’t talk to any, but other people told that … Continue reading
Filed under Applied, Asia, Asians, Education, English language, Filipinos, Language Learning, Linguistics, Philippines, Race/Ethnicity, Regional, SE Asia, SE Asians
The Linguistic Isolation of Brazilians
From the comments section, a comment from a Brazilian physician, of all people: Brazilians do not understand anything in Spanish. A lot of Brazilians think they can understand Spanish due to the affinity of the languages, but when we try … Continue reading
Does Language Learning Carry Over to New Languages?
Not nearly as much as one might think. For instance, I am relatively well versed in the Romance languages. I can read Spanish quite well, but not fluently. I can read a bit of French. And I have studied reading … Continue reading
What Languages Are You Studying?
Please feel free to update us on your current language learning endeavors, if they exist. As for me: English: Native speaker, no need to study anything. In fact, it’s unusual that I run across a word that I don’t know. … Continue reading
Neoslavonic Website
Here. Neoslavonic is a new constructed language, or conlang. These languages have a history of not being very successful for some odd reason, but they are definitely a good idea. For instance, in Esperanto it takes about 1 year to … Continue reading
