Most adults find it difficult to learn a foreign language. Meanwhile, children learn foreign languages are exposed to a language other than their mother tongue who can speak fluently in both languages as native speakers. Results from a recent study have provided scientific evidence of the ability of children to learn a foreign language.
When do children learn foreign languages?
Studies show that babies begin to learn language while still in the womb. The mother’s voice is one of the most prominent sounds the fetus hears. At birth, the baby can feel the difference between mother tongue and other languages, which can be distinguished from different languages.
Learning language depends on the sounds (vowel, consonant …). All languages in the world use about 800 sounds. Each language uses only about 40 distinct sounds, distinguishing them from other languages. Infant Infant Brain: Can distinguish all 800 sounds. This means that children can learn any language they are exposed to.
From 6 to 12 months old, the children who grew up in the family speak only one language beginning with the sounds in their mother tongue. By the age of 1, the child begins to lose the ability to recognize different sounds in different languages.
Research on the brain in young children shows that
What happens to bilingual children from birth? Can children’s brains be able to handle both languages well? If so, how does the process differ from one language? Parents of bilingual children often wonder if their children are different than children who only learn one language.
Scientists have studied the brain process of receiving 11-month-olds from families who speak one language (English) and two languages (English and Spanish). Magnetic resonance imaging is used to accurately determine the time and place of activities occurring in the brain as children hear the Spanish and English syllables.
There are important differences between children who are learning a foreign language in a family in one language and two languages. At 11 months old, just before most children begin to speak the first word, the brain of a child who speaks English only can handle the English sounds well but that does not happen with the sounds. belongs to a foreign language like Spanish. The baby’s bilingual family can handle the sounds of both English and Spanish. Newborn babies can adjust to handle any language they hear from caregivers.
