Espanol y El Cerebro
Spanish and the brain
Learning a new language at different ages and their advantages and disadvantages.
Everyone starts learning their native language when we are born. Our brain starts to take in all the sounds we hear and we learn to use them as we get older. When your brain has the option to be exposed to 2 different languages when your young, it will be able to use both native and new language because the brain has not yet split into 2 different hemispheres. That happens when your finished with puberty.
Learning a second language at a younger age.
Some people believe it is better to learn a second language at a younger age. This is why some parents teach their children two languages when they are young, so their kid will soak up all the information. Some advantages are they would be more likely to develop a native-like accent, there would be less to learn to be considered proficient, and they would be more likely to receive comprehensible input. Some people learn new languages at different speeds. It takes 2-3 years to be able to understand a new language, but it takes 4-10 years to be able to read, write, and fluently speak that new language.
Learning a second language at an older age.
Some people think it is better to learn a second language at an older stage that way they can consciously use strategies to aid learning, have knowledge from their first language to learn from, and have greater control over their input. Also, some factors play into how long it will take to learn a new language, which is another reason people feel it would be easier to learn the new language when they're older. Some factors that play into this are: motivation, access to language, personality, first language development, quality of instruction, and cognitive ability. All of the factors can go both ways when estimating how long it will take.