Debate About Learning Languages as a Child

Studies show that children absorb languages better than most adults. The fact still remains, however, that it takes children years to absorb a language and become fluent in it.

After forty years of development, the Pimsleur approach comes to the market with a CD language learning product which is purportedly the same methods used to train the FBI and CIA in foreign languages. The method is supposedly based on learning a language the same way that children do. When I read something like this, the bells and whistles sound off. Why would the FBI or CIA study languages in the same manner that children do?

A child’s approach to learning depends on the culture the child is brought up in. Children in some cultures are eager to learn. Children in other parts of the world may sometimes be very shy. It really all depends on the type of child we’re referring to when we say “Learn a language like a child”. As well, not every child in a particular culture learns at the same pace. Some children work better visually or audibly. There are children who learn very well by doing or moving about in an activity. Still, there are other children who learn better by solving problems quietly. The list of differences in the way different children learn can go on to fill volumes on the library shelf.

In contrast to the way a child learns, an adult has had years to master at least one language. An adult can weigh and compare new concepts to learned knowledge. As adults, most of us do not require someone else to motivate us into learning something. We are aware of our interests.

Grammar is necessary for learning the mechanics of a language, but it is something that can be overdone in some language courses. Adult students don’t need to spend too much time in grammar when learning a new language, unless it is for the purpose of mastering the linguistics of a foreign language. In English, for example, the subject in a sentence is determined by the order in which words are dropped into a sentence. In Japanese, morphology determines the subject sentence structures. Once the ability to see patterns in a languages is acquired, the adult student does not require endless hours of grammatical studies.