A. Young children have a genetic ability to learn language. They come into the world as eager learning machines, and language acquisition is a major aspect of this learning. How children actually learn language is not entirely clear, however. Most linguists believe that they do it primarily by listening to and trying to communicate with adult speakers. Initially, this means that they copy the way adults use words and grammar.
B. Learning a second or third language is easier in early childhood than later. It is particularly important to learn correct pronunciation as young as possible. At any age, learning by constant contact with native speakers in their own society is the quickest and the most effective method. It is superior to taking foreign language classes because it forces you to concentrate on it all of the time.
C. Learning a second language can be affected by the patterns of the first language. There can be some blending of phonemes. For instance, most Americans who learn French in high school or college pronounce French words with a distinctive American accent. Grammar can also be affected. English speakers who learn both French and Spanish sometimes combine grammatical rules of both when speaking either of them.
D. Until just a few years ago, language study was limited to the classroom or personal tutor, or home study by book. In the last few decades technology has given us a much needed audio option — first vinyl records, then cassettes and CDs. Now technology has given us a new format — the Internet. Options to learn a language by Internet are still limited but the potential is not.
E. What is important when learning a language? If you have the desire and persis -tence, time is the only factor that you may have to work with. How much time you can devote to learning will play a role in how quickly you can learn the language. Just re member how exciting it will be and how rewarding you will feel at the accomplishment.
F. Rather than have businessmen, diplomats, scientists and tourists from every country learning all the major languages that they want to learn or need to learn, Esperantists would have everyone just learn one second language — Esperanto. Then everyone could communicate with everyone, everywhere. The major ‘national’ languages could keep their special characteristics for anyone who wanted to learn them. This is the essence of the ‘Esperanto Movement’.
G. More than half of the world’s 7,000 languages are expected to die out by the end of the century, often taking with them irreplaceable knowledge about the natural world. When a species dies out, sometimes fossils can be found, remains uncovered. But when a human language disappears, there’s rarely any key left behind. Each loss becomes a linguistic black hole, where an entire way of knowing the world disappears.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|