+468 When you were a kid, you didn't learn English with charts and a textbook. You didn't know how to say "Science class is at 11:32," before knowing how to say "car". The way foreign languages are taught seems really inefficient compared to how quickly babies learn a language, amirite?

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Acquisition of a first language is genetically-triggered at the most critical stage of cognitive development. The difficulty of learning a second language is not HOW it is taught, it's WHEN.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

I was going to say something along the same lines. The change in the human brain from age 3 to age 15 is enormous, and there's no way a second language can be acquired in the same way. (Translation: Rosetta Stone's marketing ploy = lies)

by Anonymous 13 years ago

My sister speaks fluent spansh now thanks to Rosetta Stone. It's not lies at all.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Don't get me wrong-- I didn't say Rosetta Stone is useless or ineffective. I just meant that that whole, "learn a language the same way you learned your native language" marketing tactic is, well, wrong.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Thats what they say now? The last ad I saw for them was that they can help you actually think in the language. I'm sorry, Ive never seen them say it like how you say they are now, my bad

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Yeah, and also when you learn your first language you hear it everywhere: on television, from those around you like your family, and eventually at school. When you learn a language at school you only hear it in that class basically so it's normal to learn the basics first, even though it's true it does seem inefficient as after years of learning a language at school you're still not very good at it lol. And what you learn in class won't help you much when you go to that country haha.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Some people would disagree, though, and have claimed to pick up an entire language just by immersion or even just by watching TV (which sounds ridiculously boring to me) as adults.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

Is it? Babies take several years to learn the language with many hours of exposure per day, and even then they have pretty limited understanding and vocabulary... compare that to an hour or so a day for a few years in school and getting pretty good if you're motivated. I'm not saying natural methods of communication rather than grammar tables aren't better, because they are, taking advantage of the language you already know speeds things up a lot more than learning as a little kid would.

by Anonymous 13 years ago

they need to have classes for foreign languages in elementary school instead of high school, and or continue them throughout the years

by Anonymous 13 years ago

I started foreign languages in 7th grade but I agree , they should be started earlier than that

by Anonymous 13 years ago