Discussions in other languages

[compsystems]

Hello

Translated with DeepL


A big limitation to spread knowledge on this planet called earth is that mankind independently developed several languages, currently the means of information transmission are leading to the universalization of communication, but I think it may take at least 1 century for mankind to possibly speak a single universal language in that future.
If aliens exist and came to earth, they would say what fools, that's why they progressed slowly, they speak hundreds of languages.
As this is a technical forum related to the computer world (calculators) and for those of us who do not know a second or third language, we need to please define a sub-forum for writing in other languages, such as Spanish. Spanish is the first most spoken native language in the western hemisphere and is the third most popular language on the Internet.
Studies show that learning a language after the age of 7 is unnatural, the brain "says" you can already communicate, learning to communicate again makes no sense, those who are bilingual or n-lingual is because their brain is weird compared to the rest of the normals.


Hola

Una gran limitación para difundir el conocimiento en este planeta llamado tierra es que la humanidad desarrolló independientemente varios idiomas, actualmente los medios de transmisión de información están llevando a la universalización de la comunicación, pero creo que puede tomar por lo menos 1 siglo para que la humanidad posiblemente hable un solo idioma universal en ese futuro.
Si los extraterrestres existen y vinieran a la tierra, dirían que tontos, por eso progresaron lentamente, hablan cientos de idiomas.
Como este es un foro técnico relacionado con el mundo de la informática (calculadoras) y para los que no sabemos un segundo o tercer idioma, necesitamos por favor definir un subforo para escribir en otros idiomas, como el español. El español es la primera lengua nativa más hablada en el hemisferio occidental y es la tercera lengua más popular en Internet.
Los estudios demuestran que aprender un idioma después de los 7 años es antinatural, el cerebro "dice" que ya puedes comunicarte, aprender a comunicarte de nuevo no tiene sentido, los que son bilingües o n-lingües es porque su cerebro es raro comparado con el resto de los normales.

[Roberto Volpi]

(03-28-2024 04:23 PM)compsystems Wrote:  Hello

Translated with DeepL



Studies show that learning a language after the age of 7 is unnatural,


Los estudios demuestran que aprender un idioma después de los 7 años es antinatural,

Could you tell more about those studies?

[Thomas Klemm]

We had this discussion already: Subforum in Spanish (Español)

[mfleming]

There are a number of European web sites (China too) that can specify what language to display web content in via a language pulldown. It would certainly be nice if this forum software could do the same! Sadly though I don't think myBB is quite that sophisticated.

I've browsed tiforum.org often thanks to that feature.

[Thomas Okken]

(03-28-2024 04:23 PM)compsystems Wrote:  Studies show that learning a language after the age of 7 is unnatural, the brain "says" you can already communicate, learning to communicate again makes no sense, those who are bilingual or n-lingual is because their brain is weird compared to the rest of the normals.

I find that hard to believe. Anecdotally: I started learning English at age 11 and was fluent within about five years. Less anecdotally: there are many places where speaking two or more languages is normal, like in many former colonies where both the indigenous languages and those of the colonizers have endured, the latter often serving as a lingua Franca. Or in many European countries, where English has become the default international lingua Franca, probably motivated by the ease of traveling and migrating within the EU.

Much gets made of small children's supposedly miraculous ease of learning language, but my own experience suggests that small children learn at about the same speed as older children or adults.

The only part of language learning where children really do seem to have an edge is pronunciation. This is something that has been seriously studied, and is quite an interesting phenomenon. It doesn't just involve the skill of articulating a set of phonemes, but also recognizing them, which is evidenced by the difficulty Japanese people have in not just articulating the English L and R, but also in telling them apart when they hear them.

And I can confirm that last part from experience: thanks to excellent English teachers at school, being a voracious reader who reads mostly English-language materials, and having lived in an English-speaking country for over 20 years, my English is as good as that of any native speaker, but even now I sometimes trip over the English 'th'.

But apart from the pronunciation issue, people can learn new languages at any age. If they do have a handicap, it's motivation, i.e. the "but I already know how to communicate" problem. There are solutions to that, like immersion to force yourself to listen and speak, and to seek out media that you find interesting, so reading or viewing them is not just something to do as a training exercise, but it's something you're motivated to do for other reasons as well. (And note that small children have these motivating factors by default.)

[vaklaff]

(04-06-2024 10:41 AM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  …

First things first, I don’t agree with the original suggestion and I hope this forum remains English-only.

But if I may continue in the side topic of ease of learning and age, then well Thomas, your personal story is not much relevant, Dutch and English are too close. And the need to hear the sound of the language in one’s early age you mentioned yourself is more important than you realize.

My personal counterexample: I studied two languages simultaneously and Russian was easy, English very hard, even though I wasn’t interested in the first at all and put quite an effort in the latter, yet the results were terrible. Fast forward, I’ve been using English as my work language for the last 10 years, listened to many English audiobooks (hundreds I think), but I still can’t set apart most English vowels and I just guess them from the context. Russian on the other hand was a peace of cake from the get go, no “foreign” sounds.

English was bound to be relatively easy for you regardless of your age, just like Russian was for me. But the age would have played a much bigger role for you in case of Czech or Japanese :-)

[pascal_meheut]

(03-28-2024 04:23 PM)compsystems Wrote:  Studies show that learning a language after the age of 7 is unnatural, the brain "says" you can already communicate, learning to communicate again makes no sense, those who are bilingual or n-lingual is because their brain is weird compared to the rest of the normals.

Seems like a good excuse to make no effort.
I started to learn english at 14 at school and was only able to dabble. But when I spent time in the US at 30, I started to think and even dream in english.
I'm not fluent nor bilingual but there is nothing unnatural when I speak, read or write it.

[SammysHP]

Aside from learning another language, many browsers started to integrate translation services. When you visit a website in a foreign language, the browser asks if it should translate it.