WEBVTT - Learning a Foreign Language 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:10.440 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:16.800 Guten get routin Blowing and welcome to the podcast. Come Josh, 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:19.520 there's Chuck and it's just the two of us today, 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:21.320 which is why we're feeling a little crazy. 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:26.120 Oh man, I just did a cow bell as donk donk. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:28.120 I think it's flunk. 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:31.280 Came through, It came through. There's a bit of a 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:32.040 dunk to it. 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.360 I owe a big apology to uh, what's his name, 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.240 Rick Allen? Is that his name? The drummer def Leppard's drummer. 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:40.800 Yeah, sounds like it sounds right. 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.520 I mean, can you believe that a major rock band's 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:49.600 drummer lost his arm and learned how to play without 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.680 that arm? Well, not only that like an amazing story. 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.680 It is amazing because they were like right right about 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.480 to hit their peak. They were like rocketing up and 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.120 again you'd think that was just the end of it, 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.320 but nope, can't keep him down. 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:07.920 What a story. I think when I was a kid 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:09.400 and that happened, I was like, oh wow, that's cool. 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.319 But now that I'm an adult and I'm like, if 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.840 I have a bad ankle sprain, I'm done. It's just 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.880 amazing to me that he lost an arm and like persevered, 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:20.720 just incredible. 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:22.640 What's also cool, I think is that this is in 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.880 the eighties and somebody was sharp enough to develop software 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:31.200 that could kind of like help him with the extra 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:33.840 beat that he couldn't get to with just one arm. 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.080 Like that was just amazing in and of itself as well. 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:39.760 Well, I thought he used the other foot, right, isn't 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:40.320 that what he did? 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.000 I believe there was software involved as well. 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.720 Oh I didn't know that. I thought he just learned 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:47.200 how to incorporate that. 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.960 Oh no, are you like, well, I'm not really impressed. 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.800 After all, I have to look into that more. 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.000 This has nothing to do with what we're talking about, 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:00.200 except for the sort of German that's not even German. 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.080 Is it? They're British? 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.520 I know, But that those are even real words, are they? 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.920 No? I don't think so. It seemed like a Swedish 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:08.760 chef kind of thing. 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:14.320 Oh goodness, we're talking about learning foreign languages, because that 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:16.680 is something Ed helped us out with this, and he 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.560 very quickly points out that's a real mark of and 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.720 always has been like, oh you know, they speak four languages. 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.079 It's like, yeah, that means boy, they're super smart and 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:31.560 they're very worldly, and you know it. It certainly requires 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.120 some intelligence to speak many languages. I think to be 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.760 a polyglot, But it's always something that people tout and 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.520 I don't blame them. If I speak four languages, that's 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:44.440 the first thing I'd say, Hey, I'm chuck. I speak 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:45.040 four languages. 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.120 By the way, it almost rivals telling people that you 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:49.360 went to Brown or Harvard. 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:52.920 That's only two languages. 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:57.480 Yeah, So do you speak anything other than English these days? Well? 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.000 No, We've talked a little bit about our language background. 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.639 I took high school German and then college German and 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.160 did a little traveling in Germany because because I did 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.320 my European tour, but I don't remember much of it. 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:17.040 I don't ever practice it, but it is it was 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.360 something that I would pick up, you know, quicker than 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:21.880 if I tried to learn Spanish, which is on my 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.520 list to try and do. Yeah, I really want to. 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.160 It's just like do I have the time, and then 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.600 the answer is yes, I just have to do it, 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.560 you know. But I really would like to learn Spanish 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:37.080 because Spanish. 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:38.960 Spanish is on my list. 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.320 But before we talk about what people in the biz 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.880 call L two. We should talk a little bit about 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.400 L one, which we've talked a little bit about before, 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.960 But L L one is like when you when you're 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:56.320 just a little dumb baby and you learn how to talk, 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.560 which I can now attest as a parent is one 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.280 of the most remarkable things you can witness as a 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:08.160 human learning language that's really neat, seemingly by themselves, because 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:10.880 you're not saying like this is how you say spoon. 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.880 Kids learn language quickly and it seems like innately, and 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:16.960 we'll talk about all that now. 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.960 I remember learning to read, and it almost seemed to 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.760 me like overnight, like it just started clicking. And I 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.080 think first grade. Jeff always wondered, isn't that kind of late? 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.479 No? Okay, good, No, it's not at all. If you're reading, 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:32.880 you're doing fine. 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.560 I got to impress everybody with what age I started 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:36.640 reading at the No. 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.719 In fact, if you're reading like pretty well at six, 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:40.440 that's pretty good. 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:42.920 I wouldn't say pretty well. But all of a sudden, 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:47.080 it was like books went from just lines of scribble 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:52.479 to sensible, sensical things that I could decode and interpret. 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:53.800 And I was like, wow, that's neat. 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:55.560 No, No, that's good. Six is great? 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.719 Okay, good you look at you. Thank god you're a parent, 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:00.680 because I'd be totally lost if you weren't. 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:03.520 All right, So we'll talk about some of the language 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.920 theories the first, like whether or not they're still relevant 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:11.480 or not. The first is called critical period hypothesis. Long 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:16.240 standing debate about this. It was proposed by a dude 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:20.479 named a neurologist named Wilder Pinfield along with Lamar Roberts 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:25.080 in a nineteen fifty nine book called Speech and Brain Mechanisms. 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:27.919 And this is the idea that there is a critical 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:32.920 period in a young person, a young human's life where 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:37.919 your brain has the plasticity that's just off the charts 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:42.920 and it can learn language then, and after that, learning 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.000 a new language is a lot harder. 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:50.960 Yes, which seems to be what generally people think of today, right. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:56.120 I mean sort of. I think critical period hypothesis made 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.520 it seem like it was really, really, really hard after 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:04.240 this because they didn't really believe in They thought plasticity 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:05.479 stopped at a certain point. 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.400 Okay, I got you. Yeah, Because there was a time 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.320 where people thought that you had all the neurons you 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:12.880 were ever going to have when you were born and 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:17.599 you just you know, smoked hashish and lost them over time. 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:19.800 I was about to say the same thing. Oh yeah, 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:21.280 like you smoked them away a few at a time 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:22.120 or what exactly. 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:26.560 Yeah, And that all of your neural connections were formed, 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.080 you know, in your by your teens maybe, and then 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.880 after that you just got dumber and dumber. Right, So 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.159 this is this is that that that's that school of thought. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:40.000 Yeah, that that basically things are pretty fixed after that 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.040 certain age, and that that's why it's so hard to 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.760 learn language later on. But we now know that that's 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.600 not true, and your brain can still be very plastic. 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:53.680 But it's remarkably close just in its principle, in the 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:55.880 basis of its idea, it seems. 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:56.880 Yeah, pretty hard. 0:06:57.720 --> 0:06:59.520 What were the names of the two guys again. 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:03.440 Wilder Pinfield and Lamar Roberts. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.960 They sound like an alternate universe Steely Dan, you know, 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:10.480 like those are the members of Steely Dan in the 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:11.320 eighth dimension. 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.400 Yeah, yeah, Pinfield and Roberts. I like it. 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:16.239 I just made myself laugh. 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.840 Sponge theories next, and that's one that has really gone 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:20.800 the way of the DODO, right. 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.600 Yeah. They used to think that you just kids just 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.680 absorbed everything like sponges. Like you were saying, it was 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:32.280 remarkable and magical to watch Ruby just suddenly learn to speak. Yeah, 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.360 that was noteworthy enough to enough people that they're like, 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.640 we didn't teach this kid anything. They just absorbed it, right, 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:41.920 And there's a certain degree of that. But one of 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:46.480 the problems with sponge theory, which has generally been discarded, 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:52.000 like you said, is that it really underestimates the importance 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.600 of active learning. It's basically saying passive learning. I read 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:58.960 there's like a New York Times blog post about kids 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:03.800 learning l one and somebody was saying they were pointing 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.480 out just how poor an analogy the sponge theory is 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.320 Bye Bye. They put a picture up during one of 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.720 their talks. There's a bucket of water and then a 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.160 sponge like on the table next to it, right, and 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.160 it's like their proximity isn't enough, Like there has to 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.080 be some sort of action and activity as well. 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.679 You gotta dip it son. The other another good analogy 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.640 Ed pointed out is like that's like saying, if you're 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.240 just an American household and but you'd let your kid 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:36.120 watch nothing but Spanish speaking television, that they're just gonna 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:37.920 learn Spanish. 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.559 Yeah, but apparently that works if you're an adult. 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:46.360 No, okay, no, but watching foreign language movies can be 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:47.040 a tool. 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:52.000 I have a friend from way back. He taught himself 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.800 French by watching French movies, got himself a job with UPS, 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.520 worked there for eight months, and then put in for 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:01.439 a transfer to Paris and moved to Paris. 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:02.360 What. 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.200 Yeah, he was very cool. He went on to become 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:09.320 the bass player and the number two most popular rock 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:13.320 band in Turkey according to a Pepsi cola full of 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.480 that nation years after he moved on from Paris. 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:18.920 Is a friend of yours. Yeah, that's amazing. 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.319 Yeah, he was very cool. I don't know what became 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:23.480 of film. I lost him after he moved to Turkey, 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:24.880 but yeah, good guy. 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:30.320 That happens. Yeah. So behaviorism is the next one, and 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:33.720 that is BF. Skinner was a big proponent of this, 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:39.440 and he wrote that language learning was akin to verbal behavior. 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.240 So basically your blank slate and learning a language is 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.880 like learning any other behavior. You learn it through reinforcement, 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.160 through either being praised or being punished, and like really 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:50.760 working at. 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:56.000 It right and then if you, like you said, it's 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:01.559 the reward in punishment is really really important, you know. Yeah, 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.120 that's how you learn what's right and what's wrong. That 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.800 has a little bit of basis in reality too, Like 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.840 all of these competing theories, if you just carve a 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:11.600 little bit out of each one and put it together, 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.319 you've got learning language. 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:16.520 Yeah. I think that's with a lot of theories, like 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:18.120 people aren't usual one hundred percent wrong. 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.600 Sure. So the opposite of behaviorism, by the way, is 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:26.559 called nativism. It says no, no, no, we're not born 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.599 as blank slates, and we just learned by observing and 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.479 through trial and error, reward and punishment. There's our brains 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.880 are basically pre wired to not only give rise but 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:42.880 then also interpret and use what's called the universal grammar. 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:47.960 That humans have some sort of inborn ability to speak 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:53.840 languages to one another. And this was a cornerstone of 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.160 Noam Chomsky's career, if not the whole thing. 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.199 Yeah, he talked about and I know we talked about 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:05.600 this in another episode. The language acquisition device, which is 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.280 not a sort of a real body part, but it's 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.800 like a hypothetical tool, right that no chomps chomps key, 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.000 Why is a T in there? It's already a baggy name. 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:19.080 Who names are Kidnome? 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.120 I don't know, but I mean it really works. Those 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:23.959 two names together work really well. 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:26.040 I don't know much about this guy, but it's a 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.480 name that I've heard three thousand times in my life, 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:29.920 so I need to brush up a little bit. 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.760 He was, in addition to being a linguist who's very 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:37.360 very opinionated, very far left leaning cultural critic as well, 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.240 who made him some really great points. But he, you know, 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.839 anybody like that attracts scorn and ire. Sure there's a 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.160 lot of critics of Noam Chompsky as well, but he 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.199 was very interesting. He was a public intellectual. As a 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:51.320 way to put it, I guess. 0:11:51.720 --> 0:12:00.480 Yeah, all right, So about phonemes, Yeah, phonemes. I always 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.600 want to say phenomes. I know, I just scooped up. 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:08.200 Josh corrected me. We did that that part. Phonemes, Yeah, phonemes. 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.199 Ed points out that a language, maybe let's say a 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:15.239 language has like forty ish phonemes phonemes. 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:16.840 Are you doing this on purpose now? 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.400 I'm really not. I'm sort of losing my mind right now. 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:21.120 Yeah, I'm watching an unravel. 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:25.880 It's fast, but babies start to grasp these or at 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.040 least the relevant ones of their language is early at 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.400 six months and baby talk, the little gobbledygook sounds that 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:38.400 babies make are different than like an American baby's gobbedygook 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:40.720 is different than a child than a little baby in 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:41.880 Africa's gobbledygook. 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:42.640 That's amazing. 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:43.720 That is so cool. 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.480 So those are the kind of the big theories about 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.640 language acquisition. L one acquisition, right where you just learn 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.880 your native language and you become fluent in it for 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.840 whatever reason. Apparently we don't have that quite figured out yet. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.319 Now we move into L two acquisition, and one of 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:07.600 the fundamental hallmarks of learning a second language in particular 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.680 is that it seems to be way easier for kids 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:12.720 than it is for adults. 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.440 That is true, Why I don't think that it's that 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.400 like they've, like you said, earlier, discovered that plasticity can 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.319 occur in adults. And it's not like an impossibility or 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:25.920 really really really hard like they used to think. It 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.720 is definitely easier for a kid. A kid can learn 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:36.400 many languages. There really is not like a limit. There 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.800 are outliers where kids, you know, like these little phenoms 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.880 learn you know, six seven, eight languages. Those are outliers 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.800 for sure, But like your average just sort of bilingual 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:53.040 kid raised in a bilingual household is very common these days, 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:58.000 and it's not the case where like well, but if 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.360 you're teaching your child Spanish, you know when are growing 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.000 up as well as English, you're not the time you're 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.400 spent talking about Spanish is taking away from the English 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.760 that they're going to fall behind, and that is just 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:09.240 proven to not be the case. 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.200 Yeah, I would think, if anything, it would make you 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:13.920 excel a little more in other stuff. 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:19.960 It does. Supposedly bilingual kids do better at problem solving situations. 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.280 We'll talk about some other stuff like socially, but they 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:27.040 don't experience learning delays or issues. It's just not something 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:28.080 that they've seen happen. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.240 And the fact that there's outliers like you were talking about, 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.560 who who learn multiple languages as children makes you kind 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:39.280 of wonder, what is there an upper limit two languages 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.720 that a kid can learn? And the answer is yes, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:43.720 apparently it's three. 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:45.120 Oh I said there was none? 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.560 Is there there's oh? 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:49.560 Non outliers? Okay, I got you right. 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:55.960 Practically speaking, three is the max because language experts aka 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.800 linguists suggests that you need to spend about twenty to 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.680 thirty percent of your waking time practicing learning a language. 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:05.920 If you're learning another. 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:09.720 Language, so do the mas, right, and that would. 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.600 Leave time for I'm never doing that again. That would 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:15.840 leave time for nothing else. If you were focusing on 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:20.400 learning three languages at once, that would be the upper limit, right, 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:21.920 at least learning them at once. 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:23.800 I guess, yeah, that makes sense. 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.080 But there are people out there, just real quick, Chuck, 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.440 who have learned tons of languages. There's a guy, a 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:34.800 Canadian named Powell Janulus or Powell Janulus. He's credited with 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:39.640 knowing forty two different languages. What another guy named Ziad 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:44.640 Faza he I think is the current record holder at 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:45.480 fifty nine. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.960 These are kids are just people people, okay. 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.840 And then back in the eighteen fifties, the governor of 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.560 Hong Kong, Sir John Browning, was reputed to know two 0:15:55.680 --> 0:16:00.120 hundred languages and speak one hundred of them. What so 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:02.400 that's what everybody said when they met him. 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:04.640 Yeah, and he said, would you like to hear that 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:09.480 in a hundred different ways? Before we break real quick. 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:11.280 I did want to mention because one of the things 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.760 I when I was sort of assigning this article out, 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.520 was like, is there you know, is there any like 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.800 research on why Americans tend to be less multi lingual? 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:24.280 And there's really not research that I've seen, but it 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:26.560 seems to be that there's just like you don't think 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:27.920 of it when you live in a big city and 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.200 you're you're you have people that speak all kinds of 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.440 languages in big cities, but lots and lots of America 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:36.680 doesn't do that. 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:39.240 Well, They're not exposed to it as much. 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.320 That's what I mean. It's like lots lots of towns 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.920 and lots of cities in America, you don't get a 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.560 lot of foreign languages. So if you don't have that exposure, 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.360 then you're you're probably not going to be as interested. 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.360 And then there are also and I'm not like call 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:57.920 anyone out, but like there are also a lot of 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.840 people that still think like, well, no, gosh darn it, 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:03.240 like this is what you speak here, and this is 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.560 what you're gonna learn here, and I don't want you 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:07.600 to learn in any Spanish or anything like that. 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:11.119 People used to say that publicly. Yeah, I'll bet though 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:12.800 it would be easy to study if you you know, 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.680 went along the border with Mexico, you probably find way 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:21.320 more bilingual people than say in Atlanta or the border 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:27.000 of Canada, you find more people who spoke Canadian and English. 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:29.600 It'd be easy to study, is what I'm trying to say. 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:30.200 I don't know why. 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:34.120 Anyone should we take a break? Sure, all right, let's 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:36.240 break and we'll go learn a language and we'll be 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:36.680 right back. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.320 So check. I got fascinated with this critical period stuff 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.679 that we kind of went over. The critical period hypothesis. 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.680 It makes a lot of sense to me. It's backed 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:11.800 up by some research. Apparently. What the problem with the 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.800 seely Dan guy's hypothesis was that they went too far. 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.359 They made it too absolute. And it's just not the 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.080 case that people can't learn things as adults. I mean, 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.640 they should have probably figured that out from the outset. 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:30.400 But it is much harder to learn a language as 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.120 an adult than it is to learn an L one 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.199 language as a kid, or even L two language as 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:37.560 a kid. 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.800 Yeah, and I used to hear when I was younger, 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.480 because fluency is a funky word that I don't even know, 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.239 like everyone agrees on what that means. Because when I 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.040 was younger, I used to hear you know, and this 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.840 is just that probably playground stuff, you know, when you're 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:58.159 just talking linguistics on the playground by the jungle Jim Like, 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.120 I used to hear two things. One is you can 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.520 never be fluent in another language because you're always translating 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.680 it in your mind, and to be truly fluent means 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.800 that you are thinking in that language. Not true. You 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:15.280 can thinking in another language is a learned skill. As 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.679 it turns out, you can teach yourself to do that. 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:20.720 And then the other thing I heard was you can 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.080 never be fluent or maybe a sign of fluency is 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.920 if you dream in a different language, And that isn't 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.600 true either, because I look that up today and apparently, 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:34.560 even like basic knowledge of another language, you can dream 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.480 in that language. I think if you know how dreams go, 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:39.280 if you're like thinking about that free fall a sleep, 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.360 you might dream in a language and it apparently has 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:43.600 nothing to do with fluency. 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.240 God, is there anything that you heard on the playground 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:47.080 that you could trust? 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.239 Yes, is that your father could be sued for all 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.320 the money that he's got very easily by a child. 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.440 Apparently sure? Oh no, I think the kid's parent would 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:00.480 usually sue my dad's gonna sue your dad. It's work. 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.359 Yeah, typically, I mean even as a kid, you knew 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.560 that you had very little standing in the court of law. 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.680 That'd be a funny sketch for a sketch show, like 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:12.520 like a juvenile court if their dad's going to sue 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:14.560 your dad and then they actually take it and adults 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:15.160 try the case. 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:18.600 If there were funny sketch shows on TV anymore, that 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:19.240 would be great. 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.320 Oh but there are. Oh yeah, yeah, I think you 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:24.960 should leave with Tim Robinson. 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.400 Oh that's true, very funny with the party Hardison too. 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.960 Have you seen her Instagram stuff? No? 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:34.600 Is that an account I should follow? 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.480 She? Yes, for sure. I don't know if that's I 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.639 think that is her handle on Instagram. But she's a writer. 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:47.120 She's also on his show, like as a character here there, 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.120 and she's hilarious. But yeah, she's great too. 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.120 I think I might know who you're talking about. 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.560 Do you remember? I think in the first episode of 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.080 the first season they're doing kind of like a shark 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.320 tank thing and one of the sharks is like, I'm 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.080 rich because I've won the lottery. Now I drink wine 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.520 all day long. I can't get enough wine. Do you 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.800 remember that that one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's them. 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:15.000 And I can't remember their real name, party Hardiston is 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.000 just their handle, but I think it's like Patty Harrison 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:17.320 or something. 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.200 It is, it's Patty Harrison and I knew her from 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.600 Adie Bryant's show Shrill. That was so great. 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:25.480 Oh I saw that one. 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:27.879 I need to follow It was good. I need to 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:32.960 follow Harrison's account though, because she like every time I 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:34.440