Calbrena wrote:
You can "learn" quickly if for example you move to a different country, but it will take ages before you speak the language as Vib said.
Actually, that is the method of teaching language for Peace Corps volunteers. Essentially, they give you basic lessons in the spoken language, and then send you to an area of the country you're serving in where NO ONE speaks English, shocking you into picking up the language faster. One of the guys I worked with in New Mexico worked with Peace Corps. in Kyrgyzstan for 2 years and had become fluent in that particular area's dialect of Kyrgese and Russian as a result. It's actually to the point where sometimes he will alternate talking between Kyrgese and English on accident, so we'd have to point out that he had switched over.
anonymous wrote:
Calbrena wrote:
Do I have to tell all my foreign students that they are retards as they can't speak perfectly yet even though they've been living in the country for years for some of them?
Answer: Absolutely.
Fact: 99% of the general human population is made of retards. At least.
So, statistically speaking, I can safely guess that you're retarded? Unless you aren't human, of course.
To say that someone is retarded because they have an accent or a dialect that deviates from the standard is a grossly ignorant statement. Even if this statement was valid, it's would only be true if the effect was confined to a VERY small subset of individuals, not the general population as a whole, so the statement is automatically invalidated, anyway. You're forgetting a very important fact that is defended in numerous psychological and physiological brain studies, namely the incredible degree of difficulty in changing something such as language that has been learned during the formative years of brain development in a child. This is most obviously manifested in the existence of accents, so while new languages can be learned, executing perfect grammar and pronunciation will take far longer to develop, and sometimes, never will unless it is learned during the first 18 years of life (the time span when the brain still grows and develops).
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(Note: I assume you meant acquisition?)
