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My personal experience diverges from that study Miamian, my close family all spoke English Polish and German and two of them ended up with Dementia....
It's a huge deficit in our public edu system imo that we dont teach a 2nd language early enough. It's something i envy of the European system.
I am sure your english is MUCH better than my spanish Toto. For the record, I do speak very broken spanish, but understand much more. Also, my older sister is a language "Expert". She fluidly speaks...oh, I think 8 languages....English, Spanish, French, A little German, Russian, Dutch, Yiddish...and....(Help me out Miamian, she is a converted Jew, her husband is a Rabbi....what is the primary language in Isreal???) and Sign language (Yes it is considered a Language). She also studied, believe it or not Ancient Egyptian. Not sure how all this rolls into this thread, but she is a very intelligent, steady person, and a great big sister ...oh yeah, both of her kids have turned out very very well also.... EDIT: Of course I was speaking of Hebrew Michael ..which she is VERY fluent in
Not just in Europe, all over the world. We're the only ones who seem to get all uptight about the idea of teaching children other languages. Even in a violence ravaged country like Iraq most kids can speak English and they learn most of it in school.
I know English, Arabic, and a little bit of Spanish that I learned back in high school. I don't really know if it's made me any smarter though.
Probably because you guys already speak the (by far) most important language. I don't know about Australia, New Zealand or England, do they learn a second language as we learn English in Germany? Fact is, for me as a German it's much more important to learn English than it would be important for you guys to learn German, Spanish, etc. Plus, English is so much easier to learn. I know how difficult it was to learn and how difficult it is to improve my English as a second language, I wouldn't want to learn German or French. By the way, I didn't really learn English at school. I learned it by watching football and listening to the commentators and by visiting international websites. The most I learned here on this board. So if my English sucks, blame yourself
My problem is that I don't think you can teach a language very well, you have to speak it and learn it by listening to Natives. That's relatively easy if you want to learn English but it's very hard with any other language. I think the problem for English-speaking people will become even bigger since English becomes more and more important.
In order to speak a language well, you have to live it. Total immersion is best, that's true. However, as an adult learning the grammar of a language in a classroom setting can be helpful. Hebrew is a good example. I studied with a private teacher before moving to Israel and learned some. However, when I arrived and spent five months in the language academy, things became much clearer when I understood how the language is structured.
