To Your Health: You’re speaking my language

By GILLIAN SLADE on December 16, 2019.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade

When you travel to a foreign country where people speak another language, it can be fascinating to determine what they are saying.

I think it is sometimes more entertaining to observe the facial expressions and tone of voice to figure out what is going on. It can also be a great way to just “switch off” because you don’t have to listen to someone’s story about the difficult situations they are going through or a description of a family gathering.

An author being interviewed on the radio recently said he found it relatively easy to learn Russian, which I was intrigued by. Others will tell you English is an easy language to learn but perhaps that is because so many people around the world speak English, albeit with different accents, that you can keep up with your English language skills relatively easily.

Some recent research from The University of Manchester, published in Developmental Psychology, found babies learning Italian had an easier time than babies learning English.

Part of learning a language is also figuring out the grammar and although it is more complex in Italian that complexity can make it easier for babies.

The researches found that Italian babies were able to determine the grammatical rules around singular and plural by 12 months.

For English babies to pick up the singular and plural distinctions in English it took about 20 months.

Here is an example the researchers gave. For instance, changing “the yellow giraffe” to “the yellow giraffes” in Italian required three changes.

“La giraffa gialla” had to become “le giraffe gialle.”

The researchers believe the greater number of changes in that phrase could reinforce the rule and so help the infant learn more quickly.

In this study the children were either 12, 18 or 24 months old. They showed them pictures on a computer monitor. The pictures either showed one or more people. There was audio with either singular or plural depending on the picture.

The researchers measured how long it took the children to look at the picture that matched the audio to determine their understanding of the language.

There is no comment on whether the researchers found the parents of the Italian babies spoke Italian more grammatically correct than their English counterparts.

Poor English grammar has become invasive. We are even seeing it at higher levels of education. It would be fascinating to know whether that is confusing English speaking babies.

There are all sorts of benefits to learning a foreign language – even later in life. It stimulates the brain and can immerse you in another culture which is always rewarding.

Here’s to always learning new things, speaking grammatically correct, and here’s To Your Health.

To Your Health is a weekly column by Gillian Slade, health reporter for the News, bringing you news on health issues and research from around the world. You can reach her at gslade@medicinehatnews.com or 403-528-8635.

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