From: David Jacovkis Halperin (david@vega.uab.es)
Date: Thu May 16 2002 - 02:42:48 MDT
El jue, 16-05-2002 a las 07:20, Olga Bourlin escribió:
> So a child learns a new language. Then what? The
> language doesn't "stay" without a lot of high maintenance (and a language
> will be forgotten faster than it took to learn it in the first place).
(Almost) true, but the neural rewiring in her/his brain will remain
there for many years. A very good friend of mine, born in Brazil, spent
her first 4 years in Holland, and never came back till she was 24. In
less than a week she could understand most of what was said, and without
any "active" effort to recover the language.
> Furthermore, these days, one can get around in the world very well knowing
> just English. But in case one runs into a language problem somewhere, good
> technology is already here to help us ask the natives those all important
> questions: "Where is the restroom?" and the like.
That attitude turns many people I know ("natives", as you call them/us)
against tourists. You don't go out there (here) without at least trying
to learn the basics. It is just a matter of courtesy.
-- David Jacovkis Halperin Grup de Física dels Materials I Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 08193 Bellaterra Spain http://vega.uab.es Tel: (34) 93 581 1481 Fax: (34) 39 581 2155 Jabber: memnoch@jabber.at / ICQ: 103428664 / MSN: memnoch@inicia.es "No uso ningún programa de Micro$oft. Por favor, a ser posible no me mandes archivos de Word"
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