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Introduces language as one of humanity's most important inventions and explains how early brain development makes the first years critical for learning. It also describes how children acquire language socially through interaction and imitation.
vol mankind's inventions none was more consequential than the birth of language before its creation each person's knowledge was limited to what he or she experienced directly afterwards someone who learned something could share it with anybody else in thisvideo we'll look at four things known about language learning in general and then listen to the story of Lucky Lucy and poor Pete to understand the importance of language in everyday life our brains foundation has built her experiencesearly in life Pat Leavitt from the center of the developing child at Harvard University studied our brain development over the course of our life extensively he showed how the brain's ability to change dramatically drops in the years oflife while the amount of effort such change requires increases another research showed that at age five 90% of a kid's brain has been formed if during these years the child is blocked from receiving stimulating experiences the Language Center
and other parts of the brain are likely to remain weak for life we learn language socially by observing and imitating others some 1,000 years ago German emperor friedrich ii wanted to prove the opposite and showed that we developlanguage naturally all by ourselves he made his nannies raise some children they were allowed to feed and clean them but not to interact socially or ever speak a word not one child learned to speak but instead they alldied for the same reason toddlers can't learn language via tape or technology they need to be motivated through a human relationship then they pay attention and learn our language brain growth is strongest in year one if we studythe brains development by the rate of new synapse formation over the first 11 months of life and then the next 15 years we can see how much the first five years matter the growth in the part of the
brain responsible for language Peaks between birth and age 3 during this critical period children can learn a new word every 90 minutes and several languages simultaneously our sensory pathways responsible for vision and hearing peak before which makes sense
Shows how language helps us perceive, reason, and understand the world more deeply. The speaker uses examples like bilingual infants and different words for daycare to illustrate how vocabulary broadens meaning.
because we need to see and hear to imitate language for month old infants for example if raised bilingual by a British mom and the Chinese dad can already differentiate between two languages just by observing the lip movements oftheir caregivers higher cognitive function such as logical reasoning Peaks only once we have the words and know the symbols to make sense of our world language makes our world rich language skills allow us to really listen to speakwell to enjoy reading and master writing they can create an entire world around us as the German philosopher Wittgenstein said the limit of my language is the limit of my world let's take for example the word daycare centersome people think of it as a preschool the Irish call it play school and the Germans invented the word kindergarten only if we know all three words can we understand what's possible now let's listen to the story about
Tells the story of Lucy and Pete, two children raised with very different language environments, to show how word exposure affects vocabulary growth and comprehension. Their experiences at home, in books, and at kindergarten reveal how language shapes learning, imagination, and social participation.
Lucky Lucy and poor Pete two children raised in two very different ways Lucy is raised by her mother the mother is an average native English speaker who knows around 20,000 different words Pete's parents hire a nice nanny froma foreign country instead of speaking in her native language the nanny is told to talk to Peter only in English while her everyday English seems okay she actually knows only around 5,000 words one fourth of what Anne's momknows year one is when the language brain is developing the strongest if Lucy is awake half of the time her mom speaks she will hear around 10,000 words per day and maybe 2500 being directed at her directed languageis what matters whenever her mom connects a word with an actual experience Lucy learns its meaning Peter hears English only when the nanny deliberately speaks to him around 1,000 words a day but not only is quantity lower but
also the quality as the nanny is not fluent there is a chance that many words come across broken at their first birthday both kids can say mama and papa what we don't see is that Lucy actually already knowsmany many words even though she can't say them but Pete's language universe is more limited when Lucy and her mom look at picture books her mom points out what they see a little monkey is also a gorilla 1/8a clever animal which uses tools climbs trees and lives with his momma and Popa in the rainforests of Africa when Pete looks at a picture book his learning is limited by the language of the nanny the same monkeyis just cute and eats bananas to compensate he's given a language app but as Pete lacks the foundation he doesn't understand a word to him it's just a bunch of new sounds strangely connected to colorful characters on their
second birthday Lucy knows already well over 200 words the amount where children start to learn rules and apply grammar Pete knows less sometimes he gets frustrated because he can't express himself Lucy likes to go with her mom intothe park sometimes they watched the old men play chess she doesn't understand the game but knows that there are pawns rooks Knights a queen and a king a bishop and a horse one day she will learn the rulesit will be easy because she sees each figure clearly her understanding of their special skills is obvious for a lack of language Pete sees just a big checkered board and some wooden figures which all look quite the samepawns Knights bishops to understand the rules later will be hard for Pete all figures look so similar how could they do different things at their third birthday both can say their own name and form sentences Lucy's vocabulary now
holds 1500 words Pete's got 500 to make sense of this world in year 4 they enter kindergarten when Pete stands in front of the big shelf he sees different wooden blocks the ball some old toy a horse andthe yellow digger when Lucy stands in front of the same shelf she sees circles triangles squares a basketball the red pinwheel the beige rocking horse and the carton box of the lego technic digger at playtime lucy understands whatothers are talking about and often takes the lead by suggesting a new idea Pete often doesn't understand what she means if the group discusses something for longer he zones out because he has trouble following the conversation by theend of the year Lucy knows 3,500 words where Pete only knows 1000 words Lucy now forms more complicated sentences and perfect grammar in the evening her mom reads bedtime stories tore words she's missing she learns out of context
as a native speaker the mom can raise and lower her voice making the stories exciting fairy tales become alive in her head and Lucy learns to imagine and to think creatively Pete still speaks in more simple sentences andhis grammar is not perfect when his nanny reads to him the voice is more monotone it's more boring and paying attention is more difficult words he's missing often remain missing by the end of the year Lucy knows 6,000
Explains that words function like tools for organizing thoughts and communicating ideas, making Lucy's larger vocabulary a major advantage. The section ends by asking whether late talkers like Pete can still catch up and inviting viewers to reflect.
and Pete knows 2,000 words to understand why the actual difference in language abilities between the two is even larger than it seems let's imagine that words are nothing but tools that help us unco the world form thoughts structureideas and then communicate with others with 6,000 words compared to 2,000 words Lucy's toolbox is now three times the size lucy has a huge head start as she is entering elementary school Einstein by the way as a childseldom spoke one interesting anecdote goes like this as he was a late talker and hardly spoke at the age of seven his parents were worried and tried many things to get him to speak at one point they wereafraid that he had learning disabilities at last at the dinner table one night he broke his silence to say the soup is too hot greatly relieved his parents asked why he had never said a word before the young
genius replied because up until now everything was in order what are your thoughts about language learning can someone like Pete still catch up later in life or maybe find other good ways to express himself maybe our point ofview is too narrow and Pete and Lucy actually balance each other out with the different skills they have please share your thoughts in the comments below
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