Title is adult centric.
All languages are foreign. It could have said: babies learn to recognize sounds before they are born.
NedF 1 hours ago [-]
> All languages are foreign.
The babies are exposed to French the whole pregnancy and after, it's the foreign Hebrew/German they are testing for.
This is a meaningless comment.
The study is most likely bunk, but this nit pick is boring and wrong, they should have enough native French exposure already, it's the foreign language that matters.
JimmyBuckets 2 hours ago [-]
Languages are not the same as generic sounds to the human brain. Title is clickbaity but I also think it more or less communicates the point of the article
JimmyBuckets 2 hours ago [-]
Languages are not the same as sounds to the human brain. Title is clickbaity but I also think it more or less communicates the point of the article
trallnag 2 hours ago [-]
Epigenetics?
teiferer 3 hours ago [-]
The article explicitly mentions (towards the end) that this is far from evidence for language learning. But such a headline makes for clicks I guess.
vaylian 47 minutes ago [-]
It's probably a learning process for sounds that are typical in a language. Later in life we can also distinguish different languages even though we don't speak them. Many non-English-speakers will still identify a song like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisencolinensinainciusol as being English, even though it only uses sounds that are typical for English.
cgsmith 1 hours ago [-]
I shared this article with my sister. Unfortunately I have lost faith in most people to read the full article. Within 30 seconds of sending the article she responds with "Sadly I don't know two languages! So we will focus on english together"
To me the point is to toss as much at the brain as possible. Not limit yourself or your child with monoculture.
Etheryte 1 hours ago [-]
A little empathy can go a long way. Perhaps your sister simply has different taste in reading than you do? For example, I opened the article and closed it pretty much right away because it has all the hallmarks of a clickbait nothing burger.
endriju 3 hours ago [-]
I think about this quite often, as 2 of my kids were born in Ireland, but grew up elsewhere (Slavic country). I speak English with them, but so do some of my friends/neighbors with their kids. The other kids would seldom speak English though, while my kids seem to default to English somehow. Btw. they left Ireland when they were 2y and 9months old (now 9 and 7), never attended daycare there, were only exposed to English at grocery stores, doctors etc. My point is, the early exposure to the language seem to make huge difference. I'm sure it's a combination of other things too but I'd say it is definitely a strong factor.
[edits: grammar]
CaptainOfCoit 2 hours ago [-]
> while my kids seem to default to English somehow.
> I speak English with them
You seem to know the answer already :) Kids regularly find "more reliable" adults and weight their opinion, manners and ideas higher than others, so if you're mainly speaking English to them, they'll default to trying to adopt to that, even if the main language is different all around them.
avazhi 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah, this is a press F to doubt kind of situation, for many reasons: frontal cortex not developed, Broca’s and Werneke’s areas not developed, sounds not transmitting through a belly and through amniotic fluid into an undeveloped auditory canal, etc.
Easy to spot bullshit that sounds more like an April Fools post than anything else.
make3 4 hours ago [-]
figuring out how to turn on brain plasticity and motivation networks, and just kill anxiety, would make life quite interesting. it's too bad that improvements in neuroscience are the absolute most insane Pandora's box, with dictatorships potentially rewiring their people's brain for compliance and whatnot, thought reading, thought implantation, all nightmarish
yapyap 3 hours ago [-]
You wouldn’t want to fully kill anxiety though, in healthy doses it serves a purpose
mierz00 51 minutes ago [-]
The first time I ever saw a psychologist this was one of the things they told me.
Specifically, that athletes tend to do better when anxious.
I think about this very often when I find myself very comfortable and under no stress, I can feel my performance dropping.
roschdal 3 hours ago [-]
> dictatorships potentially rewiring their people's brain for compliance and whatnot
They do this to everyone already.
worthless-trash 3 hours ago [-]
You say that like its a bad thing.
bloqs 2 hours ago [-]
when is it a good thing?
yapyap 1 hours ago [-]
all languages are foreign before you’re born
trallnag 3 hours ago [-]
Maybe this is why I'm such an enjoyer of Russian bands like Aquarium and GrOb? My parents listening to them while I was in the cooker in 1996?
Nevertheless, I'm basically illiterate when it comes to writing Russian.
The babies are exposed to French the whole pregnancy and after, it's the foreign Hebrew/German they are testing for.
This is a meaningless comment.
The study is most likely bunk, but this nit pick is boring and wrong, they should have enough native French exposure already, it's the foreign language that matters.
To me the point is to toss as much at the brain as possible. Not limit yourself or your child with monoculture.
> I speak English with them
You seem to know the answer already :) Kids regularly find "more reliable" adults and weight their opinion, manners and ideas higher than others, so if you're mainly speaking English to them, they'll default to trying to adopt to that, even if the main language is different all around them.
Easy to spot bullshit that sounds more like an April Fools post than anything else.
Specifically, that athletes tend to do better when anxious.
I think about this very often when I find myself very comfortable and under no stress, I can feel my performance dropping.
They do this to everyone already.
Nevertheless, I'm basically illiterate when it comes to writing Russian.